Happy Monday Friends,

Even if you aren't having the best Monday, hopefully this recipe will give you something to smile about.  Is it possible for chocolate, icing, cupcake, and healthy to be in the same sentence? Why yes! As promised, I wanted to share with you a recipe that I found on Pinterest and adapted to my own liking. Which brings me to my next revelation, how did I survive before Pinterest?  How did I cook, craft, breathe???  More on this later...

Since our whole foods journey began, I craved desserts that I could eat *mostly* guilt free. I also wanted to stay away from processed box mixes, shortening, and for the most part, anything destructive to our bodies. This vegan (not made with any animal products or bi-products) dessert was a test run on a cupcake that used to frequent my diet, the Hostess Chocolate cupcake with its signature curly-q swirl on top (queue reminiscent late night binge memories now). No more lists of words I can't pronounce going in my belly, I want real food!  

Here are the mini-cupcakes before the top icing was applied:

I decided to make a small batch of these in case they were awful so there was not much food going to waste, but I later wished I had made a double batch;)  I was even brave enough to take these to a friend's house as an after-dinner treat.  Even after joking about our almost-vegan lifestyle, they indulged themselves with these little beauties as well and gave them a thumbs-up.  D and the girls were in love and ate them up as well.  Here is the finished product ready to be tested:

There were three separate mixtures to create to make this cupcake happen, and I wasn't aware you could turn cashews into "icing", but it is true and I want to scream it to the world!  Here's the recipe.  I hope you give it a try and go outside your comfort zone.  You won't be sorry!  

Vegan Chocolate "Raw" Cupcakes with Vanilla Creme Filling

Cupcakes:
1 cup quick oats
1 cup dates
2 tablespoons cacao powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 Tbsp organic peanut butter (if nut allergy omit and use more water)
1-2 Tbsp almond milk or water (to make mixture bind)

Vanilla cream filling:
1 cup cashews 
Juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup water
1-2 tablespoons agave or coconut nectar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract 

Chocolate frosting:
2 tablespoons melted coconut oil
1 tablespoon cacao powder
1 tablespoon agave or coconut nectar

Cupcakes: pulse the oats in a food processor until they become flour-like. Add the rest of the ingredients and process until it all sticks together. Press into mini cupcake tins and press fingerprint in each one.  Place in freezer until done with vanilla filling.

Vanilla Filling: Add all ingredients to blender on "ice cream" setting and blend. Spoon the creamy filling into each cupcake to fill the indentations.  Place cupcakes back in freezer.

Chocolate Frosting: In a bowl, whisk together all the ingredients until smooth. Let it re-solidify in room temperature so that you have a frosting consistency (I stuck mine in the fridge for 2 minutes to speed this process up). Frost the top of the cupcakes and then using a piping bag (or a ziplock with a hole cut in the corner) to decorate the tops of your cupcakes with the vanilla cream. Eat right away or within 1-2 weeks. You will probably eat right away!

So what are you waiting for?  Don't be afraid of dates.  They are delicious and worth a try.  Remember to take the pits out before processing.  They have a peanut buttery and sweet consistency. Happy clean eating!

Well here it is- our 1st blog post.  (Cricket, Cricket)  Yes I am pretty sure this post will be the one we look back on years from now and laugh at it for its poor content and composition.  So, to save us from the later humiliation, lets all take a moment and laugh at David and I now for this terribly written blog post, and for that matter, idea that we are interesting enough to even need a blog.  Go ahead, laugh it out.  We will wait...

Done?  Thanks a lot, friend!?!  Now that that is out of the way (side note: when I use "that that" in the same sentence I always think I am making a grammatical mistake) let us move on.  It is all uphill from here!!!

Hi, my name is Andrea and I am married to Superman (no - not Henry Cavill) and his name is David.  He has the work ethic of a resident surgeon, but, unfortunately, gets paid like a computer back-up support engineer.  Go figure!  Anyways, he and I decided after 10 years of marriage and more hurdles and changes than we can count, our life has ventured into territory we never EVER imagined.  I mean NEVER!  Let me explain:

Let's do categories since I am a nerd who makes lists:

THEN

NOW

Thought home schooled kids were weird            Ate anything including a diet composed  of Spicy Cheetos, Coke, & Cane's Chicken      Raised Protestant Christians Thought sewing was also for nerds      Thought desserts had to be bad for you           Didn't care what GMO stood for Never paid attention to chemicals in toothpaste, deodorant, detergents, etc. Didn't know who J.R.R. Tolkien was (possibly made fun of D for liking the movies) Never thought we would do a blog (and never thought David would want to) Thought money was more important than time with our kids (and we spent lots of money!!!) Thought we were done having kids

Yep, we HS our kids! Eat Organic, Whole, Local, Foods & are losing weight Converted Orthodox Christians + I love to sew and share! Creating ones that aren't bad Avoid ANY food possible that is GMO Removing all harmful chemicals from our house Joined the Tolkien Train and love the books and movies! Here we are! Decided to be a 1 income family so I could be home with our girls and it was a hard but rewarding decision (This alone could be a blog!) We would like to adopt one day :)

So that is us in a nutshell.  Homeschooling, Whole Foods eating, Orthodox, crafty, semi-"crunchy", Tolkien loving, blogging, financially thrifty, possibly adoptive parents, and might I say blessed beyond measure, Oklahomans!

Stay tuned for more posts from any of the above topics (and more I'm sure!).  If you have something you would like to read about, just leave it in the comments below and we will be happy to make it happen on here!  Thanks for stopping by.