Peanut Butter Treats with Chocolate Chips

This is the easiest and quickest recipe that I've made so far for Vegan MoFo! It is Alicia Silverstone's Crispy Peanut Butter Treats with Chocolate Chips from her book, The Kind Diet and her website, The Kind Life.  You can find the recipe posted on her site and it only requires a few ingredients - crispy brown rice cereal, brown rice syrup, a pinch of salt, peanut butter, and vegan chocolate chips (optional if you don't want to add 'em, you don't have to!  I love my chocolate.)

• 1 box brown rice crisps cereal
• 1 3/4 cups of brown rice syrup
• 1 pinch of fine sea salt
• 3/4 cup of natural peanut butter
• 1/2 cup of vegan chocolate chips

1. Pour the rice cereal into a large bowl.
2. Heat the syrup with a pinch of salt in a saucepan over low heat.
3. When the rice syrup liquefies, add the peanut butter and stir until well combined.
4. Pour over the rice cereal and mix well with a wooden spoon.
5. Once thoroughly mixed and cooled to room temperature, stir in the chocolate chips.
6. Make sure the mixture is cool, or you will end up with melted chocolate instead of chocolate chips in your treats.
7. Turn the mixture into an 8"x8" or 9"x13" baking dish.
8. Wet your wooden spoon lightly and press the mixture evenly into the pan.
9. Let cool for 1 hour - if you can - before cutting into squares or bars.

Of course, I didn't realize this until after I had made the treats but I used the wrong kind of cereal!  I had grabbed the "brown rice puffs" at the grocery store instead of "brown rice crisps".  So these aren't quite as crispy as they should be.  In fact, they're a bit soggy.  They still taste fantastic but they don't have that crispiness to them like a rice crispy square does.  So, you might want to make them with the brown rice crisp cereal rather than the puffs.  If for some reason, you can only find the puffed cereal at your grocery store, it will still work. I'll still eat them!

I also used crunchy natural peanut butter because that's what I had and it worked great.

I think I'll be taking this weekend off from blogging and Vegan MoFo.  Thanks to everyone for visiting my blog so far!  I can't believe I have over 1000 hits on my blog now, and I just started writing it a couple of months ago. 

Also, Happy Vegan MoFo Hump Day!!!!  To celebrate, vegan songwriter Leslie Hall has written a song for the occasion!  You can download it here!  And here are the lyrics:

I eat the finest cuisines, in the finest of places  Stuff my mouth full and always say thank you.  But if it's raised in a cage, and it can't even move, if it's hormone filled and in a bad mood.  I'm gonna pass on that.  Reach for something better.  The only milk I'll drink comes from the nipple of a soy bean. Veggies make you live forever, and they seem to taste much better. when they're cooked and grown with love.  So give a chef who knows what's up a hug. Momma just can't seem to get it, Papa he just rolls his eyes. When I tell them I'm much healthier, they just say that it's all lies.  But beans, nuts, fruits and veggies can really fill the belly.  Get you vitamins you need, shiny hair and extra speed.  Don't take that meat-wich any further, I want a marinated, deep fried, hand-tied mushroom burger.  I like it!  We gotta stand strong for our feathered furry sometimes scaly animal friends and their little babies.  'Cuz I wouldn't want to live in a cage in a dark warehouse killed at an early age.  Pumped full of hormones, sleeping in my feces.  Never met my mother, raised by machines.  Never get sunshine never get green, but that's just me.  [That girl loves fruit leather.]  So ask us what we're eating.  Delicious and repeating, fruits and veggies are so nice.  With a slice of tempeh,  yes, I'll have that twice.  Don't forget the legumes!