Vegan Chocolate Chip Coookies (by popular demand)

Homestyle Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies (recipe by Dreena Burton)
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1⁄2 teaspoon baking soda
1⁄4 cup unrefined sugar
1⁄4 teaspoon sea salt
1⁄3 cup pure maple syrup
1⁄4 teaspoon blackstrap molasses
1 – 1 1⁄2 teaspoons vanilla
1⁄4 cup canola oil (a little generous)
1⁄3 cup non-dairy chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350°F (176°C). In a bowl, sift in the flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Add the sugar and salt, and stir until well combined. In a separate bowl, combine the maple syrup with the molasses and vanilla, then stir in the oil until well combined. Add the wet mixture to the dry, along with the chocolate chips, and stir through until just well combined (do not over-mix). Place large spoonfuls of the batter on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and flatten a little. Bake for 11 minutes, until just golden (if you bake for much longer, they will dry out). Let cool on the sheet for no more than 1 minute (again, to prevent drying), then transfer to a cooling rack.
I make these for every holiday and event, and they are the BEST chocolate chip cookies ever. I have heard this from vegans and omnivores alike. You have to taste them to believe it!

Mushroom Hunters

While out at Mike's grandmother's farm, we went for a hike and came across this fantastic mushroom, called Hericium erinaceus, or the Bearded Hedgehog. It is quite edible, and very delicious. Be careful, though, if you are out and see mushrooms. ALWAYS check first to make sure that it is edible. But for a vegan, this is a GREAT meal option. The slices of the mushroom were bigger than your typical veggie burger and there were a LOT of them. This one mushroom could feed a whole room full of vegans, haha!

Vegan Thanksgiving 2009

Although we have been vegan for nearly 3 years, we have never invited our family to have Thanksgiving at our house. Well, this was the year!! And I have to say, it was a success. First of all, you can't go wrong with a fire in the fireplace and lots of great wine. But our menu was one that no omnivore (person who eats meat and plants) could pass up. We had: Tofurkey, baked corn, green beans, rolls and bread, mashed potatoes and vegetarian gravy, twice-baked potatoes, cranberries, stuffing, squash, apple pie, pumpkin pie, vanilla soy ice cream, and homemade chocolate chip cookies with coffee. The pies, by the way, were bought and baked...I did not have time to make pies from scratch. Mrs. Smith's makes great pies that have no eggs or dairy in them, but be sure to CHECK YOUR LABELS! So we were all very stuffed, very thankful, and had tons of leftovers for days!

Quickie Soup and Sandwich

Another fast meal: Large can of tomato soup (store brand!) mixed with water or plain soy milk, and grilled "cheese" sandwiches. Just use soy cheese (Vegan Gourmet is pretty easy to find) and Earth Balance buttery spread. Serve with applesauce or some other quick veggie/fruit! This meal always gets two thumbs up from the kids!

Green Festival D.C. 2009

Once in a while we get out without the kids, and we recently went to the Green Festival in Washington, D.C. What a great time! There was so much to see, and lots of great environmental and vegan resources. This year, of particular note, the food court was entirely veg and it was something to see. We ate SO MUCH! Mark your calendars for fall of next year, folks, because if you are in the D.C. area, the Green Festival is NOT to be missed.

Breakfast!

Can you believe it's VEGAN? What a fantastic, hearty breakfast to try when the whole family is home on the weekend! Fry up some potatoes, buy some vegan sausage (or make your own) and make it into patties, and whip up a tofu scramble that is sure to please. Simply fry up some peppers, onions, and mushrooms, add some crumbled tofu, and sprinkle on some nutritional yeast, turmeric, salt, and pepper. This was a holiday breakfast for us!

Activism Firsthand.

I helped Dale from New Leaf Vegan Society by running the table for an afternoon at the Watermelon Park Music Festival. We had a great time and met some cool people! For food I set up a "Vegan Milk and Cookies" display with three kinds of plant based milks and began chocolate chip cookies...mmmmmmm...

Vegcast.

Do you love listening to podcasts like I do? Try Vegcast! It is a great for the whole family to listen to. Vance Lehmkuhl is very entertaining, and they always have great guests and music. The kids love the theme song!

Spiced Banana Pancakes Recipe.

Spiced Banana Pancakes
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
1/8 tsp. ground cloves
1 Tbsp. ground Flaxseed (totally optional)
1 ¼ cups soymilk
3-4 medium bananas
Earthbalance (vegan butter, available at many grocery stores)
1. In bowl, combine dry ingredients and set aside.
2. In blender, combine milk and ½ the bananas. Mix with the dry ingredients well. Chop up the rest of the bananas and add to the mix.
3. Preheat the oven to about 190 degrees.
4. Put a little Earthbalance in the pan. Pour about ¼ cup of mixture for each pancake. Cook until bubbles form on top and then flip. Keep cooking until brown and yummy.
5. Put onto a plate that will not melt in the oven and keep adding the pancakes as you cook them. After you add the cakes, put the plate in the oven to keep them warm.
6. Eat with vegan sausage and hot coffee or juice! These pancakes are super-moist...bananas make a great substitute for eggs!

Stir Fry Quickie!

We do eat at home once in a while! Here is a great stir-fry. I get the bag of frozen stir-fry mix at the grocery. I also go to the co-op or the My Organic Market for quick, frozen mock meats. This one is an Asian pepper steak, and my friends cannot believe that it is not real meat! Heat it up really quick with some soy sauce, throw it on top of some noodles or rice (Minute rice, of course), and you have a great vegan meal that fits snugly between getting home and all of the other things like homework, gymnastics, scouts, you name it!! Whew!

New Leaf at EarthFest.

This is my friend Dale Ball from the New Leaf Vegan Society. We met at the Earth Fest in Berryville, VA, and have done a few events together since then. We will hopefully be able to keep doing tables at events some more in the future. We did really well with this event by utilizing VegFund.

The Yabba Pot.

If you are in Baltimore, a GREAT place to bring your family is the Yabba Pot. We really liked it there, and the food was really good. There is so much to do in Baltimore, you should make a whole day of it. The Yabba Pot is all-vegan and the prices are reasonable. Try the BBQ tofu and the Chick-un salad! Kids will love it too, as it has a great atmosphere...we loved all the colors.

We Recommend...

If you are ever in Richmond, VA, we highly recommend the Panda Veg restaurant. It is 100% vegan, family friendly, moderately priced, and even has a vegan buffet in the evening! There are so many choices! We ate there twice in one day, once when we pulled into the city, and once after we spent the afternoon at the Richmond Science Museum.

Vegan S'mores

We finally got a hold of some "Sweet and Sara" vegan marshmallows from the My Organic Market this summer and had S'mores for the first time in ages!

Latest Vegan Potluck.

Our vegan round table today was very successful! We ate a LOT of great food, met some new vegans, and had a great time. This was the first vegan potluck for Mike, and he was really into it. It is amazing that he has been vegan for two and a half years and had never been to a potluck/get-together before! I did my vegan banana pancakes demonstration for the group, and this time I added chocolate chips. You! We had all sorts of goodies like vegan quiche and blueberry pie. I can't wait for the next time!

The New Leaf Vegan Society.

I am starting this today because we are about to leave for a vegan baking get-together. My friend Dale is the director of the New Leaf Vegan Society, and it has been a great outlet for my vegan social networking! Here is a photo from the demonstration that I did last year.

In the beginning...

Veganism plays a major role in the lives on me, my husband, and my children. I have been playing around with the idea of starting a blog that shows the real-life aspects of being vegan with kids in this crazy, fast-paced world. I get about 20-30 or more questions a day about what we eat, wear, how the kids cope, etc. Hopefully, this will be a great record of how one family did it and how it has changed our lives for the better in so many ways!