Chocolate Peanut Butter Crispy Treats

Oh, and what a treat they are! I first tried these at a class at the Natural Gourmet in New York City and thought they were wonderful. The beauty of this recipe is how flexible it is. You can make the crispy treats more chocolaty or if you really love peanut butter, just add more of that and less chocolate. The class instructor added as a side note that she sometimes adds coconut flakes. I thought that sounded like a great idea and I plan to try that next time.

The original recipe calls for:

creamy, salted peanut butter

unsweetened chocolate

agave syrup

crispy brown rice cereal

I ended up using:

1/2 cup unsweetened, salted peanut butter (whole foods brand)

1 cup dark chocolate, unsweetened (Rapunzel Organic Baking Chocolate Chips 55% cocoa)

1-2 tbsp agave

2 cups crispy brown rice cereal (Erewhon)

First place the peanut butter in a pot over medium heat. Stir as it melts. Add the chocolate and continue stirring until the chocolate is completely melted and incorporated into the peanut butter (see picture above). You can take the pot off the heat and continue stirring as the heat from the contents of the pot will melt the newly added chocolate. Do not let your peanut butter mixture burn.

Now this is where I started tasting to see if I liked the balance of flavors. I added about triple the amount of chocolate from what the original recipe had.

Add the agave if you like it a little sweeter.

Take the pot off the heat and add the rice crispy cereal. Stir to coat.


Using a clean spoon, drop the cereal into small piles or balls on a parchment lined cookie sheet. I used a rectangular cake pan. Place the pan in the freezer for 10 to 15 minutes.

Once they have set in the freezer you can pull them off the parchment paper and place them in whatever container you like. Store them in the freezer or refrigerator.


When serving, they are best eaten as soon as you take them out of the refrigerator as they do get a little messy on your fingers. I do not remember the ones I tried in class melting so quickly in my hands, so it is possible the instructor did something a little different than what is written in her recipe.

This recipe is gluten, corn and dairy free and not lacking in any richness or flavor. If you want to make this for a gluten-sensitive person, make sure to read the ingredients on the rice cereal box. Some of them may say "wheat free" but contain barley malt which does contain a small amount of gluten.

I plan on taking these in to work with me in the morning for one of our kitchen staff's birthday. I also made a gluten-free pumpkin bread that I will top with a cream cheese brown sugar frosting. I hope he likes them both!

Good Eats at The Cove

My boyfriend and I stopped at The Cove in San Antonio, Texas during our 6-week cross country trip this Spring. I saw this place on Diners, Drive-Ins' and Dives with Guy Fieri. I am so glad I happened to catch that show because these are the best fish tacos I have ever had. So here's a small part of the menu...

I ordered a fish taco and a shrimp taco. The fish taco had freshly grilled, juicy mahi mahi topped with cabbage and a spicy jalapeno mayo sauce on it. Just the right amount of heat and citrus.

My boyfriend ordered one of the burgers. We noticed this sign on the wall about where their meat comes from. Nice touch. They serve grass-fed beef, bison, lamb and chicken and all from farms in Texas. No antibiotics, no hormones and the greens are all organic.

I still compare every taco I have to the ones I ate here. If you are in the area, definitely check this place out.

Life less Gluten in San Antonio

Day 14 of our cross-country trip and we are having a blast. We are currently in Austin, Texas taking a break from driving and actually staying in one place for 4 days. After all this travelling through the South, I have been more than ready for a meal that I know is gluten free. We visited The Little Aussie Bakery and Cafe while we were in San Antonio a couple days ago. I ordered the Big Bloke Sandwich with Roast Beef, which I think was actually roasted brisket. It tasted delicious.

Michael ordered the Lasagna with tomatoes, spinach, cheese and a bechamel sauce. I think it had a little pesto in it too. It tasted great, but was more like a macaroni bake because they used elbow macaroni instead of lasagna sheets.
We really enjoyed our meal, and I liked the bread so much that I bought a loaf of the House Bread to take on the road with us. The only major downside was that everything was reheated in a microwave. So my sandwich was nice and warm, which made the bread even better, but it had that slight chewiness that the microwave gives to things. We also purchased some desserts to go. 2 chocolate cupcakes and a slice of the apple spice cake. They were a little dry, as gluten-free baked goods can get, but the flavors were fantastic. I could tell that if they were freshly made that I would have loved them. So if you stop by, try to get the baked goods on the day they are made.

Road Trip!

I am currently in Atlanta, Georgia at the end of the first week of a 6-week cross country trip. We left New Jersey on Wednesday the 25th and have driven through Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, N Carolina, S Carolina and Georgia. Today we plan to head back north to N Carolina so that we can cross over the Smoky Mountains into Tennessee tomorrow.

If you would like to follow along check out my blog for the trip On The Road.

I did a lot of research for this trip before we left and have pages of notes from websites like roadfood.com, roadsideamerica.com and of course, I checked out all the gluten free sites I could to find food along the way. I really want to experience the local food and I know that means I am taking my chances with wheat exposure. And let me tell you, everything down here in the south is fried even if it doesnt say so on the menu.

Last night we found this place in Atlanta:

It was absolutely worth the multiple wrong turns to find it out in a suburb of the city. The Real Chow Baby is a make-it-yourself stir fry restaurant. You add ingredients to your bowl and then top it with sauce and seasonings and then you give it to the grill guy. He cooks everything for you on this massive round, flat grill and then your bowl is brought to your table. Here is the sauce menu and notice the sugar free, vegan and gluten free indications.

These are the bowl we created with our rice and veggies. I topped mine with the coconut curry and red thai curry sauces.

Then the finished (cooked) product was delivered to our table. Both of our creations were absolutely delicious! The wait staff were friendly and helpful. A really terrific experience all around. I am just so sad that there are only 2 of these places and they are in Atlanta.

Book Review: 1,000 Gluten Free Recipes

I love buying cookbooks. Sometimes I pick them off a store shelf the same way I pick a bottle of wine, by how the label or cover looks. This doesn't always pan out when trying a new wine, but most of the time it turns out well. I have cookbooks in my bookshelf that I have never opened. I get intrigued by the possibilities that lie inside when I first see the book in the store, and I fall in love with the pictures and then when I get it home... it sits. I always eventually get to them. There will be a time when I am looking for an idea and that book will have exactly what I am looking for.
I received a copy of Carol Fenster's new book, "1,000 Gluten-Free Recipes" a couple months ago. I was hoping to dig in immediately, but have only been able to make one recipe from it so far. I made the basic brownies. They came out just ok. She warns that they may remain gooey in the middle as if they are not cooked enough, but not to cook them too long. Mine definitely did not seem cooked enough in the middle. The ones around the edges looked great though, see picture below.

I will have to give this recipe another try once I rescue the book from the huge pile of boxes located in my living room. We are in the process of packing up the house in southern new jersey and then leaving for a 6 week trek across the united states, which could end in a relocation to California! More to come....

Train With the Professionals...

The Culinary Institute of America is has Gluten Free Baking Classes! Yes, it is true. I have been cooking gluten free for about 5 years now and I think I have a good sense of what works and what doesn't, but there is still so much to learn. It is a great opportunity to train with a Chef that has the resources of one of the largest culinary schools in the world. Just imagine the recipe testing he has been able to do with no worries of how many batches come out poorly. And hurray for the CIA, creating a class to train chef's and home cooks on how to work with gf ingredients. This is indeed a good sign.

There are 2 classes coming up at the Hyde Park, NY location, February 28th and March 14th. The class costs $325.00 and you will receive a signed copy of Chef Richard Coppedge's cookbook, "Gluten-Free Baking". The class will cover yeast-raised breads and pastries, cookies, brownies, cakes, pies, quiche and pizza. The day will also include a light breakfast and lunch, lecture, hands-on-baking and a specially prepared GF dinner at one of the campus restaurants. I am signed up for the Feb 28th class, so if you do not get to go, I will let you all know how it went.

Read more about the class and register here.

Here is a review of the class in the NY Daily News, which is also where I borrowed the image above from.

Absence makes the blogger grow...

...spiritually and professionally, (not in size... I hope)

Poor, poor neglected blog. I have been so busy with other projects that I have not stopped by here in awhile and everything is all dusty. My absence here doesn't mean I have not been cooking, on the contrary. I have been cooking up a storm, or should I say baking. So I am back, have cleaned off the dust from the ol' blog, and am ready for some exciting typing adventures.

I have already posted two gluten free product reviews over the last two days. I know these are not meals I made from scratch, and I do prefer making things myself, but I also like to check what is out there in the marketplace for us non-wheat-eating-foodies.

The major project I have been working on is fulfilling special orders for my gluten and dairy free baked goods, specifically Zucchini Bread, Pumpkin Bread and Chocolate Cupcakes. Grapevine Natural Grocery, a health food store in Newtown, PA is helping to get these goodies to customers, and they are moving quickly. The breads come in two sizes, a small 3oz loaf perfect for a kid's lunch and an 8 or 10oz loaf. The chocolate cupcakes come in a 6-pack container, or a 12-pack mini-cupcake container. (The picture above is of the small pumpkin loaves still in the pan).

They are all made in small batches and from mostly organic ingredients. Ingredients for each of the loaves can be found here. If you live in the area, you can pick them up at Grapevine, or contact me for individual orders. This is a special passion of mine as I love to bake, and it is so fulfilling when I can help people enjoy baked goods again. Even those who do not have food allergies are ordering them, which is a great complement!

I also had the pleasure of working with Chef Joanne Weir again, this time at the annual fundraising event, Connoisseur's Dinner, benefiting Penn State's radio and tv station, WPSU. The event included a 5-course dinner featuring Joanne's recipes as well as a cooking demo earlier in the day. I will write more about this wonderful event soon.

So, thank you for joining me on my culinary journeys. I have a backlog of great recipies to share which I will be getting to soon. Many exciting food adventures are to come in 2009, including a road trip across the southern United States. What tasty bites can we find there?!

The Grapevine Natural Grocery is located at 5 N. State Street, Newtown, PA 18940 phone: 215-860-8878