Did you know that yesterday was the Chinese Moon Festival?
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You’d think, having lived in China, I would’ve known this, but the truth is I had no idea until a friend called me up a few days ago and asked if I wanted to come over to celebrate. Celebrate? Heck, when someone says celebrate, I hear party. And I never pass up an excuse for a party (especially on a school night!). Something else I never pass up? An opportunity to share food, showing others that healthy, vegan food can taste delicious. Therefore, last night I brought the variation of Secret Raw Cheesecake mentioned in my last post, peanut butter cup pie:
Katie, Arisana doesn’t make pnb; how is this post relevant to Artisana Week?
I’ve got it covered. Literally. My pie is covered in homemade Artisana Cacao Bliss! 🙂
Pb and chocolate were meant to be together. My friends all seemed to agree, as they gobbled up the vegan pie faster than you could say “Zhongqiu” (the Chinese word for the moon festival). In retrospect, I probably should’ve made a bigger pie as opposed to a miniature version. But my friend said to bring finger food, as it was a snacky-type party, not a main-dish one. Plus, there were only six of us. So I figured everyone would be happy with a mini slice. That way, they’d save room for all the other delicacies people would bring (which turned out to be an array of non-vegan moon pies and dumplings). Boy was I ever wrong-o! “Is there any more of that peanut butter pie?” seemed to be the mantra of the night. Even the pale green hue (from the zucchini) didn’t phase them. Guess I’ll be making another peanut butter pie in the near future. That’s okay; it only takes a total of about five minutes to make. And the peanut butter variation is much cheaper than the original cashew cheesecake version (thanks to my favorite peanut butter being only $2.50 a tub).
And now I’m going to totally ruin the gorgeousness of the photo above with the abomination below:
Seriously? They wanted more of this stuff? Perhaps I should have shown the above photo first; then I could’ve had an entire pie to myself!
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Healthy “Peanut Butter Cup” Pie
- 1/2 cup (110g) peanut butter
- 1/2 cup (80g) chopped zucchini (or you might sub banana!)
- Optional: choc. chips or melted chocolate
- Other ingredients for the “Secret Veggie” Cheesecake
Make this pie the same way you’d make the veggie cheesecake, but exchange pb for the cashew butter and cut back on (or omit) the lemon juice.
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Do your friends like to eat?
Or do you have a lot of “salad only” friends on diets? I swear, I think my girl friends like to eat more than my guy friends, especially when it comes to dessert. (Beer, now that’s another story.) I’ve even had two ex-boyfriends who didn’t like chocolate! Remind me again why I dated them… oh yeah, ’cause it meant more chocolate for me!
Finally, a shout-out to Erica, who also already made this pb pie!
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That looks really good. To know it is healthy is yet another reason to make it. 🙂
KATIE! this looks rediculously amazing!! Peanut butter pie cheesecake!!! i first thought “omg that looks like a NYC style cheesecake” im beyond impressed, especially with the height that the layering got. the middle is super dense! i wouldve gladly let the others swoon over the “abomination” haha..and helped you devour this yummy beast of cheezcake! most of the girls i know are ‘secret eaters’ .. i dont hang around with them much anymore because theyre busy and not really much fun to be around frankly. im the only one that WANTS to go for brunch or head out for pizza at night..but i definitely hope to meet some more people that are like me that live closer, since most of the people i jive with are miles away, like YOU 🙁
XOXO <3
Vegan PB cup cheesecake? Katie, I love you. Most of the female friends I have known like to eat, which is good, because I am uncomfortable eating around people who “only eat salad.”
Salad only friends on diets? That’s such an early 20s thing 🙂 No, my adult women friends do NOT live like that. Many have BTDT, but have wayyy moved past that. We are mothers, with lives, husbands, kids, and we EAT REAL FOOD! My god, you can’t grow a human on lettuce alone. Yes, I am vegan, but am not scared of fat and proper fueling 🙂
My female friends and I are DEFINITELY more obsessed with food and eating than almost any guy I know. Though I do have a couple foodie-dude friends!
OMG, that pie looked AWESOME. Ooooooohhhhhh! 😀 I have friends of all sorts, although I have to admit, I work out a lot, and my friends from the gym like to eat, because we know we have to fuel our bodies or all of our obsessive compulsive exercising would be in vain, LOL! My friends who DON’T go to the gym are forever on salad diets, because they don’t think exercise is important, or they’re trying to lose weight. Well, it goes on forever because salad is not sustainable, in my personal opinion! One can not survive on salad alone 😉
This looks awesome!! My friends like to eat simply because most of my friends are guys..and guys are definitely not salad only people. My girl friends say they can’t be around me without gaining a ton of weight because I eat all the time, which makes them want to eat all the time. They’re more of the bird-food type eaters, though.
I’m organizing a vegan type animal welfare event at my school to coincide with the end of Vegan MoFo an starting offering info and tidbits starting tomorrow with ‘Hug a Vegetarian Day’. I’ve got petitions, a raffle (can you suggest any good vegan prize ideas? I still need to round up some more and I’m not quite sure as to what), stickers, posters, flyers, info hand-outs, projector with a short film, small trivia/quizzes, little cutesy recipe cards with simple vegan recipes to hand-out, And to go with it I want to make a up a bunch of vegan stuff to kinda give away as free samples. Mainly some simple baked goods, or some maybe some mini raw fudge babies of yours, and one or two simple savoury things just to show people how delicious and normal vegan food can be. I’m not going to preach or convert (if anyone converts that’s awesome), I just want to raise awareness rights issues. So I was just wondering if yuo could suggest any recipes (either yours or someone else’s) that you know would appeal to a large omni crowd. I’m in high school so you can image the type. I need it to appeal to the teachers and students. So any help, tips, or recipes you could offer (or anyone around here, really) would be fantastic. I have no problem cooking/baking vegan as I’ve had to do it for myself for the last 7 years but it’s always been just me or my immdiate family or close friends who’s ever tried it and while they enjoy it I’m unsure as to what to serve to such a large and very different group. Thanks a ton in advance and I love your site so much
~Midnite
hey Midnite! I’ll write a longer reply later today when I have more time to devote to giving your comment the attention it deserves :).
Hmmm… I’m definitely thinking baked goods would make good prizes! As for recipes ideas, I’d keep it simple. Go with something like chocolate chip cookies over the fancy-shmancy marzipan-raspberry truffles or something else “out there.” While “out there” might be delicious, you’ll win more peoples’ taste buds with things they know and are comfortable with, such as brownies and chocolate chip cookies. You know, standard stuff—just veganized! 🙂 Under my “Baked goods” tab (found here: https://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/chocolate-covered-recipes/), I have a no-fail recipe for chocolate chip cookies. Definitely stay away from the raw desserts for now. Mainstream USA just isn’t ready lol! And good luck!!
(Oh, vegan cupcakes are always a good bet, too!)
Thanks a lot. -sigh- Canada, too, I’m afraid. I figured as much though but I wanted to get some other opinions too. Though it would be nice to show how even the incredibly weird seeming stuff to omnis can actually be totally delicious too (Maybe I’ll bring a few tiny ‘special’ things just to see if there are any brave folk in my school for fun. Give them a free raffle entry or something if they dare to eat it. lol). I’ll try your choco-chip cookie recipe though. A lot of the recipes I’ve tried for those seem to turn out very cakey. While not bad, it just isn’t right, yah know. Any suggestions on how to fix that? (Sorry for all the questions, btw, and happy ‘Hug a Vegetarian Day’! -hugs-
~Midnite
Whole-wheat baked goods are usually “cakeier” than white-flour baked goods. My suggestion: now is not the time to worry about feeding them healthy food! Make it as decadent as you can!! One not-at-all-healthy vegan treat occasionally isn’t going to hurt anyone (Heck, it’s still healthier than the non-vegan versions).
Something else I like to do: just feed them the food, then–after they say they like it–tell them it’s vegan. That way, they don’t go into it being biased.
Hugs back!! 🙂 And let me know how it goes!
I’ll be honest, I’ve never once baked with whole wheat flour, always AP flour so I dunno. Anywho, I will. Thanks so much Katie.
~Midnite
omg i need to make the cheesecake!!!!!!!! cheesecake factory is my favorite, even though it makes me feel sick to my stomach i devour an entire slice of peanut butter cookie dough cheesecake. so worth it for once or twice a year 😉 but this could be a more frequent occurence!
I’m pretty happy that most of the women in my social circle are Earth mama, wholesome foodie eating types….they consume with gusto, and truly appreciate food. This is a new world for me; college, high school and the working world I’ve known were mostly composed of salad girls, or at least women who felt bad about eating. I definitely used to fit into that category – delicate foods in public, and decadent, gourmet foods in the deepest, darkest corner of my house…
I think women often appreciate food more than men – quality over quantity.