Did you know that yesterday was the Chinese Moon Festival?
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You’d think, having lived in China, I would’ve known this, but the truth is I had no idea until a friend called me up a few days ago and asked if I wanted to come over to celebrate. Celebrate? Heck, when someone says celebrate, I hear party. And I never pass up an excuse for a party (especially on a school night!). Something else I never pass up? An opportunity to share food, showing others that healthy, vegan food can taste delicious. Therefore, last night I brought the variation of Secret Raw Cheesecake mentioned in my last post, peanut butter cup pie:
Katie, Arisana doesn’t make pnb; how is this post relevant to Artisana Week?
I’ve got it covered. Literally. My pie is covered in homemade Artisana Cacao Bliss! 🙂
Pb and chocolate were meant to be together. My friends all seemed to agree, as they gobbled up the vegan pie faster than you could say “Zhongqiu” (the Chinese word for the moon festival). In retrospect, I probably should’ve made a bigger pie as opposed to a miniature version. But my friend said to bring finger food, as it was a snacky-type party, not a main-dish one. Plus, there were only six of us. So I figured everyone would be happy with a mini slice. That way, they’d save room for all the other delicacies people would bring (which turned out to be an array of non-vegan moon pies and dumplings). Boy was I ever wrong-o! “Is there any more of that peanut butter pie?” seemed to be the mantra of the night. Even the pale green hue (from the zucchini) didn’t phase them. Guess I’ll be making another peanut butter pie in the near future. That’s okay; it only takes a total of about five minutes to make. And the peanut butter variation is much cheaper than the original cashew cheesecake version (thanks to my favorite peanut butter being only $2.50 a tub).
And now I’m going to totally ruin the gorgeousness of the photo above with the abomination below:
Seriously? They wanted more of this stuff? Perhaps I should have shown the above photo first; then I could’ve had an entire pie to myself!
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Healthy “Peanut Butter Cup” Pie
- 1/2 cup (110g) peanut butter
- 1/2 cup (80g) chopped zucchini (or you might sub banana!)
- Optional: choc. chips or melted chocolate
- Other ingredients for the “Secret Veggie” Cheesecake
Make this pie the same way you’d make the veggie cheesecake, but exchange pb for the cashew butter and cut back on (or omit) the lemon juice.
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Do your friends like to eat?
Or do you have a lot of “salad only” friends on diets? I swear, I think my girl friends like to eat more than my guy friends, especially when it comes to dessert. (Beer, now that’s another story.) I’ve even had two ex-boyfriends who didn’t like chocolate! Remind me again why I dated them… oh yeah, ’cause it meant more chocolate for me!
Finally, a shout-out to Erica, who also already made this pb pie!
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You know, I’ve got your recipes bookmarked on my comp. so that as soon as we finish our travels and I get back to my kitchen I can start whipping up some of these concoctions (and even already have when the opportunity presents itself)…yes, think CCK does Japan, Sicily, Paris, Spain…this pie is so on my hit list!
Oh peanut butter pie…that’s just awesome.
I think I have to try that one.
My girl collegues love to eat, but that doesn’t come without complaining how much they’ve eaten, how they should go on a diet….y’know the drill. It’s pretty annoying, and I easily get immersed in thoughts like that too
Oh you are killing me. It is way too early to be looking at PB & chocolate!
I can’t believe you knew (and were with!) people who didn’t like chocolate, lol. Ooh I like being sneaky with desserts occasionally; I will try this recipe soon!
Are you kidding? Most of my girl friends can totally eat!! They are so nice and always have snacks I can eat at parties 🙂
I have a couple guy friends (either my age or adults from places I work at) bu tI haven’t exactly seen any of them eat. But one person I’m thinking of likes chocolate but HATES anything with coconut! WHA?? He was totally making the icky face while I was spilling my guts about my love to coconut butter.
VEGirl
Ps: really pretty picture (the cheesecake that is. I don’t know about the green monster magic bullet thing) 😉
No flash 😉 😉
I would have to stop myself from eating that entire thing. You’re a genius!
my friends and i love to eat! we’re foodies in training 🙂 that pie looks so good and fudgy! i want to lick my screen
Oh My goodness, my family is such a HUGE fan of chocolate and peanut butter 🙂 Yum! I buy my peanut butter from costco-its organic, super creamy (the best I’ve ever tatsed), just peanuts and salt, and it comes in packs of 2 for really cheap 🙂 YAY!
But I have two groups of friends: the girls that don’t exercise and diet, and the athletes who eat a ton! I have a really great friend who wants to go to culinary school to become a pastry chef! We have fun sharing recipes!
Okay, so I have 20493048 things going on in my life right now, but I promise to find SOME time to make this soon! It looks amazing 🙂
My friends are sort of a cross between salad-eaters and ravenous beasts. They’ll eat what ever yummy things I cook up for them when they come over, but after they finish they start to say things like “Kiki, stop making me fat. Now I have to work out more tomorrow!” -__-
So so good! Everything looks and sounds delicious!