The caped crusader is officially on the loose – in a store near you!

It has been far too long, my peanut butter-loving friends, but I am so excited to be back to share this amazing new product with you. My friend Nick recently launched his very own line of natural peanut butters called Peanut Butter Boy. Like myself, he’s been enthusiastically writing about peanut butter for a few years so if it’s anyone you can trust your prized PB&J in the hands of, it’s him.

What makes his peanut butter so super, you ask? In his words, it’s:

• Super-natural, low stir and gluten free.
• Made with no added sugar.
• Made with natural sea salt.
• Made with only “unblanched peanuts” which means that he doesn’t take off the peanut skins during manufacturing. This yields a peanut butter that has more flavor and nutrients – including more fiber, antioxidants and resveratrol. It also means that the peanut butter is less processed and more natural.

Basically, Nick’s peanut butter is quite possibly the closest you can get to freshly ground peanut butter without actually having to farm peanuts and grind em yourself. It has such a natural peanut flavor and both varieties have amazing texture. If you scoop out a spoonful of Crunch Power, you might even find peanut halves! Both varieties are a little salty, which counter-balances sweet jellies for truly the best PB&Js.

Become a believer and try it yourself. As far as I know, he doesn’t yet have a “bat signal” type thing, but til he does you can order online. Once you do, you can try out some of the yummy recipes on his blog. Two of my personal favorites are his awesome Thai Peanut Salad Dressing and his sweet but satisfying Gluten Free Peanut Butter Granola Bars.

(Minor self promo: I designed the the PB Boy logo, label and website. Have I mentioned I’m excited about this brand?!)

There are certain foods in the world with names that work against them. Ugly fruit sounds like Mother Nature’s reject, gravlax sounds like an evil creature from Lord of the Rings, and hemp sounds about as tasty as an old burlap sack.

My mother-in-law drinks hemp milk and even though I’ve been to her house many times with the ability to take just a little taste without having to buy and potentially chuck a whole container of it, I still haven’t brought myself to go for it. Hemp milk. It just sounds wrong- and I’ve tried (and liked) plenty of other non-dairy milks like soy, almond, hazelnut and rice. Hemp just takes it a teensy step too far.

Or so I thought – until I saw these Wilderness Poets Nut Butters. It’s possible that hemp in nut butter form was just a more comfortable platform for me, but I went for it. Despite the leap, I fully expected to detest the hemp butter and anticipated washing its offensive flavor down with the pecan butter. Considering the small size of the container and little risk of food waste, it was worth knowing for sure.

Turned out, I was wonderfully surprised: the hemp butter was great. Not good, it was actually great! I devoured it. It has a pleasantly seedy texture that gives the sandwich a little body. I’ve had peanut butter with flax seeds in it and wasn’t wild about that extremely seedy texture, but these seeds mesh a bit more with the peanut butter. Or maybe they just grind em down or something… whatever the case, it worked for me. The roasted hemp gives it really nice, deep body, which is great on its own or with a little banana and honey.

According to their site, there are some benefits of eating hemp (note: not acquired by eating burlap sacks) including that it’s a living plant energy, it has the perfect balance of Omega 3&6 EFA’s, it has the most potent protein of any plant source (good for us vegetarians), and it contains all 10 essential amino acids as well as other important vitamins & minerals. Not to mention that this particular hemp butter is vegan and free of sugar, soy, gluten, trans fats, GMO and cholesterol.

Wilderness Poets’ mission statement declares, “We strive to inspire mindfulness and good health through energizing, life giving foods. We believe that sharing delicious, wholesome foods, grown on small organic family farms, can help heal people, our communities, and planet.”

Their efforts are ex-hemp-lary if you ask me. (Sorry. Please come back to the blog.)

Pick up some Oregon Hazelnut Hempspread Butter from Seattle-area based Wilderness Poets. They have a lot of unique flavors and you can try a few with their handy sample pack.

We now interrupt our regularly scheduled programming…

So, I wasn’t actually going to write a separate blog post about the many bars that I acquired in Portland, partly because I bought too many bars at once and set off eating them way too quickly. But, then I tasted this Brown Butter Bar by Xocolatl De David and life as I knew it changed. You know you’ve found a good chocolate bar when it literally stops you in your tracks. And when everyone around you freaks out about it too. It’s not just you, it’s fricking amazing chocolate.

The bar’s description from The Meadow, the wonderful chocolate shop we purchased it from in Portland goes as follows:

“Xocolatl de David’s latest creation is possibly his masterpiece: a dark chocolate bar magically imbued with the rich browned butter flavors. Rich, savory-sweet silkiness in an unassuming package that will, after one bite, have you making a U-turn back to the store to pick up another.”

That “U-turn” comment couldn’t be more accurate. I think all four of us who tasted it did exactly that. The move was like a physical, “Say what?!”.

This bar is super crazy smooth and has an amazing brown butter flavor. How genius of them was it to develop that flavor anyway? Of course brown butter would be awesome as a chocolate flavor because brown butter’s awesome with everything. This bar is caramelly, perfectly salty and it just absolutely mmmmmmmelts in your mouth.

On a side note, I just want to throw it out there that it’s really cool that they have a link to the firm who designed the packaging right on the packaging itself. It’s not something that maybe any (?) other brands include on their packaging, but considering what a huge part package design plays in influencing the consumer to pick up a product, I think it makes perfect sense to be on there. Nicely done. Designed by Fullblast Creative.

On another aesthetic note, I kind of like that their bar (see above pic) is perfectly smooth on the surface with no square shapes or logos- nothing to take away from the simply awesome tasting experience.

Xocolatl De David Brown Butter. Go.

Traveling around the country has been fun for so many reasons. One of the nerdier reasons being that it’s been fun to peek in different gourmet shops and farmer’s markets we go to see new local products that we can’t get at home.

While we were in Montana, we quickly noticed that there existed huckleberry everything – huckleberry jam, huckleberry syrup, huckleberry honey… even huckleberry ice cream and huckleberry beer! I’m not sure if I’d ever tried it previous to our visit there, but I happened to find some good jam at a gas station souvenir shop (no, really) and despite where I found it, it was awesome! My qualifiers are that it has to have a first ingredient of fruit (not sugar) and is that it is void of weird preservatives. Oh, and it has to taste good.

Once we got to Oregon, berry goods were still everywhere but the flavor changed to Oregon’s popular berry, the Marionberry. Hoping it might prove just as good as the huckleberry, I picked up some Marionberry syrup and Marionberry jam.

Not all jams are not all created equal. This one actually has cute little berries in it! If you eat it straight, you can also taste the little tiny seeds, but they weren’t detectable in a sandwich. The berries gave it a nice texture and the flavor was tart and wine-like. It felt like a sophisticated pb&j (if such a thing exists).

Apparently the berry itself doesn’t have the most romantic story of origin as it’s a man-made hybrid of other berries. According to Wikipedia, “The berry was released in 1956 under the name Marion, after the county where it was tested extensively. Oregon produces between 28 million and 33 million pounds annually, with Marion County and Willamette Valley collectively accounting for over 90% of current production. The marionberry’s growing conditions are perfectly adapted to the mild, maritime Oregon climate, with its mild rains and warm summers. The berries ripen throughout late spring and early summer. The harvesting season is typically between July 10 and August 10, with a single acre producing up to six tons in a harvest.”

Hm… it’s the end of August… maybe I’ll get to taste a fresh one? I’ll keep my eyes peeled. Til then, I’m pretty happy with the jarred stuff.

Keep your eyes peeled for Marionberry jam!

So, I need to catch you up on something…

In falling slightly behind on some CPB posts, I also fell behind on telling you about the way awesome trip we’re on. A while back, Taste Tester and I came up with this nice idea to go on a two-week delayed honeymoon down the California coast. Then one day he asked if maybe we should go for a month. The next thing I knew, we were packing our bags for a 6 month “work-cation”. Basically, we are traveling all over the country (and Canada) for 6 months, working normal hours during the week and enjoying our new amazing scenery on the nights and weekends. We are both incredibly lucky to have jobs that allow us to work remotely and decided to go for it. And let me tell you – best decision ever. With friends and family located across the country, we’ve had a lot of great visits and experiences with them and have taken full advantage of their insider tips.

Among the many benefits of this trip, the one that pertains to you and this blog is that I’ve gotten to try a host of new bakeries and food brands. Since I slacked for the first part of the trip (I’m sorry for that, but there was quite a bit of driving between NJ and Seattle, with two side trips to Canada), here’s the Cliff Notes version:

Niagra Falls, Canada: Full of happy people with funny accents, tourist traps and crazy awesome waterfalls. We rode The Maid of the Mist in a thunderstorm. It was a nice start to our crazy adventure.

Fargo, SD: Yup, we visited the famous wood chipper. They supply you with the hats and post your pic on their visitor center Facebook wall. No joke.

Mitchell, SD: Any trip across the country would be time wasted without a visit to the epic Corn Palace. They’ve redecorated the exterior with different designs made of corn every year since the early 1900s. That’s dedication.

The Badlands: It was extremely hot the day we were there, but awesome. One of the weirdest landscapes I’ve ever seen.

Devil’s Tower: We watched a couple of people scale this. Yeah… we hiked around instead.

Glacier National Park: Seriously, this is so pretty it looks fake, no? Such a cool place.

Canmore, AB: One of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. We drove through Kootenay and Banff National Parks on the way there- if you haven’t been, go to there. Everyone keeps asking what our favorite place has been and it’s hard to say, but this area had one of the more incredible landscapes we’ve seen.

We hiked up a big mountain – not as big as the above one, but big nonetheless. You can see that I was tired and ready for a donut break, but it was breathtakingly pretty.

Tillamook Forest Center (Oregon): Me with Smokey the Bear. Is it embarrassing that it felt like I was meeting a celebrity? Hey, I’ve seen a lot of his commercials!

Portland, OR: Taste Tester and I dining on a lovely vegan lunch (photo cred: The Baking Bird! – more on her in a sec). We pretty much ate constantly in Portland, so this seems like an appropriate pic for our time there.

And now, onto the food!

Not to diss my city, but I think NYC has kind of a false pretense of being the end-all be-all of food. But everywhere we’ve gone in the whole northwestern area of the country, we’ve eaten amazing things that could easily hold up to NYC standards (minus the sticker shock). And between all the coffee roasters, micro-breweries and small-batch chocolate makers and bakeries across the country, we’ve had our hands (er – tummies) too full to be too nostalgic for our home-based foods. At least thus far.

We were lucky enough to spend 3 whole weeks in Portland, which has a pretty incredible food scene. Of all of places there, the one that was on my list for far too long was – you probably guessed it – Voodoo Donuts.

I did a bad thing though- I walked in there blindly. I didn’t do my usual thorough research and didn’t have my winning flavor picked out before we even got there. Which was bad- because they have TONS of flavors! I was totally overwhelmed. As a newfound vegetarian, I passed on their signature Bacon Maple Bar (later finding out that it’s “amazing” – oops!). I also found out later that the donut pictured behind the Bacon Maple is The Memphis Mafia, which is, “fried dough with banana chunks and cinnamon sugar covered in a glaze with chocolate frosting, peanut butter, peanuts and chocolate chips on top”. What a goof. How did I miss out on that?

We picked up a handful of donuts which included the Old Dirty Bastard (a raised yeast doughnut with chocolate frosting, Oreo’s and peanut butter) pictured below, and on a whim- an apple fritter. The Old Dirty Bastard was actually better the next day, when the oreos got softer and the whole thing tasted like more of a cohesive creation than a donut with things stuck to it. I enjoyed it, but I really enjoyed the apple fritter. It had a caramelized, glazed exterior and a soft apple-filled interior. It made me wish I had tasted the Memphis Mafia, since it’s fried the same way and topped with my favorite things- but not to worry- I have faith that we will some day be back!

I also later received an insider tip that their vegan donuts are great and actually maybe even better than the regular donuts. Who did I receive such a tip from? None other than the awesome Kylie of Baking Bird!

After following her adorable blog for so long, it was really cool to meet her and get to chat about blogs, food, Portland, life, etc. in – what else? – a cute little bakery. She’s fairly new to the town herself, but confirmed that our 3-week takeaway was accurate: Portland is a really cool city with lots of ground to cover.

This yummy Mini Vegan Chocolate Zucchini Bread from Back to Eden Bakery was one of many tasty treats I acquired based on her advice.

Shall I share some more? How bout this chocolate and peanut butter Charlie Brown Bar from Sweet Pea Baking Co. (also vegan):

One of the cool things about the Sweet Pea Baking Co. is that it’s located in a “Vegan Mini-Mall” with a vegan grocery store, vegan clothing store and even a vegan tattoo parlor! Vegan tattoos – who’d have thought?

The above CPB bar of course reminds me of the below CPB bar, which was from Crema Bakery.

Both CPB bars were great. With an increasing sensitivity to animals, I really enjoy partaking in vegan treats and this one was sweet and indulgent. The Crema version was made with house-made PB (nice!), good dark chocolate and had a crunchy base that I think may have had granola in it. Oh, and their chai latte was kickass too. Their bagels and other pastries looked great, but they’ll have to wait til next time!

Before leaving town, we snagged some Chocolate Potato Donuts with crème anglaise at Tasty n’ Sons:

The donuts were piping hot and the sauce was rich and refreshing. Our brunch there was pretty awesome all around. You have to get there at least 20 minutes before opening to beat the crowd, but it was well worth it. “Auntie Paula’s French Toast with with mixed-berry maple & whipped cream” was wonderful as well. So many amazing brunch places, so little time!

And the last spot in Portland that I have to show you some pics of was The Meadow, a chocolate and salt shop in the super hip Mississippi neighborhood.

I wish I could have just purchased this entire wall straight up and have it installed in my apartment. Wow.

There were many awesome flavors that I’ve somehow never seen before.

Such a cool shop. Felt like a mix of fancy food shop and old school pharmacy.

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Even though I had just bought three local bars the day before, we still walked away with all this. I may need an intervention, but I don’t care. That Apple Pie Bar is where it’s at.

Whew, this has really turned into a doosey of a post, but as you can see – we’ve had a lot going on. Before I go, here’s a mini list of some of my other favorite eats in Portland. I know, it’s a lot- but judging from my conversation with Kylie and a related Portlandia skit, noting Portland eateries to be visited at a later time is just kind of what you do. So here goes, in no particular order:

- Sindy Chocolate from Helvetic (purchased at Barista, maker of excellent lattes)
- Bakery Bar: Everything we had there was great, but specific callouts go to the homemade granola and amazing buttery Sharp Cheddar-Scallion Scones
- Waffle Window: Peanut Butter Chocolate Dipped Waffle – picture here!
- Farm Cafe: Dinner / Cocktails – esp. the corn fritters with green tomato jam
- Vita Cafe: Thai soup (vegan)
- Hair of the Dog: Fred beer
- Ken’s Artisan Pizza: Spring Onion Pizza – and that’s coming from a NJ/NY’er
- Off the Griddle: Vegan Cheeseburger w/Housemade Pickles – best veggie burger I think I’ve ever had. After resorting to some other dismal veggie burgers on the road, this one made me so happy I almost wanted to cry.
- Salt and Straw: Almond Brittle with Salted Ganache Ice Cream

Yeah. We ate really well there.

And now we’re here! (That’s Seattle behind us if you can’t make out the Space Needle on the left). I concentrated mostly on Portland in this post, but we really did have an amazing time everywhere and eat wonderfully delicious things the whole way out. If anyone has any Seattle recommendations, shoot them my way! Because if it’s one thing we’ve been reminded of on this trip, it’s that time flies – and we want to make the most of it.

If we’ve made you jealous, I’m sorry. If you think we’re crazy, just check out this guy. And if you want to see more, stay tuned! Big thanks to Kylie and all of our truly amazing family and friends along the way for helping make this adventure a crazy great one.

I love my friends just as they are, but… I’m not ashamed to admit that I love them more when they give me chocolate.

I’m less ashamed to admit that I love them even more when they give me LOTS and LOTS of chocolate.

For some background on this post, I recently attended a friend’s wedding in Boston. Checking in at the front desk, the concierge said the standard, “Here are your keys – you are all set.” Instead of leaving it at that like usual, he quickly followed it up with, “Oh and this is for you”, setting a wrapped box on the counter. My friend (the groom), who recently moved to the UK took the time to collect a stash of foreign chocolate bars for me and brought them back with him to the US in time for my birthday. I could barely keep my composure as I opened the box to discover over a dozen luxurious chocolate bars. It’s a good thing that we had his wedding to attend, because otherwise I might have just thrown on the hotel bath robe, hung the “do not disturb” sign, put my feet up and called it a day, chocolate box in hand.

Details on each bar are below, but I’m going to give you the very important takeaway of this post first: the next time you want to give someone something special, give them chocolate. It’s delicious and it’s easy – what’s not to love? Sure, there are those few random freaks out there that don’t like the stuff, but generally speaking it will likely make that special person in your life very happy. Especially if that person is me!

And now, let’s get down to specifics. Onto the bars!

The Green & Black’s Organic Classic Collection was a fun box to have not only because it contains a lovely variety of flavors, but because it contains two of each flavor, so if you really love one and devour it quickly, you get a second crack at it. Or for inexplicable reasons, you can share the second one (but I don’t recommend this).

Side note: I love mini things because they make me feel giant. These bars are not much bigger than the tip of your thumb, but good things come in small packages and they are all packed with flavor. As a proud self-declared dark chocolate loyalist, this box genuinely surprised me because I think I may have preferred the milk chocolate bars in the collection over the dark.

The almond bar has a really nice texture – the almonds are broken up so it’s kind of a cross between a nut bar and a crunch bar. I suspect that I could easily house an entire large bar of this flavor.

The butterscotch bar is just plain out of this world. I think this is a bar that would suit anyone from casual chocolate eaters to straight up chocoholics like myself. It is creamy, with crunchy caramelized bits of butterscotch and has just the right hit of salt. This bar is what chocolate dreams are made of.

The milk chocolate wasn’t the only strong point, though – I did completely devour the dark chocolate cherry bars. But that is one of my pre-inclined favorite combinations, so no surprise there.

Moving on…

There were two bars from Tesco: a 74% Cocoa Ivory Coast Plain Chocolate and a Swiss Milk Chocolate with Caramel Pieces. I had never tried this brand before and the Swiss Milk bar was easily one of my favorites of the entire batch. It’s rare that I find myself craving milk chocolate but my preferences went against the grain with this one. It’s perfectly crunchy with clusters that stick to your teeth just a little and have tons of flavor. I felt only a little bad that my nut-allergic husband couldn’t eat any of it (due to the caramel-coated almonds inside). Only a little though. ;-)

The dark Tesco bar had a deep cocoa flavor and smooth texture and I found myself returning to the box for more of it with increasing urgency. The only real qualm I have with them is for putting the calories on the front of the package. Seriously- who wants to see that? NO ONE.

It’s cool though – nothing a little Sharpie action can’t fix.

There, there. Much better.

On the same note, expiration dates on chocolate also make me laugh. Seriously, I’d like to meet the person who holds on to chocolate for so long that it expires. That is, I’d like to meet them and politely suggest that they see a therapist- or a chocolatier, since they are one in the same, right?

Moving on to the next batch. There’s lots to cover!

There were two bars from Truly Irresistible (pictured above) which is a sub-brand of The Co-operative supermarket, produced by Divine Chocolate. One of the bars was Fair trade Peruvian Dark Chocolate with Roasted Hazelnuts. It is surprisingly sweet for an 87% cocoa bar. The texture of the minced, roasted hazelnuts is fun to eat… maybe a little too fun. Though, I have a qualm with this chocolate packaging as well; on the back it reads (and I’m sure this is mandatory text but still), “Frequent eating of sweets and sugary snacks may lead to tooth decay and poor nutrition.” Nice. Way to rain on my chocolate hazelnut parade.

The other Truly Irresistible bar was a Fairtrade Ghanaian Dark Chocolate 85% Cocoa Bar. This one was very dark and maybe a touch chalky on it’s own, but it tasted great mixed into my morning soy lattes. I just crumbled a bit of it into the warm espresso along with a sprinkle of sugar, whirred it with an electric frother and added soy milk. YUM.

These were all special bars in their own way, but I think I saved the best bunch for last. The Choka Blok Bars were each their own little adventure. My friend (aka the enabler) described them as “irresponsible” which is fairly accurate. From the names (“Gold Digger Dynamite“) to the ingredients (milk & white chocolate swirled together in a chunky blok, packed with milk chocolate caramel cups & chunks of sweet honeycomb) they were fun to open, fun to see the ridiculous swirls of ingredients in the chocolate and fun to eat. Needless to say, these did not last long in my clutches.

The Gold Digger is sweet and creamy with just enough stick-to-your-teeth crunch. As awesome as that one is though, The Chocolate Extremist Bar was the first bar of the entire collection to meet its end. As a brownie lover, how could I resist “a dense blok of smooth milk chocolate swirled with rich dark chocolate, crunchy brownie pieces & milk chocolate malt balls”. Answer: I couldn’t. Everything about this bar adds up to a lovely package – creamy multi-layered chocolate with intense crunchy add-ins.

All three Choka Blok bars were well-balanced and fun to eat, plus I think they’d make great gifts for just about any sweets lover. Sometimes the fancier bars in more serious packaging that brag about dark percentages seem intimidating to chocolate novices, but these would be fun and approachable for anyone.

Yeah… that brownie one didn’t even make it to the photoshoot in one piece. Yum.

The 3rd Choka Blok Bar went quickly as well. It’s called “The Rocky Road of Love” (aww) and is made up of a chunky blok of milk chocolate loaded with dark chocolate hearts, crunchy shortcake biscuit balls and mini marshmallows, drizzled with dark chocolate. I don’t know whose cooky idea it was to make “crunchy shortcake biscuit balls” but I applaud them. They are crunchy and had a lot more flavor than the usual crisps in chocolate bars do. Bravo!

After these three bars were gone, I honestly had trouble parting with their wrappers. I think I was subconsciously hoping that if I put them under my pillow at night and woke up in the morning, the chocolate inside would have magically re-appeared. I blame said delusions on the sugar coma that resulted from my shameless chocolate consumption.

And to any of you lucky brits out there, they make ice cream too. Ugh! The jealousy is painful.

After all of those crazy flavors, I will admit to not being wildly impressed with this adorable Handmade Milk Chocolate bar from Castle Chocolates, which is based in Wales. There was something about the elegant packaging and the look of the bar that I was very excited about – in fact I even hit the other bars first, saving it for last since I thought it looked so good. And it was good… it just – you know – didn’t have hunks of brownie or even that real rich creaminess that I tend to hope for with plain milk chocolate.

Don’t be sad little chocolate bar, we can still be friends. I just don’t like you like you, you know – like that.

Clearly overall the UK knows where it’s at when it comes to chocolate. Somehow unlike other well-known chocolate-loving countries it doesn’t seem to have the reputation for it, but maybe it should. Consider this post your official notice.

Thanks to JP for sharing such an awesome collection and for making me want to book a flight across the pond, stat! Cheerio!

It just occurred to me that part of the reason I’m kind of okay and even a little enthusiastic about all of the popular diets in the world right now (vegan, gluten-free, etc) is that if you follow most any of them, you can still eat peanut butter! Nice to know I could survive as a vegan, if some evil meanface doctor told me I had to.

Thankfully that hasn’t happened yet, but I like to dabble in all of the newfangled diets anyway and recently got to taste treats from a company that makes products that are both vegan and gluten-free. We often run off to the country-like suburbs of Chicago to visit family, so it was really cool to find out about Chocolate Inspirations, which is a chocolate company located practically in our family’s back yard.

My father-in-law eats gluten-free so he was particularly excited to partake in devouring these candies. I never realized until eating around him how many unsuspecting products have gluten in them. Even certain types of vanilla extract have it! So, knowing that these treats fell in the safe zone was really nice for him. Seeing how much he enjoyed them was double nice.

The company describes their brand and products in a very enticing way:

“We are a family owned specialty chocolate company based in Roselle, IL. We have a phenominal product called Peanut Butter Pillows. Think Butterfingers! We consider these a crossover product, meaning they are made with vegan ingredients, but they are great for non-vegans as well. Our Peanut Butter Pillows are light and flakey and come with or without chocolate. They are also Gluten Free.”

How awesome of a name is ‘Peanut Butter Pillow’? It makes me want to curl up in a ball, eat peanut butter candies and fall gently into peanut butter-induced sleep. Ahh.

Being an experienced Butterfinger eater, I can tell you that the Chocolate Inspiration treats have a few advantages above them, namely that they are more health conscious and don’t stick to your teeth as viciously as Butterfingers. Major plus! They have a satisfying crunch and great peanut butter flavor. They’re wonderful on their own and I suspect would taste awesome crumbled over or an ice cream sundae. Like a peanut buttery version of toffee bits. Mmm!

I think the Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Pillows were the favorite among our family, but we also really enjoyed the unique flavor of the Vegan Cashew Brown Sugar Vanilla Pillows. I later browsed their site and also discovered Cinnamon Toast Toffee! If you zoom in, you can see that it’s coated generously in sugar crystals. Woo! Oh and did we mention they make Peanut Butter Caramel Corn as well?

FYI, if it’s hot where you live right now, you can stash the “naked” peanut butter pillows in your purse or bag without worrying about them melting in the summer heat. As a chronic CPB snacker, not being able to carry chocolate around on the go is probably the saddest thing about summer for me, so finding a way around it while getting to enjoy something tasty is awesome.

Check out all of Chocolate Inspirations’ unique treats here. Stash some in your bag and your tummy!

Dear Vegans,

I’m sorry to admit it, but I’ve come to realize that I go into tasting your innovative vegan goodies never really expecting to be WOWED. I often expect to walk away thinking, “wow, that was great… for vegan food” but it’s rare that I expect to walk away with, “wow, that was amazing for food in general.”

However, it’s been a good week because I’ve had not one, but two experiences that went against the grain and gave me hope for the future of vegan foods.

The first was in Austin, TX where I tried vegan donuts from Red Rabbit, a co-op owned bakery. Not only does this bakery have a very cool baker-owned and operated philosophy (which you can read about / watch a video on on their kickstarter page), but they make kick-ass donuts that happen to also be vegan. One of their secrets? Having stealth non-vegans on the team who can taste the goods and compare with the usual bad-for-you stuff. Their donuts are just as fluffy and satisfying as any normal human donut without any usual aftertaste or texture that (at least from my experience) some vegan goods have been known to have. I loved that Red Rabbit was conscious of this potential pitfall and made a point to avoid it.

The second tasty vegan experience happened this morning. I have a lot of flavored nut butters in my cupboard right now and stared at them trying to pick one out to have on my banana. Not wanting to have a sugar high that early in the day, I couldn’t make a decision and decided to give this little packet of Artisana Raw Cacao Bliss a whirl, since it didn’t sound super sweet.

I had no idea what to expect from this butter. Would it be good?

Answer: Yes!! And not just for vegans!

I was happy to find that it wasn’t too sweet and that it was very rich and satisfying. It’s also very easy to spread, which is nice when you’re spreading it on something soft. It has a slight texture but is pretty smooth overall and is full of coconut and dark chocolate flavor. I began to wish I had picked up a whole jar and not just this itty little packet.

Note: I spread it on pretty sparingly at first, but ended up doubling the amount after taking pictures. I really enjoyed it.

And while I’m on the subject, I should also give a shout-out to the popular NY / NJ based vegan food truck The Cinnamon Snail. They make amazing vegan sandwiches and plenty of other goodies. I crave their spicy Creole Grilled Tofu Sub with regularity.

These experiences have strengthened my faith that one day vegans and average joes can sit at a table and eat together without any food snobbery ensuing. Want to be wowed yourself? If you’re in Austin, definitely swing by Red Rabbit Bakery (right now, they sell at various shops and farmers markets), if you’re in NY/NJ, check out The Cinnamon Snail, and if you’re near a health food store, try Artisana Raw Cacao Bliss!

Why is it that the moment I declare myself as “eating healthy lately”, I find a bunch of less-than-healthy stuff to make? I am a work in progress…

This one seemed serendipitous because I had been thinking about what to bake with my peanut butter stash for a while, but nothing jumped out at me. For all the recipe bookmarking and book ear-marking that I do, often times it’s the spontaneous recipes that make their way into my kitchen. Must be that blasted paradox of choice at work – I may have 8 million peanut buttery recipes to choose from, but when PB&Co tweeted this one, I was good to go. One second I was reading twitter and the next second, digging my teeth into freshly-baked cookies. The internet is awesome.

These cookies are satisfying and crazy easy to make. The batter comes together in the blink of an eye. They were done so quickly and used so few dishes (I didn’t even bother breaking out the mixer) that I made two batches. Why not, right? At the end of it, I had a ton of soft, peanut buttery cookies with a salty white chocolate bend. And speaking of salt, I sprinkled a little extra onto the chocolate side of my cookies. I love salty-sweet stuff and couldn’t help myself.

Note: If you leave some w/o pretzels, you will make your gluten-free friends very happy!

Another bonus: if you prefer to savor your pb stash and don’t want to use up a whole tasty jar on one itty recipe, you can breathe easy because one batch of these cookies will only use 1/2 cup, leaving plenty more to spread around!

Get the recipe from Bakerita!

Maybe I’m crazy, but I feel like sometimes being limited in the kitchen is almost more idea-inspiring than when you have every ingredient on the planet to work with. My kitchen is regularly fully-stocked and yet, often times I stare at the cupboards unable to form a meal plan. How is that possible?

This week I did something that I imagine everyone who loves to eat would probably dread doing: I had my wisdom teeth taken out. You think I’d be crushed from the limitations that brings… no delicious bagels to tear at, no crunchy snacks to munch on, etc.- but instead, my world was opened up to a vast array of velvety soups full of spring veggies, Scottish Oatmeal, vibrant smoothies and luscious desserts. Could I make these things before? Sure. Did I? Nope. Inspiration comes from odd places sometimes.

I prepped for my recovery by bookmarking lots of easy-to-eat recipes, including these lovely Chocolate Peanut Butter Pots De Crème. Who needs vicodin when you have something that’s delicious and full of chocolate and peanut butter? It’s also perfect for any of you gluten-free eaters, and a nice avenue for using PB&Co’s tasty Dark Chocolate Dreams Peanut Butter since the flavor of it really comes through nicely.

Note: I like a bit of a skin on my pudding so I didn’t put plastic wrap on top right away as the recipe suggests. Mine also came out a little light and foamy-looking on top, I think because of my vigorous whisking.

I guess it’s worth mentioning that cooking and blogging are also an excellent distraction from the discomfort. This was a great activity / dessert all around.

Get the recipe by Jacqui Scoggin on The Peanut Butter & Co All-Star Recipe Blog.