Spring Rolls, Chocolate & Cinnamon Cookies.

A few months ago when I started getting into blogging about food, my goal was to try making a new thing, at least, once a week. At first, it was hard to do because I never seemed to have the right ingredients for something and I found it quite troublesome to make a trip to the store just to get one item to make a dish complete.
But now I'm learning to just relax and play around with my food a little more. I've also noticed that when I follow a recipe precisely, it doesn't turn out as well as I'd like. For example, too garlicky, too sweet, too salty etc. I tend to like foods that are pretty simple. I don't need a whole lot of flavor for something to be delicious.
And with my sensitive stomach, hot/spicy foods are a no-no.
I'm now making sure I adjust every recipe to fit myself rather then getting the end result to be just as the recipe says it will be. The goal is for the food to taste good to ME. If  I don't have enough of something.....I substitute or omit completely. I'm not running a restaurant or anything and hubby isn't too picky himself.

Sorry, I got a bit side tracked there.

Back to the "Try a new recipe once a week." goal. Well, I've been LOVING my time in the kitchen that I've been making new things on almost a daily basis now. Even if its something as small as a new salad dressing, it counts as something new.  Here are some yummy eats I made this week.

Vegetable Spring Rolls

This was a huge accomplishment for me because I've been meaning to make these for a while now! I remember going to the store and getting the ingredients, but realized when I got home, that I forgot ONE ingredient, so I put it off for oh.....months. This time I decided I'm just going to swing it. Its fine if I don't have the right ingredients to make the perfect sauce. I used what I had and made it work for me.

Assembled my veggies. Carrot, Cucumber, Red Bell Pepper, Avocado, & Spinach.   

Soaked the rice paper for a minute or so and started the rolling process. You'd think veggies wrapped up wouldn't be so hard, but there's really an art (I've yet to master) in making the roll tight and beautiful looking.  In the background you can see my first wraps. The far left is my first and it was horrible, ha! But it got easier and prettier looking after I got the hang of it. 

They could have been a lot tighter, but I was pretty proud of the end result. I love spring rolls because pretty much any vegetable will work and its great way to get a variety of vegetables into a meal. I think Motozo ate more veggies then he normally would if he ate a salad. The sauce was a soy-sauce, vinegar, maple syrup and ginger mix. Nothing fancy. So simple, but very satisfying! 

A light and delicious dinner, enjoyed with some dessert wine.  

Dark Chocolate

Yesterday I had a little chocolate craving after lunch, so I made a single serving and it was perfect!

This was SOOO easy! I don't think I'm going to ever need to buy vegan chocolate again. This is way more economical, quick, and easy to adjust based on what I feel like.

For this, I melted coconut oil (yum!) in the microwave for just a minute. Added agave nectar, vanilla extract and of course, cocoa powder. Mixed everything together and froze to harden. It hardened, literally, in just minutes. I can't wait to play around with this by adding nuts and dried fruit etc. 

Raw Almond Cinnamon Cookies

I'm officially obsessed and addicted to raw cookies! You can't really go wrong making raw sweets because its pretty easy to adjust by adding something. No need to worry about anything rising or not rising. They just have to taste good. So when I accidentally dumped a lot of cinnamon into this, it was no biggy. The extra 

cinnamon flavor got these cookies its name! 

This recipe is just an approximate. I eye balled everything. 

• 2 cups almond pulp (pulp left from making almond milk)
•  1 cup of dates (plus a little more, around 12-15 dates)
• 2 Tbsp ground flaxseeds
• 1 heaping Tbsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 Tbsp coconut oil

Mixed everything up in the food processor and wala. Wonderful cookie dough! These turned out just how I wanted them. Not too sweet or oily. I only wanted to use dates as a sweetener and it was a lovely change from agave and maple syrup. 

See the little pieces of dates? This was really delicious! I usually prefer cashews, pecans, or walnuts over almonds for raw desserts, but this was easy to eat. I'm a fan of almond pulp now! They were firm enough to eat just after mixing everything together, but I like my cookies on the harder side, so into the freezer they went. The beauty of using coconut oil is the wonderful firmness it gives to the cookies when cooled. 

mmmm, cookies! I've always preferred cookies over cakes or pies. How about everyone else?