A litttle cup of love

A cup of love, you say? Why, yes, but not the beverage kind. Remember those Reese's peanut butter cups? With all that milk-saturated chocolate, hydrogenated margarine, and crappy peanut butter? Yeah, yeah, they were good, but oh so unhealthy. VEGirl decided to take the matter into her own hands and late one night a pure chocolate peanutty cup of love emerged.

Mine aren't an identical copy. Goodness no, they are much better! Not exactly healthy, but most definitely an improvement over the original. Give them as holiday gifts, stuff in stockings, or at least get them out of the house before you are tempted to eat the whole batch!

Peanut butter cups of love

You will need: 25 candy wrapper cups

1/3 c. peanut butter
2 teaspoons arrowroot starch (or cornstarch)
1 tablespoon agave nectar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
pinch salt

1 1/2 c. chopped chocolate or chocolate chips
2 squares (1 square inch each) 100% cocoa bakers chocolate (about two tablespoons) (optional)

Set out 25 little foil candy cups. In a small bowl, mix together the peanut butter, agave, arrowroot, vanilla, and a healthy pinch of salt. Form this mixture into twenty-five 1/2 inch balls and set aside.

Place the chocolate chips and baker's chocolate, if using, in a heat safe bowl (for the microwave or toaster oven), or in a double boiler. Whatever melting method you use, stir the chocolate frequently to prevent scorching, until it is smooth.

Now to the assembly! Take a foil cup, fill it a third way with melted chocolate, then press one peanut butter ball into it. Top it off with more chocolate, filling the wrapper almost to the top. Repeat this until all your wrappers are filled. Allow to set completely before serving, gifting, or gobbling yourself.

Printable recipe

Holiday Gift Guide

The holidays are officially upon us, and everyone has to start thinking about gifts! My oh my! This year, I want to spread the vegan/animal-friendly/environmental word through gifts. Here are some ideas for you!

Sponsoring an animal for someone is a great gift. A lot of animal organizations and foundations have this system; you donate money for a particular animal and the person you gift it to receives a certificate of thanks. This is a great one for long-distance gifts. places such as Farm Sanctuary, and local organizations offer this.

Building on the previous gift idea: donate to environmental/humanitarian/animal organizations, depending on the gift receiver's interests or passion. Since not all organizations give you the option of donating in someones name, you could make a little certificate of recognition yourself!

Gift products made with recycled materials. Preserve is a company that uses old yogurt cups and consumer's #5 plastic to make kitchen, tableware, and personal care products. Their process of manufacturing these products uses much less resources and power then making normal plastic. The products also look nice! Check out their website.




Bake you present! Baking or making candy for people is a sweet (*haha*) way to express your gratitude to them for being a great friend or family member. I have a list down to the floor of baked goods to create the people on my nice list! The way to make sure you cook the right thing for people is to sneakily ask them in the middle of conversation or something. I like Hannah of Bittersweet's list of baked gift ideas. You'll also see some recipes on my blog coming up!

With the need to restrict spending more and more, giving recipes and samples for low-cost beauty and household products are good gifts. For instance, recipes and samples for homemade soaps, lotions, lip balms, cleaners, etc. These are also more eco-friendly, since they don't come in all the packaging and the ingredients are generally easy to buy bulk and cheap.

Well, that's all I have for now. What are you gifting this year?