Vegan Brownies and a fun food shopping day

Dajia hao! How are you guys doing today? Well, I'm going very good, thank you very much. I've had a fun day. It was definitely more eventful than the rest of the summer days I've had since I came from China. I'll talk more about later in the post but for right now, I'll talk about my favorite thing: dessert.

Anyway, I made vegan brownies yesterday! Don't these look delicious? 

Well, they were! These brownies were very good. They are chewy but they are not dry, which surprised me. They have no fat in them. I ate them today and they still taste good and have the moisture. 

I've been looking for healthy versions of the foods I love, so I decided to try to make them. I love brownies, but I don't like how they have all the fat and sugar in them. Brownies have an unusually high amount of both. However, even though my vegan brownies have no fat, they are high in sugar. But, hey. Which sounds healthier to you? High fat and sugar or no fat and high sugar? You may say it depends on the kind of fat but oh well. At least these are healthier than the other brownies. 

And, guess what? They have applesauce and bananas in them. Now, aren't you guys surprised? It still tastes like a really good brownie too. So, now, here's the recipe. 

Ingredients:

• 1 1/3 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup cocoa powder
• 1 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 cup apple sauce
• 1 banana, mashed
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tsp baking powder
• semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. 
2. In a bowl, mix together the apple sauce, banana and vanilla extract. 
3. In another bowl, sift together the dry ingredients. 
4. Slowly mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. The batter will be thick. Then, add the chocolate chips if desired. 
5. Pour into a greased pan and bake for 35 minutes. 
6. Use the toothpick test to see if the brownies are done baking. 
7. Let it cool and then cut into pieces. 
8. Enjoy. :) 

I also made a shirt yesterday. But, I will post that tomorrow. It's a cute racer back shirt that you can wear to workout in. But, for now, you can hear all about my day today. 

So, I went around my university campus today with my cousin, who showed me around. After that, we went out to eat at L&L Hawaiian BBQ. Before I really got into health foods, I would order the chicken katsu, macaroni salad, rice and that stuff. That's at least half a day's worth of calories! But, now, they added healthier options. They have the healthy plate options and I ordered the garlic shrimp one. It came with brown rice and a salad. It was actually pretty good. I added soy sauce to the rice though. Here's a pic:

Looks delicious, huh? I was so psyched that they actually had a healthy menu! This was only around 270 calories. 

After eating this for lunch, we went to Sunflower Farmer's Market. My cousin goes there a lot and I've never been there before. He bought these organic baked apple cinnamon chips that I tried and they were delicious. I just had to buy it from there and I did. 

They had such a huge selection of healthy things! I was in heaven. Vegan, gluten free, you name it. They had it. Their bulk selection is really nice too! I love their salad dressing assortments and their granola bar assortments. I also love their snacks, cereals and everything! I had such a hard time choosing what to buy! I mainly wanted to buy items so that I can snack on them while I'm at school. The university food is expensive and I don't want to waste money buying their food. That's why I want to buy lots of snacks from here. Healthy snacks. Here's what I ended up buying:

I jut had to buy the apple cinnamon smiles cereal. It was just too cute! It's a generic brand but the nutrition isn't bad either.  As for the Clif Crunch Bars, I've heard good things about them. I've tried other Clif brands, including the regular Clif, Luna Bars and Mojo Bars. It's about time I tried their Crunch ones. For the Larabar, it said that the Banana Bread is a discontinued flavor. I don't know if it's true or not, but I bought one just in case it was. And, I've just heard many things about the Shirataki noodles. And, I've already told you guys about the apple chips.

Now, here's the pictures of the salad dressings and some other things:

So, what's your guy's favorite dessert?

Where do you like to go grocery shopping?

What are your favorite healthy snacks?

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie

Hello you people. How are you people doing today? As you know, today is Father's Day. Happy Father's Day!
Anyway, the past week has been quite boring without school, but hey. That's the life during the summer. You stay home and do nothing.
Anyway, the past weekend was my friend's college graduation. Congratulations Amanda. Good luck in pharmacy school. :)  Congratulations to Kim too.
Today was their graduation party. It was pretty fun. Kim made this amazing potato salad, which I have yet to get the recipe. We also played video games, including a dancing one, which I forgot the name of.
Me and Amanda also made this vegan chocolate chip cookie pie, from the blog Chocolate Covered Katie. It was delicious! It tastes like cookie dough. I was scared that people wouldn't like it but people surprisingly liked it. Here's the reason why: It's made with garbanzo beans. Yes. Garbanzo beans. There's no flour. We also used apple sauce. Can't you believe it? Me and Amanda were so worried about how it would turn out but it turned out great! The only problem is that it was a bit too soft. Other than that, it was delicious.
When we made the cookie pie, the food processor was too small so we had to process the ingredients in batches. It took a little longer and a bit more work, but it was rewarding at the end. Here's the recipe for the chocolate chip cookie pie.

Ingredients: 

• 2 cans of garbanzo beans
• 1 cup quick cooking oats
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce
• 3 tablespoon oil
• 1 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup chocolate chips

Directions: 

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. 
2. Mix all the ingredients into the food processor except for the chocolate chips. 
3. Process it in the food processor until smooth. 
4. Mix in the chocolate chips. 
5. Grease a 10 in pie pan and pour the batter in. 
6. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes. 
7. Take it out and let it cool for at least 10 minutes. The inside will be a bit mushy but the outside crunchy. 
8. Enjoy it alone or with a scoop of some sort of ice cream. 

 So, do you guys like cookie pies?
What foods do you guys like to eat that's made with hummus?
Are you scared to try this since it's made with beans?

My weekend and delicious Veggie Dogs

Hello you guys! I can't believe it. I'm going to be graduating! I'm so pumped for graduation. My grandparents are visiting to come watch. I'm so happy they took the trip to watch my graduation ceremony.
The past couple of days were quite fun.  I made 蒸鸡蛋糕 for my grandparents to eat. They loved it. :) I also love hearing their words of wisdom.
Well, yesterday, even though I have no more school, all the seniors had to go back to school just to pick up the cap and gown for graduation. I don't know how long the gown is suppose to be, but, it goes a little bit past my knees. I wonder if it's suppose to be longer or not. Anyway, someone gave me this delicious chocolate bar as an early birthday present.

Lindt's Dark Roasted Almond chocolate bar. This person knows me so well. :) I mean..almonds and dark chocolate? Most people would like regular milk chocolate or peanuts or carmel. This chocolate is also more on the expensive side, but they bought it anyway. Thank you so much. You're the best. The chocolate is delicious. :)

Anyway, after picking up my graduation stuff, me, my cousin and her guy friend went to a nearby Chinese restaurant. They ordered the salted fish and chicken fried rice. But, since I already made my own lunch (my hummus rotini), I ordered a red bean ice dessert. It was delicious.

The red bean is on the bottom of the cup. They even drizzled some caramel on top too. It seriously was one of the best red bean frozen desserts I've eaten. I also love red bean ice cream, red bean popsicle, all that stuff, but seriously. It was amazing.

Anyway, let's talk about today. There was no school, for one thing. I also bought some Veggie Dogs. 

 

I ate them with whole wheat bread. The veggie dogs are only 50 calories each and each slice of bread is 75 calories. For one hotdog, I ate it with hummus. It was delicious. On the other one, I ate it with ketchup, mustard and relish. Also yummy too. :)

For snacks, I had this: 

My dark chocolate and dried blueberries. I'm addicted to dried blueberries. They are my favorite. I also had some apples and chocolate covered pretzels too.

I'm pretty happy that I've stayed a vegetarian for a couple weeks now. My friends doubted I could do it, but I can. It's easy, actually.

Anyway, what's your guy's favorite food?
Do you like chocolate, red bean or both? (I know I LOVE chocolate AND red bean)