It's peanut butter time! Peanut Butter & Co review

Breakfast for peanut butter lovers: Toast smeared with "Cinnamon Raisin Swirl" Peanut Butter on the left, and a toast with "White Chocolate Wonderful" Peanut Butter topped with raspberry jam.

It's Peanut Butter Jelly time!

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are treats (or a lunch) for kids and grownups all over America and UK. PB & J are also one of the easiest, cheapest and no fuss diet staples for many vegans.

You can even find PB & J on many menus in restaurants and diners as an option for children. The first time I heard about peanut butter was when I read old Donald Duck comics and saw Duck Tales cartoons as a kid. I saw that Huey, Dewey and Louie ate peanut butter sandwiches and I had no idea what that was or how it tasted like. I had my first taste of peanut butter when I was 18 years old. Yes, you read that right, I was a peanut butter virgin until I was 18! I worked as a nanny and a housekeeper for British family in Prague. That is where I first tried an imported peanut butter smeared on a toast. You could not buy peanut butter in Czech Republic at that time (they only started selling it in stores a few years ago). I did not like the taste at first though. I fell in love with it when I moved to USA and for the last 7 years I have been trying to make up for the 18 years without peanut butter :-)))

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"Dark Chocolate Dreams"

I have been addicted to this dark chocolate peanut butter for over a year now. I love peanut butter and chocolate combination and I don't know anyone who does not....

This is the closest thing to a vegan Nutella that I found at my local Whole Foods. Compared with other vegan Nutella style spreads, this one is very affordable. Imagine if you melted a bowl of Reese's Pieces and placed it into a jar, that is how this stuff tastes like! No, wait, it tastes better, plus it does not contain any dairy or other creepy animal ingredients. This peanut butter is so smooth and thick and it always spreads nicely on everything. I love it on toast, bananas, over vanilla ice cream, blended into smoothies, as a dip for pretzels, in crapes (pancakes), and straight from the jar. I also use it as a cupcake frosting (and muffin frosting here).

Peanut Butter & Co makes more than just this amazing, highly addictive, "Dark Chocolate Dreams" Peanut Butter.

I was ecstatic when they sent me two other "flavored" peanut butters to review. All of their peanut butters are natural and no-stir which is a BIG plus for me. I hate when I put my natural peanut butter in the fridge and the peanut butter gets stiff and I cannot smear it or scoop it out. It takes forever to get it out of the jar and then the stiff peanut butter chunk takes even longer to get soft enough to be smeared on bread. Or sometimes the peanut butter has a layer of oil on top and I have to stir it, while the oil usually gets all over the bottle. I don't have to worry about these problems with Peanut Butter & Co peanut butters. I also love the fact that the flavors I tried were vegan and contained no high fructose corn syrup or hydrogenated oils. And they are gluten free for those who are on gluten free diet, win, win, win!

Here is what I tried:

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"White Chocolate Wonderful"

Just when I thought that nothing could beat the "Dark Chocolate Dreams" Peanut Butter, I found a competition. This flavor is equally as amazing as the dark chocolate peanut butter. Extremely creamy, almost velvet like experience. Sweet and buttery, with a delightful cocoa butter flavor. I ate most of this straight from the jar over the past few weeks.....And some on toast with raspberry jam (my new favorite combination), on plain toast, with peaches, and in banana ice cream.

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"Cinnamon Raisin Swirl"

Mmmmmmm......This peanut butter tastes just like a cinnamon raisin bread smeared with peanut butter!!! It is very creamy and the pieces of raisins give it a nice caramelized, sweet crunchy character. The cinnamon and raisin make a really lovely combination. You can even smell the raisins and cinnamon! I tried it straight from the jar with one spoon. Then I grabbed another spoon and another and soon I had a sink full of dirty spoons.....I am a bit ashamed that I ate 1/4 of the jar in one sitting....Well, I still had enough left to add to my oatmeal, to smear on my toast and to eat with banana. I even filled a baked apple with this peanut butter after the apple was fully baked. Sooooo good!

Here is my Dark Chocolate Dreams Raspberry sandwich :-)

I made an awesome breakfast recipe but the picture was horrible so I am not posting it. Here is the recipe though:

Peanut Apple Strudel Oatmeal

1/2 cup old fashioned rolled oats

1 cup almond milk or water

1/2 cup apple sauce (unsweetened)

2 Tbs "Cinnamon Raisin Swirl" Peanut Butter

In a medium bowl, mix oats and milk (or water) and applesauce. Cook in microwave 1.5 minutes. Stir in peanut butter and cook 30 seconds. Let sit 30 seconds, stir and enjoy.

White Chocolate Peanut Butter Marble Ice Cream

4 frozen bananas, cut into pieces

2 Tbs "White Chocolate Wonderful" Peanut Butter

Slightly defrost bananas. Place them into a food processor and process 3-5 minutes, or until smooth and creamy, scraping the sides several times. Add peanut butter and process until well incorporated. Enjoy!

Chocolate Covered Peanuts Smoothie

1 cup almond milk

1 banana, peeled

3 Tbs "Dark Chocolate Dreams" Peanut Butter

optional maple syrup to taste

optional chopped peanuts for topping

Blend everything in a blender until smooth and creamy. Top with chopped peanuts if desired. Enjoy!

The All American Vegan Review

Several weeks ago my friend Seth showed me his video featuring Nathan Winograd, one of the creators of the All American Vegan cookbook, speaking at World Vegetarian Festival 2011. Nathan's speech was very interesting and I got curious about the whole All American Vegan project and their new cookbook. Nathan and Jennifer Winograd have been vegan for over 20 years (That's pretty impressive!). They both work in the animal rights movement, promoting the No Kill philosophy not only when it comes to farm animals, but also cats and dogs. They try very hard to end the systematic killing of animals in the American shelters. Thanks to Nathan, Tompkins County in New York became the first No Kill community in the U.S. history, saving not only healthy animals but all treatable sick and injured animals as well. That is wonderful! I have been volunteering at various cat and dog shelters for years and I care very much about the No Kill Movement. Nathan and Jennifer believe that if we end the killing of dogs and cats, the animals that are closest to us, we can get people to care equally about the welfare of other animals as well. I was very happy to receive a copy of their cookbook for a review.

The All American Vegan cookbook is not just a cookbook, it is so much more. It is a wonderful book full of awesome recipes, vegan substitutions to meat, eggs, and dairy, helpful baking and cooking tips, and other useful and fun information (such as important moments in vegan history, trivia, list of animal-derived ingredients, the No Kill Movement in dog and cat shelters, new vegan menu planner, and things vegans should never say when discussing veganism with non-vegans).

This book is written in a fun, informative, and easy to read way. I can see this book becoming the new vegan resource book for newbie vegans. I have been vegan for over 5 years and still learned a lot of new stuff while reading the All American Vegan.

The main mission of this cookbook is to make vegan versions of the most popular foods that Americans like. By veganizing traditional American comfort foods (such as tuna melt, lasagna, hamburger, pizza), fast foods, desserts and everything that people used to like growing up in the USA, they eliminate the biggest barrier preventing people from giving up the consumption of meat, diary and eggs-not wanting to sacrifice taste. Food is closely tied to family traditions and one of the issues that many new vegans have is that they feel alienated when celebrating holidays with their family or having weekend dinners together. Food is tied to memories and many people like comfort foods because it can wake up some of their memories and traditions that they used to love. Take that away from them and they can become bitter and sad. By veganizing their favorite foods they don't have to give up their favorite, familiar foods and will be more likely to stick to a vegan diet.

Let's face it, not everyone who wants to go vegan is a vegetable, seeds, quinoa, and other health foods lover. Yes, there are many people who become vegan for health reasons first and eat a balanced, plant based diet that is mostly raw or has minimum processed mock meats, fried foods, sugar, white flour and other ingredients that I used in most comfort foods. But many new vegans want to eat the same way they used to, minus the cruelty of animal products. I am personally in between. I love comfort foods, especially veganized versions of traditional Czech and American dishes and sweet baked goods, but I also love "healthy" foods such as kale, quinoa, fresh vegetable juices, seeds, nuts, legumes, beans and most fruits and veggies. I was not always like this though. I had to slowly build my desire and taste buds for "healthy", unfamiliar foods. I wish I had this cookbook when I first became vegan, it would make my life much easier when I cooked for my American non-vegan family. A lot of the recipes from this cookbook are something that I made in one way or another over the years. Some things are new to me and I was happy to try them and I am planning on making many more soon.

I am like a kid sometimes when it comes to books and cookbooks. I love pictures, not just photographs but illustrations, too. The inner child in me jumped for joy after opening this cookbook because it is full of beautiful, cute and funny illustrations. And the recipes are great! Imagine a vegan diner style recipes in a fun package :-)

Some of the recipes that you will not want to miss: Cinnamon Rolls (page 70), Danishes (page 72), Glazed Donuts (page 74), Philly Cheese Steak Sandwich (page 86), Corndogs (page 95). Matzo Ball Soup (page 104), Parmesan (page 126), Coconut Cream Pie (page 131), Golden Cream Filled Spongecakes-aka vegan "Twinkies" (page 136), Thanksgiving Menu featuring Stuffed Not A Turkey with maple Glazed Root Vegetables (pages 152-159) and the recipes that I tried bellow.

This is a lovely Banana Cream Pie (page 130) with Chocolate Sauce (page 146). This no-bake pie was amazing! Creamy, silky banana with smooth and decadent chocolate sauce. It was not overly sweet or heavy and it was made pretty quickly with no baking required.

I made Coconut Whipped Topping (page 148) but unfortunately I experience a major kitchen fail with the topping. Not because of the recipe, but the quality of my coconut milk. I usually buy one brand and make coconut whipped topping with great results, but this time I wanted to save a dollar and bought a cheaper brand that was full fat, same as the other brand, but for some reason the fat did not solidify in the fridge. That resulted in liquid topping instead of nice and fluffy whipped cream. Lesson learned there-stick to what you know that works, saving a few pennies on an ingredients that will ruin your recipe is not worth it. I did not throw the liquid coconut topping away, I made an ice cream out of it. I added orange flavoring and froze it. That created a nice orange-coconut ice cream.

Let's have breakfast! Blueberry Muffins (page 71) and a cup of hot tea, that is all I need to have a good breakfast. These muffins were very good. I used fresh blueberries. The recipe calls for maple syrup and I used mixture of half maple syrup and half agave nectar to cut down on the cost and they turned out great! Moist, sweet and dense. I will be making these again soon.

These Peanut Butter Cups (page 140) are a perfect vegan alternative to Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. I could not wait to try this recipe. The recipe calls for sturdy paper candy cups but I wanted more authentic look so I splurged on peanut butter cups candy mold and candy brushes. It was much more work but the results were worth it! And the taste was very close to the non-vegan peanut butter cups. Very good!

Fried No Chicken (page 96) was way better than the KFC chicken that I remembered from when I was a teenager. It was almost scary how realistic my seitan "chicken" tasted. The spices and herbs made this crispy fried no chicken a very flavorful experience. I wish I made some mashed potatoes and gravy at the same time, that would be perfect!

I love creamy soups so I made Cream of Mushroom Soup (page 103). Mmmmmm. Creamy, buttery and silky mushroom soup with a nice touch of thyme. I served it sprinkled with more thyme and a handful of croutons and it was awesome!

Some of my favorite quotes from All American Vegan:

"If it is edible, it can be made vegan."

"Some people may be uncaring, but most people are concerned about animals and will support efforts to improve their lives. make it easy for people to do the right thing, and they will."

"Quite simply, we can more effectively persuade people to be vegan if vegan food becomes as familiar, widespread, and appealing as the competition."

"Veganism can accommodate your palate and your appetite too."

"Had animal products not been available, our ancestors would have experimented with other sources that served the same purpose and end they were seeking and today those ingredients would be in widespread use instead."