Simple Peanut Butter Pasta

I have been a huge fan of peanut butter pasta ever since I first tried it. I have used many different variations, and usually it just happens to be whatever ingredients sound like a good fit and are in the house. : ) Here is a version of a quick and simple vegan meal.

2 packages of Nasoya noodles
4 tablespoons of peanut butter
1 tablespoon of Earth Balance buttery stick
1 tablespoon Bragg's liquid aminos
2 tablespoons of nutritional yeast flakes

Drain and rinse the Nasoya noodles. I usually rinse them for at least a minute under hot water while they are in a colander. Heat the Earth balance and peanut butter on medium heat until melted. Add in the noodles and aminos. Cook on medium heat for another 3 minutes and then add the yeast flakes. Cook for about 2 more minutes while mixing occasionally and then enjoy! Feel free to change or add ingredients according to taste. We would usually put a lot of hot sauce in also but there wasn't any in the house. Also, Whole Foods has a delicious peanut sauce that is a great addition.

The way that I originally made peanut butter pasta many years ago was even simpler. It just included pasta, peanut butter and soy sauce. The way that we currently make it is probably much healthier because it has less sodium. (We used a LOT of soy sauce back in the day.)

The current recipe is for two dinners.

Nutty Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars

While shopping at Target recently we noticed in the Christmas section we noticed something amazingly unhealthy. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups – in a one-pound package. That’s an eight-ounce cup. Such an unhealthy snack but it sounds so delicious. We love chocolate and peanut butter but seeing such a large chunk of chocolate and peanut butter is a little sickening. But, it is still inspiring. We decided to make these nutty peanut butter bars with chocolate as a viable vegan choice. Yeah, it’s not really that much healthier, but when the mood strikes you just have to go with it sometimes (that happens a lot for us).

• ¾ cup walnuts
• ¾ cup cashews
• ½ cup almonds
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• 3 tbs flour
• ¼ cup rolled oats
• 4 tbs vegan butter
• ¾ lb fresh ground peanut butter
• 12 oz vegan chocolate

1. In a food processor add all of the nuts, cinnamon, flour, oats, and 2 tablespoons of vegan butter and pulse until the nuts are chopped.
2. In a microwave safe dish heat the peanut butter so it is a little more workable. Stir the peanut butter every 30 seconds until warm and melted.
3. Add the chopped nut mixture to the peanut butter and stir to combine.
4. Line a square pan with foil and add the peanut butter mixture and smooth out across pan.
5. Melt chocolate with 2 tablespoons of butter. This can be done in a double boiler or in the microwave in a way similar to the peanut butter.
6. Pour the melted chocolate on top of the peanut butter and nut combination.
7. Let the peanut butter and chocolate cool in the refrigerator overnight before cutting into bars (as long as you don’t mind a slightly melted snack you can shorten the time a little bit, we are impatient people).