Vegan Paçoca

Paçoca is SO good. It is a Brazilian candy made of raw peanuts, sugar, condensed milk, and salt. What's cool about it is that if you replace the condensed milk (I used agave which has a similar sticky consistency and can hold the treat together), it is a naturally raw vegan dessert! Woot, woot!

It's so intensely peanut-buttery & salty-sweet. The consistency is really crumbly, which makes it fun to eat and make. Usually paçoca is served as little squares or as a crumble over other desserts. In fact, it would make a great pie "crust" to a raw vegan peanut butter-chocolate cheesecake.

Yay!

Oh, it's also widely eaten around Easter time which makes it perfect for this time of year. If you travel down to Brazil you might also find a new variety of Hershey's that you haven't seen before:



Cool, huh?



Of course, Hershey's candies aren't vegan. But hey, one can dream. If you dipped the completed product of this recipe in some melted chocolate (1 4oz bar unsweetened dark chocolate melted w/ 4 tbsp vegan margarine over low heat) you could make your own vegan Hershey's paçoca!

Vegan Paçoca

(pronounced like pa-SSO-ca)

1 1/2 cup roasted/salted peanuts

3/4 cup tapioca or manoic flour

1 cup vegan brown sugar

1/4 cup agave nectar (don't have it? use maple syrup)

1. Process all dry ingredients.

Manoic/tapioca flours come from the cassava plant which is known as the "bread of the tropics." Many South American and African desserts/dishes are made with the starchy tubers of the cassava plant. Another cool fact about it is that, when not cooked or processed properly cassava is poisonous. Both varities, sweet and bitter, naturally contain cyanogenic glycosides. That is... a cyanide group contained within the glycosides (sugars bonded with non-carb molecules) of the plant. 

No need to fear, though! The flours that you can buy (Bob's Red Mill is a good brand) are completely safe to consume, and so is properly prepared cassava! Usually boiling, soaking, or baking the plant does the trick. In fact, I've had cassava several times before in various West African dishes and it is delicious.

The mixture will be crumbly before you add the agave.
I don't know why my hand looks like Quasimodo's hand here.

2. Add agave and process again. Try to squish the mixture with your hands. If it stays together, you're A-OK. If it doesn't, add a little more agave & process again.

3. Simply take a palm full of the mixture in your hands and press into small squares. Some people like to pat the entire mix down into the bottom of a pan and cut square shapes out, but I think doing it with your hands is easier.

Eat, eat, eat! Happy spring!

Vegan Vatapá

Your Vegan Zombie is going Brazilian. I've been soooo intensely interested in South American cuisine lately, especially since almost every dish consists some type of meat or lard. My goal is to rework these fabulous and colorful plates so we vegans can enjoy them too! Blasphemy, you say? Hopefully Our Lady of Guadalupe can forgive us, mi amor.

BRAZIL is the best place on the planet.

They have incredible food, art, music, history, people, the Christ the Redeemer Statue (just beautiful, though!), cities, an up and coming economy, sun, the World Cup in 2014 (I am totally going to GO MAN)  ...and uh, did I mention food?

Brazilian cuisine has a wide array of influences including African, Portuguese, and Italian. The food utilizes the country's rich and abundant tropical fruits, the bounty of the gorgeous coastline, and native nuts.

This dish, called vatapá, is typically made as a "seafood stew" and has West African influences. Of course, we couldn't include shrimp like the locals do (or sometimes white fish), so I veganized this puppy with a grain that has a similar rubbery quality to it--- barley. If left a little al dente, you can get the same feeling. For added "seafood" flavor I could have added a little nori, but no one in my family would have eaten it that way... and I'm a slave to feedback and compliments, what can I say?

The brilliant yellow coloring comes from the Brazilian dendê oil, a palm oil frequently used in Brazilian cooking. The texture of this dish is extremely unique... too thick to be a stew. I don't know. It owns.

Vegan Vatapá

2 chopped onions
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
4 malagueta or jalapeño chile peppers, chopped (use 1 or a gentler pepper if you aren't into spicy!)
2 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 cup vegetable stock
1/2 cup organic peanut butter
1 cup whole wheat bread crumbs (or just put two slices of whole wheat bread in a food processor)
salt and pepper to taste
1 1/2 cup barley, cooked and drained
2 cups coconut milk
1/4 cup Dendê oil


1) Chop up the onions, peppers, and garlic. Toss it into the food processor.

2) Add this mixture along with 1/2 cup of your cooked barley onto the stovetop. Cook in 2 tbsps of olive oil for about 7 minutes to meld flavors.

3) Next, add the vegetable stock and peanut butter. Whisk until everything is smooth. Add breadcrumbs, salt, and pepper. Let the mixture boil, then lower the temp to a simmer for another 8 minutes.

4) Add the coconut milk and cook for another 5 minutes on a low temperature.

5) Lastly, stir in the dende oil, remaining barley, and serve! I topped the dish with tomatoes and paprika.

Vegan Carob-Peanut Butter Cookies

I really wanted to cook with carob chips: irrelevant.

They cost me 5.94 cents: irrelevant but ridiculous. Ninety-FOUR cents.

They (carob chips) are delicious: a personal opinion and irrelevant but getting closer to relevance.

This recipe is really good - rich and very very peanut buttery. I have never cooked with carob chips before, so I was unsure how to handle them. This recipe yields delicious, small cookies. The batter is really greasy because of all the peanut butter and margarine (it's equal parts margarine + PB to flour), but they cook really well and don't fall apart.

Vegan Carob-Peanut Butter Cookies

adapted from this great recipe

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp allspice

1 cup all-natural creamy peanut butter (I got Smuckers)

1/2 cup vegan brown sugar or 1/3 cup Amber agave

1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup vegan margarine
substitute for 2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract

carob chips to taste

-First, mix all the dry ingredients. Boring.

-I used the food processor to combine the peanut butter, margarine, vanilla, egg replacer, brown sugar (or agave) and maple syrup. If you use agave, make sure to cook this for about a minute more.

-The mixture will come out really greasy and generally unappealing and sort of revolting, but stick with it chap. Combine it with the dry mixture slowly. Add the carob chips. Put the bowl in the fridge for about 45 minutes, so the dough will be easier to work with and no longer sticky.

-After the 45 mins is up, roll up the dough into little 2-inch balls and cook for about 13 mins. The pan doesn't have to be greased. Be careful not to let them sit in the oven any longer or their bottoms will come out all burnt and repulsive. I hate burnt things. I'm just a little ball of sunshine today, aren't I.