Suggestions:
For more of a "tuna" salad, add seaweed. Dulse flakes are a popular choice to emulate that fish or sea-like flavor. Mashed chickpeas make a good texture. For egg-less salad, add more vegan mayo, use tofu, make it creamy. Add pasta and/or potatoes and your favorite seasonings for more of a classic potato or pasta salad.

Chickpea sandwich with avocado, tomato, vegan cheese, and spike seasoning.

• chickpeas
• celery or bell pepper, if I have it
• vegan mayo and/or mustard
• relish - I like mine sweet with lots of relish
• garlic powder
• onion powder
• nutritional yeast
• paprika or turmeric

It's often different every time I make this because it's based off of what I currently have. So there have been times where I made it without vegan mayo and just used more relish and mustard or used tofu instead of chickpeas. I don't measure, but add ingredients and season to taste.


This recipe, however you make it, is good by itself, as a sandwich, as a dip with chips or crackers, wrapped in a tortilla, in a lettuce wrap. The choices are endless.

Chickpea salad sandwich with avocado, tomato, and sprouts.

This is more of a tofu scramble, but chickpea salad could go in tortilla as well

With chips

The company known most for it's vegan butter products has expanded over the years to now offer other condiments, boxed meals, and snacks. Earth Balance's vegan-version of the popular cheese crackers has been out for a while, and I recently tried them. But of course, the box is now gone (eaten within a few days, oops).

I have been told that these squares are more like cheese-its than the actual cheese-its (and the person who said this is not vegan, who recently had the original snack). To me, they taste like the perfectly light and crisp combination of Ritz crackers and Cheddar cheese. That is the most accurate way for me to describe it.

Whenever I go to Kroger, I end up with more vegan junk food than I do at my Whole Foods...
Yet when I shop at Walmart, I get affordable organic fresh and frozen produce and very little vegan junk (even though Walmart now carries So Delicious Ice Cream). It's nice that healthier alternatives to junk are expanding. It may not be super healthy, but at least these alternatives are a lot better than the original junk that they emulate. They offer a start and an option to worse snack foods.

A lot of people ask and wonder why there are now so many vegan/healthier versions that try to emulate the taste and likeness of popular junk foods. The reason for that is because a lot of these vegan products have had to step it up due to criticism of not being similar enough to the actual non-vegan meat/dairy items. So for people trying out or transitioning to healthier eating or veganism, those products can be helpful as a temporary substitute to what they are or were used to.
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Dates are like nature's caramel candy except with nutritional value!





INGREDIENTS
Dates and Coconut Sugar.
You could also add any other fruits or seeds (hemp, chia, flaxseeds)
to this recipe if you don't want to use sugar.


METHOD
Pulse dates in blender or food processor until it becomes a paste. You can also cut the dates with a knife or fork if you don't have or don't want to use a blender/processor. I find that using my knife to blend the dates is less time consuming and makes less of a mess.

After dates are turned into a paste, roll it into a ball. Then add an ample amount of coconut sugar to a container and roll the date-ball-paste around in the coconut sugar. Set into another freezable container and put date-spheres into the freezer for anywhere to 20 minutes to an hour.
Quick and easy!

Vegan candy that is super easy to make it only takes two ingredients.





Ingredients

• Peanut Butter
• Vegan chocolate

Step 1: Melt vegan chocolate and pour layer onto wax/parchment paper.



Step 2: Melt or slightly heat nut butter, and spread onto first layer of melted chocolate. Might be best to let chocolate harden a bit (by setting out, in refrigerator, or freezer) before adding the nut butter.




Step 3: Add another layer of melted vegan chocolate to the top of nut butter. Best to let nut butter set before adding chocolate.



Step 4: Put mixture into refrigerator or freezer for 30 mins to an hour and let whole bar harden.

It may not be healthy, but it tastes pretty great.


So you got your vegan ice cream with several varieties in both brand and flavor. My favorite brand of vegan ice cream has always been by So Delicious. They have so many options, it's incredible; with various flavors and ingredients, including your choice between coconut, almond, or soy milks. So Delicious is not the only vegan ice cream brand, several others are on the rise in the market and they are incredible as well.

Moving on to simple vegan ice cream sandwiches! All I did here was take the vegan-friendly Back to Nature chocolate chuck cookies, and put some coconut mint chip vegan ice cream in between two of the mini cookies. Then added some carob chips in between.




Just for laughs, SNl/Lonely Island "Dear Sister"


Back To Nature 27168 D...$34.29 Boncui.com

Vegan Blueberry Mini Muffins

Yum!

Ingredients:

• 1/4 C. Earth Balance or oil
• 1/4 t. Salt
• 1 C. Organic, raw, or turbinado sugar - maybe even agave
• 2 C. Flour - I used whole wheat
• 1 Tbs. Baking Powder
• 1 teas. Vanilla extract
• 1/2 C. Soy, almond, coconut, or rice milk
• 2 C. Blueberries

I got the idea for this recipe from somewhere I don't remember a couple years ago...



Mix wet, mix dry - separately. Then mix them together and place in muffin trays.
Set them in the oven on 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes until tops are full.
And they should come out looking like this - minus the green-tinted lighting.

Lazy Vegan Nachos

Here are four different and very easy nachos to make for awesome snacks. The first will be a vegan version of the "traditional" nachos.

• Tortilla chips!
• Daiya vegan-cheeze - I used 1/3 c.
• Water (half the amount of vegan-cheeze)
• Peppers: green, red, jalapenos, chili peppers, etc.
• A dash of grounded black pepper 

Melt the Vegan-cheeze in a pan with water or almond milk at half the amount of vegan cheeze used so that it will be creamy. Add in black pepper, green peppers, and any other choice of vegetables.


Oven Vegan-Cheesy Chips






















I'm sure many people have done this before, but for those who haven't, all you have to do with these is put shredded vez-cheeze over chips and slide them in the oven.

Then slide the "half-baked" vegan-cheesy chips onto a plate and done! Just don't over-bake.



Spinach Vegan-Cheesy Chips

I just added some fresh spinach into the mix. Originally, I was going to make a spinach-artichoke dip, but I figured this works easiest/laziest. Always wash off the spinach...




Avocado Nachos

If you don't have or, like myself, run out of vegan-cheeze, you can always resort to avocado nachos or a type of guacamole.

I just mashed some avocado, added some black pepper and herbs, then enjoyed with a few chips.

Avocado? Yes.

The Blueberry Date Sweetness
A Raw Vegan Dessert






Ingredients:

• Handful of Blueberries (about 30)
• Dates (10-11 or more)
• Cashews (1/8 cup)

Makes 4 Rolls/Spheres/Bites/Rounds




This is an idea I got from Easy to be Raw. My version of this differs but is still very similar in method to raw food vegan Megan Elizabeth's dessert, which you can see here: Strawberry Filled Brownie Bites




Step 1: Blend/Grate the raw cashews into a powder-like form or in small chopped pieces then set aside for later.

Trippy

Step 2: Grate/Chop dates in blender or food processor; either one is fine.

Dates

Blended.

Step 3: The blueberries can be blended as well or chopped/sliced in pieces with a few left out for later.

Step 4: Take some date pieces, flatten them out, and put the shredded blueberries in the middle and add the  blueberry to the center.



 

Step 5: Roll it. Dip into the set-aside crushed cashews. Set in refrigerator, freezer, put in a stick, or just eat it.

 

  In an earlier post, I discussed one of my current favorite vegan candy bars, the Mahalo Bar - filled with coconut, topped with almonds, completely coated in chocolate - Delicious.  But moving to a different candy bar, if Mahalos don't 'coat your fancy' then perhaps the "SNAP!" or "Jokerz" will.
  

Oh, Snap! = the nice, healthier, crunchy and light alternative to the mainstream candy I used to eat prior to becoming vegan. Here, the SNAP! vegan candy bar resembles the crunch chocolate candy bars, but in vegan version nicely excluding the animal products.

 "Jokerz"

This chocolate bar might not have you bursting out, laughing in ha-ha-ha's but it will definitely have you wanting more with its sweet chocolatey coating that surrounds a creamy, thick caramel layer without forgetting to add the peanuts, as well as it's bottom layer of nougaty nougat.  
This isn't your average vegan candy bar- it's better than the average with it's vegan-tastic ingredients and a name that even has a 'z' in it so you know it's "serious." 

I think this is the vegan version of the snickers candy bar. 

 

And the Twilight bar..

Chocolate, nougat, gooey goodness!

 

 


To end this post, I will say "Mahalo" which means thank you in Hawaiian. These awesome vegan chocolate candy bars are made by a company called Go Max, Go Foods.