My first recipe for Vegan MoFo!

These. Are. Awesome.

I started out thinking I was going to make an apple version of the date bites I made a while back, but it evolved into something else as I was doing my prep work and I couldn’t be happier with what I came up with instead.

What you’ll need for the bars:

• 1 cup raw almonds
• 1 cup shredded apple (liquid squeezed out)
• 1 cup pitted dates
• 2 tbsp. maple syrup
• 2 tbsp. cinnamon

And for the frosting:

• 4 oz. plain Tofutti “cream cheese”
• approx. 3-4 tbsp. agave nectar
• sprinkle of cinnamon to taste

Start by chopping the almonds.

My food processor wasn’t strong enough to handle this task by itself so I ended up having to pour the almonds out onto a cutting board, chop them by hand, and then return them to the food processor for a final blitzing.

This is the size I stopped at…

Pour that out and set aside.

Next I peeled and cored 2 largish honeycrisp apples.

I used the shredding attachment on my food processor to shred them evenly.  Make sure to remember to take the blade out before you do this or the blade will just annihilate all the shredded apples into applesauce.

Those get squeezed dry in a tea towel and set aside with the almonds.

Next, the dates. I chopped them a bit before adding them to the food processor along with the almonds and apple shreds.

Just add the maple syrup and cinnamon and process until it’s starting to clump together.

This mixture tasted amazing but I felt like it was going to be too wet to form into balls like I originally planned. I could have added more nuts to dry it up some but I really just didn’t want to have to clean the food processor and hand chop a bunch more almonds to make this happen.

Baked bars were going to be the way to go, but I realized that it didn’t have enough of the mixture to really fill even my smallest square baking dish. If you’re planning on making these, I would totally recommend doubling my recipe and baking in a 9×9 dish. I had to improvise though, so I chose to mold the mixture in a small plastic storage container lined with plastic wrap then turn it out onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

It looked like this…

I baked it low and slow at 300 degrees.  20 minutes on one side, flipped it and baked for another 20 minutes.

I then cut it into bars and arranged them on the baking sheet for a last 20 minutes in the oven.

While they were finishing up, I made a quick frosting. I just stuck a bowl with the Toffuti, agave, and cinnamon in the microwave and let it heat on a low setting for just a few seconds to loosen it up.

With a whisking I had this…

I spread it generously on the cooled bars and bit into a delicious treat.

They are really special. I bet they would be insane with shredded carrots and pecans for carrot cake bars!

I think this recipe would work really well in a dehydrator too if you’re into that type of thing.

Awesome start to Vegan Mofo. It even got me to try Tofutti for the first time! I’m excited to see what other new things I’ll get to try as I learn how to further de-meat my eats!

Hi guys! I’m very excited to announce that for the month of November I’ll be participating in Vegan MoFo!

What’s a Vegan MoFo, you may ask? It stands for Vegan Month of Food! If you thought it meant something else, go put a dollar in your swear jar and come back to me.

Everyone with me now? Ok!

For this month I, along with hundreds of others, will be trying to create and document as many vegan recipes as possible to help get the word out about healthy and satisfying vegan food, and we need your help! If you see a post you like, feel free to use any means you can to pass it on to others. Retweet my tweets, “like” a post with StumbleUpon, email it to a friend, anything you want.  And if you want to check out lots of other Vegan MoFo bloggers, just take a peek at the extensive blogroll for this years’ event. I’ll be doing my part to tweet every recipe, and if I get good enough pictures, I’ll submit my recipes to sites like Tastespotting and Foodgawker.

“But Alayna, you’re not even vegan!”

You are correct.  I do, however, consume a lot of vegan food and love it!

My diet is still evolving, and veganism is an ideal that I’m striving to get closer to as time goes by. I will probably never be 100% vegan, but I’d like my consumption of non-vegan foods to dwindle lower and lower to an almost negligible amount. I’m making positive changes in the way I eat every day!

I’m hoping that with this challenge I can eat a more-vegan diet for a month and show myself that it wasn’t that big of a change.  I’m also hoping to show people who may have never thought of a vegan diet as something they could incorporate into their own lives, that vegan food is no weirder than a fruit salad or roasted vegetables.

Ok! Enough chatter, on with the delicious vegan food!

EDIT: I changed the picture of the sauteed apple oatmeal to the berries and oats above because I realized the previous item had honey in it.  Oops!  This stuff matters!