Last day of Vegan MOFO

Today is the last day of Vegan MOFO. In the month of November, I blogged 28 times (including today) for a total of only two slacker days. I am actually kind of surprised at how few days I missed! I am a bit sad that I didn't try more exotic or fancy recipes during the month and that a lot of my posts were of restaurant and product reviews. But with school and everything, what can you expect? I definitely plan on doing Vegan MOFO again next year, and my life will be different then. I will be graduated and (hopefully) situated in an 'adult' life with more time for myself and for cooking!

One of the highlights of Vegan MOFO was when my roll recipe was mentioned on the Vegan MOFO blog in this post. I know it was only my name and not even a picture but I was super excited! It made me wish I had put a little more effort into the pictures of those rolls... oh well. Next year I will try for a picture too :)

Primal Strips - Vegan Jerky

Since I am back to the grindstone today this post is going to be short. Quick product review of one of my favorite camping/hiking snacks, Primal vegan jerky. I don't think I have a favorite flavor, they are all pretty amazing. The Hickory Smoked and Texas BBQ flavors are soy, while the Teriyaki flavor is seitan.

Thanksgiving

Here we go! A post about my Thanksgiving :) A big thank to you Emily, Ben's sister, who took all the pictures. You can see her blog post about it here.

For Thanksgiving we had Ben's mom Merilynn, brother Josh, sister Emily, and her boyfriend Colin. Though everyone in attendance has different eating habits, we had a fabulous all-vegan Thanksgiving!

Ben and I made mashed potatoes, seitan roast beef, whole wheat rolls (roll recipes here and here), and a pumpkin cheesecake. We also bought some gravy from Cali's (my post about that here), had my mom's strawberry freezer jam for the rolls, and had some white wine a friend had given us. Merilynn brought yummy mashed yams, raw stuffing, coleslaw, and a raw butternut squash pie. Emily and Colin brought a chocolate pecan pie from Cakewalk, beer, and some red and white wine. Josh brought silk eggnog.

Here is our lovely table:

Again, table. On Emily's plate going clockwise you can see jam, roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, coleslaw, and rolls.

Here is our fun group:

And here is dessert! From left to right we have Marilynn's raw butternut squash (tasted like pumpkin) pie with a pecan crust, Emily and Colin's chocolate pecan pie, and Ben and my pumpkin cheesecake with a homemade graham cracker crust.

And here is Ben and I eating dessert on the floor, molly looking for scraps. Don't worry, she got her own Thanksgiving plate with some carrots, mashed potatoes, a bit of a roll, and some roast beef.

Our fun group again in Ben and my living room. What a great Thanksgiving! I plan on posting all of the recipes as I get to them :) Everything was so good!

Kim Thatcher's Crescent Rolls

Sorry I have not posted about my Thanksgiving yet! I ended up being so busy with cooking and setting the table and preparing the house I didn't take a single picture :/ Emily, Ben's sister, luckily had her camera there so I am waiting until I get pictures of our fabulous Thanksgiving from her! So, pictures and explanations to come soon!

For now, I will share a roll recipe. Ben and I ended up making both my great Grandma's rolls (see recipe here) and Kim Thatcher's rolls for Thanksgiving. I have no idea who Kim Thatcher is, but it is my mom's favorite recipe and she claims they are Kim Thatcher's rolls.

2 tsp Yeast (one package)
1/2 C, plus a pinch of Sugar
1/2 C Warm water
3/4 C Earth Balance
1 1/2 C Almond milk
3 tsp Salt
1/4 C Instant potatoes (make sure they are not pre-seasoned)
2 Egg equivalent of egg replacer (I used EnerG)
1 1/2 C Cold water
4 C Flour, plus some for dusting (I used whole wheat flour)

Whisk yeast, warm water, and a pinch of sugar. Let sit until the mixture begins to bubble and foam. If it does not bubble and foam, your yeast is no good.

Place Earth Balance, milk, salt, potatoes, and sugar in a saucepan. Heat until Earth Balance is melted. In a bowl, mix egg replacer and cold water. Cool Earth Balance mixture and then mix in to the egg mixture. Stir in flour, one cup at a time, until dough forms a ball.

Knead for six minutes, putting air into the dough with your hands. Place dough in a greased bowl and let rise until doubled (about an hour).

Split up the dough into two balls (or four ball if you want smaller rolls). Roll each ball into a circle on a floured surface to approximately 16 inches in diameter (12 if you are doing smaller). Using a pizza cutter, cut the circle into triangles (I did about eight), just like you would cut a pizza. Roll the triangles, starting with the large end, into croissant-like crescents. Place rolls on a greased baking sheet and let rise for one hour.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Brush rolls with Earth Balance, and then bake for 12-14 minutes, or until the tops are golden brown.

Tuna Salad

Today is Thanksgiving and I have been up since 8:30 cooking. Ben's mom, sister and boyfriend, and brother are all coming over and we are going to have a fun vegan (some raw) Thanksgiving. But that means I am mostly busy today and am pulling from my saved up 'filler' posts so I can run back to the kitchen.

Here is my 'tuna salad' recipe that tastes JUST LIKE tuna! I swear it does. Someone posted a similar recipe from All Recipes and I tried making it just like the recipe (the picture below is from that attempt). It was pretty good, but not amazing. So I decided to hold off on my post until I had perfected it. The recipe below is my perfected 'tuna salad.' It is fabulous on sandwiches, and would be equally good in a wrap.


1 can (19 oz) Garbanzo beans, drained
3 Tbs Veganaise
2 Tbs Stone ground mustard
1 tsp Dill
1/4 C Chopped celery
1/4 C Chopped red onion
Salt and pepper to taste

Place garbanzo beans, veganaize, mustard, dill, salt, and pepper in a food processor. Process until a smooth paste. Mix with celery and red onions.

Recipe idea thanks to:
All Recipes

Cali's Natural Foods

On Monday Ben and I went up to Cali's Natural Foods to pick up some gravy for Thanksgiving. Cali’s is a vegetarian (basically vegan) grocery/warehouse-type store that sells local, organic food in Salt Lake City. Cali's stocks Vertical Diner and Sage's Cafe, and also sells some of their specialty dishes. Cali's teaches cooking classes and hosts other community events.

For Thanksgiving, Cali's offered small meal packages for $25 and big meal packages for $50. They also offered all the items in the meal package a la carte. The gravy in the package is the same gravy they have on their dishes at Vertical Diner, and I am absolutely in love with it. It is rich, cheesy, and just delicious. Though Ben and I could have thrown together some gravy we opted for spending $10 on 32 oz of gravy. I am super stoked.

Also at Cali's we bought some full-fat soy flour for the seitan roast beef we are making for tomorrow, some sloppy joe mix, local yukon gold potatoes for mashed potatoes, coffee beans, and tofutti cream cheese for our pumpkin cheesecake. Though we just picked up a few items, Cali's has an awesome local produce section. BUT they are known for their massive bulk section. Everything you could possibly want to cook with, they have it in bulk.

Just part of the bulk section - to the left there are a few more isles.

Baked goods and other ready-made foods at the front counter.

Random assortments of awesome products.

Vegan Adventures at Tucanos in Provo, Utah

Today, as a celebration, my team at work went out to lunch. In the past, they chose relatively easy places for me to find food (japanese places) or just brought me my own food all together (veggie sandwiches from Kneaders). But today everyone decided to go to Tucanos. For those of your who aren't from Utah, Tucanos is a all-meat Brazilian Grill. They bring steaming chunks of flesh on big skewers in an endless stream and then cut little pieces off for you right there at your table. Awesome.

Needles to say I was a bit hesitant to go. I checked out their menu online and saw 'grilled veggies,' 'grilled pineapple,' and 'salad bar' and felt a bit better. I called in and asked about what was on the grilled veggies and pineapple, what kind of dressings they had, etc. The veggies were a no-go because they were grilled with parmesan cheese, but the pineapple only had brown sugar on it. None of their soups or dressings sounded veg-friendly, but I decided I would just go and eat iceberg lettuce and pineapple if I had to.

However, I was pleasantly surprised by their awesome salad bar. I had a big plate bedded down with half spinach and half iceberg salad mix. On top of that I put white corn, julienned carrots, red onions, black olives, sunflower seeds, and banana peppers. For dressing I had a few scoops of a really nice fresh pico de gallo. But beyond the food, I was very pleased with the lack of odor in the place. Though the grill was in plain sight there were no accompanying dead flesh smells. They must have some killer fans. Even when they brought meat skewers to our table it was never really bothered me. The waiter was even kind enough to notice when I said no to the meat after just two times and stopped offering it to me. Overall, it was a great experience. Just goes to show you you can be a vegan anywhere! 2/5 stars for being a meat joint with some vegan options.

Thanksgiving Practice: My Great Grandma's Rolls

Blizzard warnings today in Utah. No one is supposed to leave their houses...and if you do you are supposed to take a winter survival kit. All the schools are closed, including my university. Overnight we are supposed to get up to 13" and the high tomorrow is 16 degrees. We are even supposed to prepare for power outages. But it it only lightly snowing here? People further up north seem to be hit pretty hard. So now Ben and I look out the window every 15 minutes for this 'blizzard' of biblical proportions.

Anyway, enough of that. If the storm is as big as it is supposed to be I will post some cool pics tomorrow :) But for now, rolls! I actually made these last weekend but haven't posted about them yet. So here they are, my great grandma Fitch's rolls. One thing I always liked about them when I was young was the strong buttery taste. As you will see from the recipe below, the rolls are dipped in butter before baking. With real butter this has a completely different flavor than Earth Balance. And though they weren't bad, the Earth Balance overload did nothing for them but make them more fattening. SO when I make them again I will probably just skip the Earth Balance dipping. Maybe a little brush on the top... One good thing dipping them did is they just fell away from each other. As you can see from the pan (below) I really put a lot of them in there. But as you can see from the roll (above) they just came apart in cute little pentagons.

1 1/2 C Plant milk
1 tsp Salt
2 Tbs Sugar
4 Tbs Earth Balance
2 1/4 tsp Yeast (one package)
1/4 C Warm water
Pinch of sugar
3 1/2 C White flour

Place warm water and yeast in a small bowl. Whip together with a fork to get the yeast going and then sprinkle a pinch or so of sugar on top to give it something to eat. If the mixture begins bubbling, your yeast is good to go.

Place earth balance and milk in a pan on the stove. Warm until earth balance is melted. Stir in 1 C of flour and then the yeast mixture. Add remaining flour and mix well.

Place dough in a greased bowl and let rise 1 hour. Punch the dough down, and let raise for up to 1 hour again.

Roll out on a floured surface and cut into circles (I used the top of a glass cup). Melt some Earth Balance and dip each circle in it. Fold over and place in greased pan.

Let rolls rise for 20 minutes and then bake at 400 degrees for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.

AAC Thanksgiving

Saturday night Ben and I went to another vegan thanksgiving hosted by our university club, the Animal Allies Club. This was the second time we have hosted thanksgiving, and it was a ton of fun. Basically what happens is a big potluck where everyone brings their favorite thanksgiving dishes, or just their favorite dishes.

Unfortunaley I didn't take pictures of everything there... but take my word, it was all tasty. Ben and I brought our favorite mac and cheese (recipe here) and a pumpkin pie (recipe here). We modified the mac and cheese recipe by adding panko bread crumbs on top and it worked really well!

Here is my plate:

From the top left, clockwise, we have regular mashed potatoes, dill mashed potatoes, Ben and my mac and cheese, the end of a tofurky and some stuffing, fresh veggies with hummus and a ranch dip, pita chips, and a toasted almond green bean salad.

I also had a cookie and some Silk eggnog:

And a herb and cheese biscuit (see bottom right). Our pie is the one in the middle! It was so tasty!

Like I said, I wish I had taken more pictures. I was just too busy eating! There was a whole other counter full of dishes I did not get pictures of! Including a very yummy sweet potato dish with coconut and walnuts. AND a home made tofurky thing that looked like a meat pie. I didn't try it, but it looked cool.

Sage's Cafe in Salt Lake City, Utah

Friday night my dear friend Jessica took me out for a belated birthday dinner and a movie. We went to Sage's Cafe, an organic vegan restaurant in Salt Lake.

I got the mushroom stroganoff with garlic bread, which I have never had before. I was delicious!

Ben got the philly cheese sandwich, which was good as well. Most of their sandwiches at Sage's are great.

For dessert, we all shared a chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich (not pictured), which was so-so. We also shared a tiramisu, which was pretty good. BUT I like the tiramisu at City Cakes better (see my post on City Cakes here). 5/5 stars.

After dinner we went to see a movie I have really been looking forward to, 127 hours. The movie is based on the true story of Aron Ralston, a mountain climber and canyoneer. While canyoneering alone in Moab, Utah (just a few hours from where I live!) a loose boulder fell on his arm, trapping him in a narrow slot canyon in the middle of the desert. He was there for 127 hours before he finally was able to free himself by breaking both of the bones in his forearm by leveraging himself against the rock and then cutting through his arm with a dull pocket knife.

The movie was absolutely amazing and I think everyone should see it. It was mind-blowingly inspirational. The casting was also wonderful, and James Franco did an awesome job of portraying Aron Ralston. Below are some links it you want to check out the movie OR see the real Aron Ralston tell his story. A few years ago he wrote a book called Between a Rock and a Hard Place which I have not read (yet) but have heard is amazing.

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orxtqKeHEOs&feature=related

Aron telling the whole story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgjK8S-3DSQ

Aron talking about the amputation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2XLoQ1xYB0&feature=related

Rice King in Provo, Utah

Sorry for not posting yesterday, I had THE LONGEST day. I will post Sunday to make up for it.

But back to my long and extremely stressful day(s). It all starts on Thursday with proofreading the 157 page manuscript that will be the latest issue of the literary magazine I work on, Touchstones, while eating Chinese food at Rice King in Provo. More on Rice King in a second.  After proofreading at Rice King Ben and I returned home to continue proofreading early into the morning.

Now onto Friday (yesterday). I went to work at 9 as usual and got panicked calls from Ben and Scott (the magazine's advisor) who needed desperate help getting the journal ready to turn in to the printers at 4:30. So I rushed to the school from work and worked my brains out without food or water for nearly six hours :p UG. The journal finally made it in around 4:45 and I was a big shaky red-faced mess.

The nights was salvaged, however, by my long-time best friend, Jessica, taking me to Sage's Cafe in Salt Lake and then to the movie 127 hours. I will write about our tasty food from Sage's tomorrow! But we didn't get back home until nearly 1 pm so I didn't get a chance to write this blog post about Rice King.

Now to the food. Rice King is this great authentic Chinese food place in downtown Provo (about 25 m away from where I live). What is the best thing about them is they have an all-vegetarian (mostly vegan) menu! They have all of their same dishes made with very well done seitan, so you never have to feel bummed about not being able to have sesame chicken...or orange chicken... mmmm.

I was feeling vegetables that day so I ended up getting Buddha's Feast which is basically just stir fried veggies:

 Ben got the Curry Chicken Soy for the first time. It was fabulous, with yellow curry and their amazing seitan:

Some of my other favorite dishes there are the General Chicken Soy, Pepper Beef Soy, and Beef and Broccoli Soy. 5/5 stars for having a whole vegan menu with options out of the usual.

Thanksgiving Practice: Pumpkin Pie

As opposed to my pecan pie recipe that was an epic fail (see my failure here), my veganized version of my mom's pumpkin pie was a success!

It set up perfectly and had that nice custard-y texture that I love so much.

Here is the original recipe:

2 Eggs, beaten
3/4 C Sugar
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/4 tsp Cloves
1 3/4 C Fresh pumpkin, pureed
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Ginger
1 can Evaporated milk

Mix ingredients in the order given. Spoon into unbaked pie shell and bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes. Reduce head to 350 degrees and bake for 50+ minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

So, here are the modifications I made. I used EnerG egg replacer instead of eggs. For evaporated milk I used powdered soy milk. I used double the amount of milk powder for the amount of water to make it kind of like evaporated milk. I ended up having to bake it for like 65 minutes for a toothpick to come out clean, but when it was done it was fabulous! I chalk this up to a success!

PS. Since it was only practice, I used a pre-made crust. Check out Wholly Wholesome Organic Pie Shells in the frozen section.

Recipe thanks to:
My mom

Thanksgiving Practice: Pecan Pie

Last weekend Ben and I practiced making a few new recipes to ensure a successful Thanksgiving. And it is a good thing we did. While the pumpkin pie turned out just like I wanted, the pecan pie was a massive fail! Pumpkin pie recipe here.

Check it out:

Yeah. Basically it was a nice crust with a puddle inside. The filling soaked through the crust and crystallized it to the pan, and was over all not very good. Ben and I attempted to eat it more like a cobbler but it was way too sugary and just gross. The flavors were there, and the pecans were nice, but that was about it.

Below is the original recipe from my mother. I have had this pie (non-vegan) in the past, and it was good and set up just fine.

Pecan Pie:

3 Eggs
1 C Karo corn syrup
1 C Sugar
2 Tbs Butter, melted
1 tsp Vanilla
1 1/4 C Pecans

Stir eggs, corn syrup, and sugar together. Add butter and vanilla, and then pecans. Place in unbaked pie crust and cook 50-55 minutes at 350 degrees.

So I made a few modifications. First, I replaced the eggs with EnerG egg replacer. I thought this would set up better than a flax or chia seed substitute. Second, I used Earth Balance instead of butter. Third, I made my own corn syrup using the following recipe I found online (though I can't remember where). I think that the corn syrup might have been a big part of the sugar overload, since it was basically just 3 C of granulated sugar. But I don't know if that would have contributed to it not setting up... any suggestions, anyone?

Corn Syrup Substitute:

2 C Sugar
3/4 C Water
1/4 tsp Cream of tartar
Dash of salt

Combine all ingredients in a large pan. Bring to a boil while stirring. Reduce heat to a simmer and put the cover on for 3 minutes. Uncover and cook until the mixture reaches soft ball stage, stirring often.Cool syrup and store in a covered container at room temperature. It will keep for about 2 months.

Pie recipe thanks to:
My mom

Vegan Food on Campus: Sushi

Vegan food on campus, post #2. In the last six months UVU has also installed a little sushi booth in the 'Centre Court' food court on the first floor of the Student Center. They pre-make a nice vegetable roll you can pick up for about $4.50. It has avocado, carrot, cucumber, and lettuce. Yum! Unfortunately, they do not distribute the veggie rolls to all the cafes on campus like they do a few other rolls. SO you have to walk to the Student Center. Another disadvantage is they close by 3 pm. So if you need dinner, you are out of luck. 3/5 stars for being tasty, but not very convenient.

Please excuse my lame picture. I took it with my laptop camera while waiting for class to start.

City Cakes & Cafe in Salt Lake City, Utah

Now for my favorite bakery of all time! CITY CAKES! I absolutely love this place. They have basically every vegan treat you could ever want (and gluten free too!). Cookies, scones, cupcakes, biscotti, brownies, lemon bars, raspberry bars, pies, cakes, AND, Ben and my personal favorite, tiramisu.

Here are some pictures of their lovely treat collection (sorry all the pictures are so crappy, it was late and night and all we had was Ben's phone camera):

And here is what Ben and I got after going to Ching Thanksgiving last weekend. I got a triple fudge brownie (yum) and Ben got a tiramisu. I honestly think they have the best tiramisu I have ever tasted. We also picked up two cupcakes for Ben's sister's boyfriend, because it was his birthday.

City Cakes also has vegan sandwiches, soups, and mac and cheese. I have never had their sandwiches or soups, but their mac and cheese is so-so. City Cakes also caters and makes beautiful wedding cakes. Ben got his birthday cake from City Cakes last year and it was fabulous. Check out their website here for more information. They also have a Facebook here. 5/5 stars!

Ching Thanksgiving #2

Today is Vegan MOFO day 15. This month is just flying by! I can hardly believe it. Besides MOFO being halfway over it also means Ben and I have less than a month left in our semester. AHHH!

Anyway, on Saturday Ben and I went to the Vegan Thanksgiving  that I already blogged about here. It was so much fun. I love Ching events and socializing with so many vegan people! What a great community. Though the exact numbers have not been posted I would estimate there were nearly 400 people there. It was insane! The doors opened and the silent auction started at 4 pm. Ben and I showed up around 4:30 and hung around, checking out the silent auction, which was awesome. Though we didn't buy anything there were plenty of things I wanted to buy. Gift certificates, gift baskets, clothes, stickers, art, food... awesome. Dinner was served at 5 pm and Ben and I were lucky we weren't at the end of the line. We were eating by around 5:30, but there were probably still 200 people in line! They finally sold out of tickets by about 6 pm, but by then there were soooo many people! I am super happy for Ching's success. What is awesome is that all the food was donated and/or sponsored by Whole Foods, Cali's Natural Foods, Sage's Cafe, Vertical Diner, Sunflower Farmer's Market, Cakewalk, and The Humane League. So all the money goes right to the animals! Hopefully it will make some kind of a dent in their enormous food costs for their animals. It takes approx. $4,000 PER MONTH to feed all of the animals at Ching!

Enough of that. Ben and I left around 6 before the speaker (Nick Cooney) and dessert. We decided to head up to City Cakes in Salt Lake to get our own dessert so we wouldn't have to wait so long (blog post on City Cakes to come tomorrow). Now to the food.

Here is my plate:

Going clock wise we have: raw cranberry-nut stuffing side salad thing, mashed potatoes and cheesy gravy, seitan cutlets, baked yams and onions, stuffing, sweet yams, and corn.

Here is a pano view of my extended plate:

As you can see I was not satisfied by my tray of food. I also got a nice salad with balsamic vinaigrette and a whole wheat roll with earth balance. Not pictured here is my cinnamon and nutmeg-y apple juice.

I cannot rave enough about the food. I am a 'save the best for last' type person, so I saved my mashed potatoes, seitan, and stuffing for last. They were absolutely fabulous. I LOVED the cheesy gravy and the perfect seitan. The stuffing was fabulous too. Though I ate it first, I also loved the raw cranberry stuff. Very good.

Below are some pictures I pulled from a friend's facebook album of the event.

Here is the assembly line to fill your plate:

Ahh! There we are! If you know us, you will recognize us. If not, we are the people basically in the middle of the picture. Wish we had taken one of ourselves... By the way, this picture was taken before a ton of people showed up. Within half an hour all those seats were filled!

The speaker that we didn't stay for. Looks pretty cool though!

And dessert, which we also didn't stay for. Looks like various kinds of pies. Yum!

Finally... my empty plate. I ate it all!

Twice Baked Potatoes

As I promised, twice baked potatoes. Originally I got the recipe for some twice baked potatoes from my McDougall book but, as is the trend with many of his recipes, they were pretty bland. So we decided to add a few ingredients of our own. Ben threw them together and his results were amazing! These don't need ketchup or anything. They are super tasty! The recipe below is for two baked potatoes.

Brush potatoes with a little bit of oil and then bake at 425 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Remove potatoes from the oven and slice a bit off of the potato, length-wise (around 1/4"). Scoop out the insides of the potato, leaving a bit attached to the skin to hold it up. Place the potato insides in a bowl and mix with the following ingredients:

3-4 T Water
3 T Parsley
2 Scallions, chopped
1/4 C Soy bacon bits (I used the dried kind from the bulk section)
Nutritional yeast to taste

Take the mixture and stuff it back into the potatoes. Top with paprika, black pepper, and bacon bits. Put potatoes back into the oven at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

ProBars

Ok. I'm pretty much the worst MOFO'er ever. I have hardly cooked anything since the beginning of Vegan MOFO and all my posts are product review or restaurant reviews. How lame is that? What kind of a vegan cook am I? Honestly, it has just been tough to cook lately. With the end of the semester approaching I am caught up in finishing all my homework and my finals. Today marks the 12th day of Vegan MOFO and I have posted 11 times. At least no one can say I haven't been posting! I am a faithful poster 6 days of the week! It's something ;)

But this weekend is going to be different. With three different Thanksgiving dinners coming up, two of which I am cooking for, I need to get testing! I am planning on testing three roll recipes, pecan pie, pumpkin pie, vegan roast beef, and Yorkshire pudding recipes this weekend. SO! Thanksgiving recipes to come! Ben is also currently at home making twice-baked potatoes, so watch out for that recipe in the next few days.

But for now—Product review! I am going to review THE BEST energy/hiking/meal bars out there folks... ProBars! The ProBar company was founded in Heber City, Utah—about 45 minutes away from where I live. Though I still have yet to try their 70% organic 'fruition' snack bars, I have tried almost every other flavor of their two other collections. All bars are certified organic and 100% vegan :) I also love their awesome package art work! Another thing I love about them is they are hardly ever too sweet like other bars (ex. clif bars). They also have a great texture. They never taste like mashed up grains and protein powder in a bar. They have fun ingredients that make for great flavored bars. Yum!

Below I will review my favorite bars and give them ratings out of five stars. I am not sure how far the bars are distributed, but I know you can buy them from the company online and get them on Amazon. Check for a store near you at their website here.

Sweet & Savory Collection

Cherry Pretzel - While this bar had a nice mix of sweet and salty it wasn't really my favorite. It had nice tart Bing cherries but I don't think the flavors worked too well with the amount of peanut butter that is in it.
2/5 stars

Cocoa Pistachio - This bar was pretty nutty with pistachios, peanuts, and sunflower seeds. I don't think it really sang out and the chocolate was lost in the nuts.
2/5 stars





Art's Original Collection

Old School PB&J - Unlike the name, this bar tastes nothing like a pb&j. While I liked what it was trying to do with the oats, peanut butter, almonds, and raspberries, it just didn't have the same juicy feel as real jelly. But the tastes were there, so I liked it generally.
3/5 stars

Whole Berry Blast - I liked this one. Though it didn't have a distinct flavor the ingredients worked well together to make a good, healthy bar. The bar contains an almond butter base, cashews, whole blueberries and strawberries, and surprise ingredient! pineapple. I really like the whole berries in this one.
5/5 stars

Superfood Slam - Like the Whole Berry Blast this bar doesn't have super distinct flavors. The unsweetened chocolate kind of hides a lot of it but I love it for its ingredients. Barley grass, dates, acai, and raspberries make this bar packed with nutrition. This is a good all-around bar.
5/5 stars


Art's Original Blend - Ah! I love this one. I love the tropical flavor the papaya gives it and the crunch of the pumpkin seeds and cashews. So yummy!
5/5 stars




Koka Moka - This one gets mixed reviews. I didn't like it and didn't think you could taste the 'koka.' But Ben really liked it.The bar is made without coffee or caffeine, though it uses 'coffee flavor.' It also has Brazil nuts, chocolate, and almonds.
3/5 stars


Nutty Banana Boom - Coconut, bananas, chocolate, and oats go well together. The bar even has big pieces of banana. But it wasn't my favorite. While tasty, it wasn't 'wow.'
4/5 stars




Cran Lemon - FAVORITE! This bar is my absolute favorite. Oh man do I love it. It doesn't have that mashed up multi-flavor taste like a lot of energy bars. Instead it is beautifully citrusy with lemons and pineapple. I love the taste of the papaya and the whole cranberries gives it just a little more punch with great texture. Can I rave enough about this bar? Never.
5/5 stars