Roman Bars: Get Them In Your Belly!

A few years ago I heard about Roman Bars, a sort of chocolate-covered fruit newton. They sounded yummy, but since I'm not a fan of the whole mixing fruit with dessert thing, I didn't give it much thought.

Then, a few weeks ago, I was reminded of them by QuarryGirl and I could no longer resist; that chick should be a food photographer! Seriously, my photo does not do justice to this delicious creation.

Anyhoo, The Roman Bar: it is, indeed, a supersized fruit newton cookie type thing covered in rich, dark chocolate. But, this ain't your mamma's fig newton; not even close. The fruit is sweet and tasty, the cookie is moist and yummy, AND IT'S COVERED IN DARK CHOCOLATE! It comes in three flavors, but rumor has it that only the raspberry & blueberry are vegan. Who needs you anyway, stupid apricot?  *please see comments for update!

So, even though I'm not a fan of raspberry flavored things, I tried the raspberry and it knocked my socks off. Then I gave one to my Mom who love, love, LOVES raspberry flavored things (especially paired with chocolate) and she nearly flipped. Then she looked at the calorie label and flipped again (apparently they're practically good for you, what with all that fruit & stuff). Then she pointed out that they reminded her of those chocolate-covered jelly grahams that you can get from the supermarket at Passover, except for that those are not nearly vegan because they contain gelatin and other assorted gross stuff.

Point being, these delicious combo concoctions can be considered a candy bar, a health bar, any kind of bar you want; I'm just telling you that they are delish. To re-cap: the fruit does not taste fake (uh, because it's not), the cookie is super moist, and whoever is in charge of the chocolate dipping deserves a round of applause for generosity.

Unfortunately, these suckers are not currently available on the east coast, but you can order them directly from the website. You have to order them by the box and it will seem silly to be buying 16-24 at a clip, but it won't seem silly once you taste one. And then taste one refrigerated. Then one frozen. Then one a little melty. Then hoard the rest from your mom only feeling a little bit bad because, after all, when you first went veg she acted annoyed that you didn't want Thanksgiving turkey even though you never liked turkey before and she never even liked turkey herself! Aw heck, share the Roman Bars with your mom, would ya please? Neither of you eat turkey!

Vegan Struffoli!!!!

Well, I've been vegan for ten years, and my mom finally made me vegan struffoli! For those of you who don't know, struffoli is an Italian dessert that you typically see around the holidays. Basically, it's a pile of small balls of fried dough drizzled with honey and sprinkles (some people add almonds and those nasty fruit bits you find in fruitcake). It's simple, but inexplicably delicious. And now, a vegan version!  (1/1/13 updates listed below)

Big shout out to VegWeb, where my vegetarian mom found the recipe by googling "vegan struffoli" (yeah, she's crafty like that). And a special thanks to Megan Rascal's mom (Megan Rascal of Vegansaurus) for being another great mom to a vegan and admirably fulfilling her duties as such with pride, glee, and pink food coloring.

This is my condensed & slightly simplified version of the VegWeb recipe; I won't be offended if you just go ahead and ignore mine for the original:

wet:

1/2 cup unsweetened soy milk

1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

3 tablespoons vegan margarine, melted

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 teaspoon freshly squeezed orange juice (optional use it)

1 teaspoon freshly grated orange peel

1 teaspoon freshly grated lemon peel (optional use it)

dry:

2 1/2 cups flour (plus extra for your hands during dough prep)

1/2 cup sugar

3 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

miscellaneous:

about 2 cups vegetable oil for frying

finishing touches:

1 to 2 cups agave nectar (mix with brown rice syrup for a more honey like consistency)  definitely use Suzanne's Specialties' Just Like Honey; it's incomparable!

sprinkles (MUST be non-pareils. I don't know why, it just does!)

Directions:

1) Mix wet ingredients in a large bowl.

2) Mix dry ingredients in a medium bowl.

3) Slowly add dry ingredients to wet ingredients (don't stir too vigorously) .

4) When it starts to look like actual dough, generously brush some flour on your hands and use them for the final mixing.

5) Liberally sprinkle your hands with flour as you take a cookie size handful of dough, roll it into a ball, roll the ball into little gum-cigar sized logs, and the slice your logs into blueberry size pieces (I know they'll be a big rectangular). Repeat until you've turned your lump of dough into a heaping pile of tiny doughballs.

6) In a medium pot (to minimize oil splatter), pour about an inch of oil so that the balls are floating while they cook; add as needed. When the oil is piping medium hot, start dropping in your balls a few at a time.  If the oil is too hot, the balls will cook faster than you can scoop them out.  Cook only a couple at a time until you find the temperature that allows you to drop in the dough, wait a few seconds, flip, and remove; your goal is a light tan color.

7) The balls will cook very quickly; you'll want to turn them as soon as the bottom tans & then remove them with a slotted spoon as soon as both sides are tan.  See above.

8) Pile them on paper towels to absorb the excess oil and eat plenty while they're hot because they'll taste like yummy mini-donut holes.

9) Prepare by filling containers with the balls and then drizzling liberally with your agave/brown rice syrup mixture.

10)Douse with sprinkles and enjoy!

I'd also recommend that you make this recipe with a loved one for two reasons:

- It really is helpful for one person to concentrate on frying while the other prepares the dough balls.

- They won't judge you for experimenting during the preparation by frying up dough-coated Late July cookies and making fresh jelly donuts*.

*You might want to double the recipe if you're going to be sampling as much as we did.