New Fieldroast Apple Maple Breakfast Sausages

One of my rare trips to Whole Foods led me to these gems, and I've been munching on them ever since!

The name Field Roast already is credibility enough, but tasting these gave them a huge boost in my trust department. To me they have a eerily similar texture to actual sausage, and what I love most about searing these in a pan with a little olive oil is how all those seasonings (especially the sweetness of the maple syrup) work together to create an enjoyable, vegan experience.

It really doesn't have that "artificial meat" taste, of course a plus.

My two favorite ways to enjoy them are with a seasoned, fried egg or next to a pile of sautéed rainbow swiss chard. Swiss chard reminds me of a better-tasting spinach, though my mom says they're a bit bitter (I wouldn't say kale-bitter, but I dunno... It's an appetizing bitter, then). The recipe for how I prepare rainbow swiss chard can be found here.

Just note:

• Wash the swiss chard THOROUGHLY! Don't want to be bitting down on bugs, sand, and grit.
• I didn't personally use the pepper flakes.
• When cooking the stems, throw them in as soon as the garlic is ready and fragrant. Let them have time to soften because they do take longer to cook than the leaves.

I've been eating them in pairs for quite some time and I still have a few left. Around $4 for a pack of twelve, extremely tasty, meat-free sausages that are packed with protein, vitamins and minerals is A-OK in my book.

Cookie Dough Dip with a Bullet

I'm definitely a lover of chocolate chip cookie dough, so when I ran into a recipe for one you could eat straight and guilt-free... I made sure to make it ASAP.

You can scope the recipe here if you want a gander yourself. Within that, I modified it for my circumstance (Magic Bullet vs. quality food processor). It's from a healthy dessert blogger named Chocolate Covered Katie. Believe me, I was quite skeptical myself, until I Googled people's opinions of all her other treats, including this one. Ultimately, she has my trust, and stomach.

But I digress.

I coddled this recipe as if it were a firstborn. I read through pages of reviews on Chocolate Covered Katie's post for alterations people made, as well as any alternatives I would need to make.

For example, she wants you to use a quality food processor. I do not own a food processor, only a Bullet. So for all of my fellow "I-live-in-an-apartment-and-can-barely-make-room-for-a-toaster-on-my-countertops" patrons, I have my altered recipe that I felt needed to share with anyone else who owned a Bullet, or anything else that wasn't a food processing dream. Because one of the more common complaints I saw was the texture being off-putting. But mine was smoooooooth.

One of the first things I did was take all the skins off each and every chickpea. I only saw one complaint about it, but better safe than sorry.

I then thoroughly rinsed small batches of the chickpeas about half a minute for each cluster, to rid of as much bean-y juice as possible.

 

 As another prep step, I blended the oatmeal needed (for thickness, I assume) into a powder ahead of time with my Bullet.

Below, are the exact instructions from Chocolate Covered Katie's recipe. In red, I'll put the changes I made to ensure a smooth, cookie dough, texture:

• 1 1/2 cups chickpeas (I peeled them skins off) or white beans (1 can, drained and rinsed very VERY well) (250g after draining)
• 1/8 tsp plus 1/16 tsp salt
• tiny bit over 1/8 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup nut butter of choice I used Mara Natha's Raw Maple Almond Butter (You can get away with using only 3 tbsp. (I'm pretty sure I just used 3 tbsp instead of 1/4 c) If you use peanut butter, it’ll have a slight “pb cookie dough” taste, so if you don’t want this, try the Deep Dish Cookie Pie instead. Just don’t bake it.)
• up to 1/4 cup milk of choice, only if needed I didn't use the full 1/4 cup. I used only half of that 1/4 cup, and honestly could've used a little less than that to make it a tad bit more dough-like. For reference, I used vanilla almond milk.
• Sweetener of choice (see note below, for amount) (I didn't add the note, check her website I linked you to earlier! I used brown sugar)
• 1/3 cup chocolate chips, or these: Sugar-Free Chocolate Chips  (A lot of people, including myself, substituted for mini semi-sweet chocolate chips to get more chocolate in each bite)
  
  • 2 to 3 tbsp oats (Ground flax will also work) I blended the oats before I started mixing anything together.

Baby steps: blending before the blender.

Chocolate Covered Katie's instructions CONT'd:

Add all ingredients (except for chocolate chips) to a good food processor (not blender), and blend until very smooth. I did not do this with my Bullet!! Instead, I mixed all the ingredients pretty well in a bowl first, then blended with my Bullet in small incriments. Then mix in the chocolate chips. My Bullet got hot, and so did the "dough", so I let it chill in the fridge before adding the chips. They just melted otherwise. (Some commenters have had success with a blender, but I did not. Try that at your own risk, and know the results will be better in a high-quality food processor such as a Cuisinart.) If made correctly and blended long enough, this should have the exact texture of real cookie dough! Hence my alternative, alerting, red commentary!

The last thing I saw pretty frequently in the comments section was that it tasted best when chilled for a few hours, or even kept in the freezer for a bit. I saw one person make cookie dough balls with this recipe! Froze them and dipped in tempered chocolate.

I don't know about you, but writing this post has made me hungry. I may whip up a batch in a couple of days (out of vanilla almond milk). I hope you have the confidence to try this dip! It really isn't too difficult at all; the outcome is completely worth it!