The Vegan deserts are notably dry, although the blue light does provide a festive look (and red holiday shadows).

Since the desert is composed mostly of Olivine, I recommend a beverage of Ovaltine mulled with Winter Savory.

...Sorry, that's all I've got.

[Hey, I'm posting this from PHL, and we're getting to Houston late this afternoon. We'll be at the Kuffner-Tyler's tomorrow, and otherwise around until we fly back on Monday. Will you be available?]

Bwahahahahahaha! Yes, my sister is from Vega but she looks good in blue so it's okay. Damn your hide for making me double-check my post to make certain I hadn't asked for Vegan Desert suggestions! No biscuits for you, be they Vegan or Solar. *raised eyebrow*

YAY!!!!!!!!!! Yes, I'll be available. Joe is producing the city Christmas event this evening but I think we're otherwise available. You have my cell number and his. Please call us and let us know what's on your schedule. I'd love to see youse guys, especially now that I don't have blisters on the bottoms of my feet.

I'm trying to remember the rules for vegan eating, but I'm drawing a blank. If you can give me a quick rundown, I might be able to come up with something.

And don't knock spiced/sugared nuts. I am regularly threatened if I don't bring mine to every holiday gathering.

Vegetarian + no products of animal origin (dairy, eggs, honey are the big problems in baking)

Hmm...I'd be happy for your recipe for spiced/sugared nuts. I've been trying to cut back on the dairy and eggs I serve at holidays.

We posted at about the same time, so let me just make sure to point out specifically that your list does not include gelatin. Which is a tricky little bugger. Many, many unassuming looking foods that one might assume are vegetarian are not because of the gelatin. (Most gummy candys, Altoids, lots of products that are labeled as "low fat" - the gelatin is used for thickening - and, of course, any Jell-O based dessert.)

I consider gelatin to be "not vegetarian" unless it specifically says, "non-animal gelatin" or "agar." :) That's a PITA when eating at family gatherings and something as innocuous as sour cream contains gelatin.

I figured you were savvy enough to get that, but wasn't positive. :)

I don't know that savvy enter into it. I'd been a vegetarian for maybe a couple of months when I was the beneficiary of my mother's cleaning out her cookbooks. One of the ones I got included detailed, lovingly illustrated instructions on how to make gelatin. That made a huge impression on me -- but it was luck that I found out. The discovery that most cheeses are not vegetarian due to rennet was an unpleasant surprise, too.

I don't make any exceptions on gelatin in my diet but I'll admit to not being strict on the cheeses when I eat out. The whole reason I gave up veganism was because it was impossible to eat with friends if they didn't want to go to A Moveable Feast. The social connection was just too important for me to let it go.

I'm right there with you on the cheese thing. I try so hard to buy as much rennet-free, organic cheese as I can. But it's hard to do that very strictly.

My theory on all of this has always been that any step I take toward having a lower impact on the Earth and causing less harm to animals is a good thing. And if I'm not perfect, I can live with that.

It's very hard to do so strictly. I've found that if I can't meet my personal dietary preferences, then falling back on my liberal sensitivites helps me cope. Kraft told the American Family Association to go stick it when they threatened to boycott them for supporting the Gay Olympics. I might not be a fan of ginormous corporations, I might not be a fan of rennet-laden cheese, but I can at least take comfort from supporting a gay-friendly business.

So, yeah, I'm learning to make peace with "not perfect."

Sadly, they call for milk. I wonder if you could use soy milk, though. Umm... I'll get you the recipe and you can try the soy milk, if you think it would work. I'd love to hear the results. :-) The milk is in there to blend with the sugar and make an almost praline like coating on the nuts. I've never used soy so I have *no* idea if it would work or not.

OH! What about a fruit tort? I'm sure you could come up with some sort of crust (maybe an all vegetable cookie crumb recipe or something). Then it would be fruit with a sugar glaze. www.foodtv.com probably has some recipes that you could easily adapt.

Then there's always the Whole Foods bakery. :-):-) Central Market, maybe?

The Whole Foods bakery doesn't actually do much in the way of vegan baking. They have yummy, yummy stuff, but mostly not vegan. (Except their gourmet marshmallows. Yummy!)

Anything fruit pie/tart/crumble related should work, as the only dairy generally in the crust part is butter. That is easily replaced (as I mentioned below) with soy margarine.

And then serve it with a dairy-free dark chocolate bar. Yeah. :)

Wait - Whole Foods has vegetarian marshmallows?!? How have I missed this? I adore marshmallows and it's one thing I truly miss. (Not enough to buy agar and make them myself, obviously, but I do stare longingly at packages of marshmallows several times a year.) I haven't had a marshmallow in almost 18 years -- but maybe that'll change tonight. :)

A fruit crumble is definitely my back-up plan because I'm wary of making crust with ersatz stuff. It often contains the wrong percentage of moisture, with too much of that being water, and makes crust a dicey proposition at best.

And then serve it with a dairy-free dark chocolate bar
Perhaps I should have mentioned that this is to be shipped rather than served? There's also the whole issue of packaging this stuff to ship. But I figure that's relatively easy. Finding something tasty and vegan and baked? That's the tough one. But I could easily add in a couple of chocolate bars as sort of "holiday care package." Oh! Thanks for that idea!

They're very fancy vegan marshmallows. But they are very good. And they come in flavors. :) There is a cute cafe in the West Village that does this, too. They have coconut ones. Yu-um!

I have to admit that there are occasions when I let myself "forget" that marshmallows aren't vegan when I use them for a particular holiday dessert. There are a couple of food items like that where, once or twice a year, I will put on my, "La la la not listening to you," hat and indulge.

Mmmmm. Sounds yummy. What a shame I have to stop there and pick up some milk on the way home. ;-)

It's hard, at times, to find the right personal path. My priorities shift or I realize that some things are more important to me than I'd realized. I was recently faced with the need to provide cheese for a group function and one kind (can't remember which) wasn't available in a vegetarian option when I was at the store. Buying Kraft because of their support for the GLBT community and the way they told the AFA where to stick it made me much happier about full-cruelty, non-veggie cheese. I still didn't eat it, but...

Actually, I bet almond milk would work REALLY well. Please do share the recipe. For myself, I buy so-called organic milk and the nuts really do sound like something I would like. :)

I'll dig it up and try to send it to you this weekend. If not, I'll at least have it for you by next weekend. :-) You'd think after all these years I'd remember it, but I can never remember if it's six tablespoons of milk to six cups of nuts or three cups of nuts and is that a cup of sugar or two. I make various sized batches and that screws up my memory of the proportions. ;-)

Vegan is pretty simple - no animal products. So no dairy, no eggs, no honey, no gelatin. (And, obviously, no lard or meat.)

The best vegan desserts I've ever had (besides these AMAZING cakes this woman here in the city makes - check to see if there is a vegan bakery in Houston) are fruit crisp type desserts. It's ridiculously easy to make fruit filling that is vegan - basically fruit, water and sugar. Then just make a crumb type topping, but instead of butter use a good vegan spread. My personal favorite is Willow Run soy margarine. (They should have that, or something similar, at Whole Foods or Central Market. Do NOT just use plain 'ol margarine, as lots of them contain either dairy by-products or gelatin.)

You can also check at places like Whole Foods for the vegan egg replacer, the name of which is escaping me. With that, some soy milk and soy creamer (which I've used successfully to substitute for half and half), and some soy margarine, you could make most of your favorite desserts in a vegan manner. And with some high quality cocoa powder, you could easily make a vegan chocolate dessert. (Might I suggest a chocolate bread pudding?)

besides these AMAZING cakes this woman here in the city makes - check to see if there is a vegan bakery in Houston
Do you know the woman's/bakery's name offhand? Perhaps they'll ship? The answer may be to pay to have soemthing shipped to her. I'm not adverse to going that route if I'm guaranteed the product is tasty. (Baking it myself was more about being able to sample before I sent.)

Gods, I remember what a high holy pain it was to find margarine at Fiesta that was vegan. There was exactly one that didn't have some form of whey in it. I think it was Country Crock but I've blanked that memory from my mind. Thank god for Horizon Farms (and its competitors) because now I have real butter again. I don't use a lot of it but for baking it's the difference between success and crap. Still have to use the egg replacer? It came in a yellow box, yes? *sigh*

Have the soy products gotten better? I think I was eating the first generation of soy stuff and the cheeses were god-awful, the margarine tasted plain weird, and I decided I'd rather not bake or use the products than to eat that crap. I adore soybeans - edamame are delicious and I love soybeans in soups - but I gotta admit I really don't like most soy-based substitutes (soy milk, soy cheese, etc.).

The egg replacer in the yellow box is not vegan. It isn't actually egg replacer. It's de-fatted eggs (small amount of whole eggs mixed with a lot of egg whites). But there are real eggs in there. What I'm thinking of is a more rare vegan product meant as an egg replacer. But I don't remember what it's called, nor do I know how well it works, since I have no problem eating (free range, vegetarian feed, organic) eggs.

Soy margarine is fine. I've cooked and baked with the Willow Run several times because of a friend of mine who is allergic to dairy, and everything turned out great. Soy milk has gotten better - the Silk plain almost tastes like regular milk, and the coffee creamer from Silk really does substitute well for half and half in recipes. But soy cheese? Feh. Yuck. Patooey. :) Give me the real stuff (rennet free and organic, please) or leave it out.

I'll see if I can find out who the woman is. All I know is she bakes the desserts for a particular restaurant that I love. Curly's Lunch if you're feeling eager enough to call them yourself. SERIOUSLY yummy cakes. You'd never, ever know they were vegan. And I'm very picky about that. Vegan cakes normally taste very dry to me. These are fantabulous.

Okay, after talking about Curly's, I ended up ordering lunch from there, and got you the info on the bakery. It's Vegan Treats. From the website, it doesn't look like she ships. But you could always call and ask. She may even have a recommendation of a bakery in Houston, if she can't help you. Her cakes are SO AMAZING. Like amazing vegan cheesecakes and chocolate cakes and carrot cakes...

(It's a good thing the Rice NYC holiday party is tonight, or I swear I would have ordered a piece of cake with my lunch...)

Thank you! I will do so. I have a link from elsewhere to vegan chocolates but something that has been "road tested" and approved appeals to me more.

I'm jealous at having food like that as a delivery option, even though the office here is in the delivery zone for Star Pizza. Have a good time at the party tonight! I'm still debating whether to go the city's holiday party. Joe is producing it, which means I'd have to go all by myself. Not so much fun but every once in a while I like to attend his events.

De-fatted eggs?!? WTF? Uh, why not just use "organic" egg whites? Whatever. :) I'm sure Whole Foods has egg replacer that's vegan. I suppose what I was trying to communicate but hadn't really articulated in my own head was that my experience with baking vegan was that substitutes generally made for poor results, mostly because baking is very much about the chemistry. You can fake a lot of things but chemistry isn't one of them. I was hoping for leads on ideas that weren't replacements but more, I suppose, grew out of looking at vegan ingredients and devising yummy treats. I'm still not articulating it well. *frustrating*

However, in the resulting wild goose chase I sent everyone on, I've gotten some MUCH BETTER ideas so I can't be too unhappy. I like the idea of making cookies, maybe arranging for some vegan truffles (not too many in case they're inedible), AND putting together a treat goodie box. I like that a lot. :)

I am *so* picky about cake. Most cakes, even non-vegan ones, are "eh." It doesn't stop me from eating them, alas, but very few measure up. msjudi took me to a place down in Lake Jackson that has the perfect chocolate cake. So, so, so good. I'm sure it isn't vegan but oh my god. Fabulous. Thank the gods it's too far for me to drive just for cake.

Actually, I had a recipe from when I was a vegan for chocolate cake that was reasonably good. It's from Ron Pickarsi's "Friendly Foods" and vegans totally loved me when I showed up to potlucks because they could have dessert. :)

http://vegweb.com/index.php?action=recipes

http://vegweb.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=c05610c999a6585e1014542aca672d70&board=144.0

http://www.vegan-food.net/recipe/1206/Mincus-Cheesecake/

http://www.veganoutreach.org/starterpack/recipes.html
(chocolate pie and chocolate cake)

http://www.vegfamily.com/vegan-recipes/ <- lots of desserts. Deserts even.

Helena

Mmmm...I'm looking at that last link. The dessert section has some good ideas. Some very good ideas. On top of that, a link on the side led me to a vegan truffles source. Now THAT is something she wouldn't expect though I'd like to be sure they're edible first. I didn't expect to have to choose amongst a lot of options. Decisions, decisions...Thank you!

So, now that I know this is stuff to be shipped, disregard everything I sad before and send her a box of Christmas cookies. :) There are so very many cookie recipes where the only non-vegan ingredient is the butter, which makes cookies a very easy thing to vegan-ize. This recipe is very similar to one I make every year around this time. Sugar cookies would be easy (and fun to decorate). You should be able to find a fixable gingerbread recipe.

If you are feeling really ambitious, get yourself a candy thermometer and make some homemade candies. Again, there are lots of recipes that, at the base, are mostly water and sugar with flavoring.

And if you can't find any vegan chocolate chips, again you can find some lovely bars of vegan chocolate and just put them in the package with the cookies.

One last thought - if you want to be REALLY vegan, don't use plain white sugar in any of the recipes. Buy organic sugar, which is usually more of a tan color. What makes refined sugar white is a process by which the sugar is run over animal bones. Show your real vegan savvy by not using it.

Oops. Sorry. I always forget something important. Have I mentioned I have a rennet-free cheese brain? *grins*

You're right. I don't know why cookies didn't occur to me. I was thinking of quickbreads like banana nut, I suppose. I'm sure Whole Foods has vegan chocolate chips. Cookies are something that shouldn't suffer too much for the switch to margerine. I can't do that with the almond cookies that I've come to think of as Christmas cookies (so good, so totally filled with butter, and only once a year kind of things) but chocolate cookies of all sorts are a great idea.

I have a candy thermometer. :) I used to be Little Miss Home Baker; stress on the "used to be" part. I do haul it out a couple of times a year to make fudge for Joe's grandmother.

I will definitely be adding vegan chocolate to the package. She's in college so I know she doesn't have a lot of money for treats.

process by which the sugar is run over animal bones
Now, see? That is something I did NOT know. Shit. I'll be buying organic sugar from now on. Good thing I only do this once a year. :|

Now, see? That is something I did NOT know. Shit. I'll be buying organic sugar from now on. Good thing I only do this once a year. :|

Sorry. I always hate to be the bearer of bad news. :( I only recently found that one out myself. It makes me grateful that I don't have a horrible sweet tooth. It's one of those things I don't try to control when I eat out. But I do buy only the organic sugar for home.

No, no! Don't apologize! I want to know these things. Whether I choose to act on the knowledge or not, I want the right to have made a choice.

I have a terrible, terrible sweet tooth and I seem to have trouble with sugar hitting my blood stream too fast, giving me terrible highs and lows. For years I cut processed sugar out of my diet because, frankly, it worried me about diabetes. I'd recently added some back into my diet because A)did I mention my sweet tooth? , and B)my long term blood sugar seemed to indicate chronic low blood sugar. I suspect I used B to justify indulging A but it sounded good in my head at the time. I really need to go back to my sugar-less diet, though. It's healthier for me.

This piece of news will help me a LOT.

I have a great vegan chili recipe if you're interested and it's VERY easy.

Oh yes, please! I'm no longer a vegan but I do like to keep my hand in it and eat/serve vegan when I can. I'd LOVE a chili recipe. :)

Easy Vegan Chili (created by Shadow who hates wasting time in the kitchen, but likes healthy choices)

Choose all quantities depending on the amount of chili you want to make.

Combine the following in one appropriately sized pot on the stove:

Spray bottom of pot with non-stick olive oil spray,
Saute 1-2 small packages of vegan/soy imitation ground "beef"

Then add:

2 small cans of diced tomatoes
2 small cans of cannalini beans
2 small cans of small red kidney beans
1 small can of black beans

(I like Goya and/or Progresso brands)

Season with Italian blend seasoning, chili powder and several shakes of tabasco sauce (all to taste) and a little touch of salt.

Stir to fully combine
Let simmer for about 45 minutes, gently stirring to combine every 15 minutes.

Serve in bowls with a sprinkle of Parm. or Cheddar Cheese on top if you want to leave the vegan ballpark. ;b

Enjoy!

somebody just posted this in cheapvegan
Here's my favorite holiday cookie recipe (well, it's really an anytime cookie recipe, but it came in a Christmas magazine). Even my non-vegan friends think they're awesome.

Cocoa Crinkle Cookies

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup margarine
1 3/4 cups sugar, divided
2 egg replacements
2 tsp. vanilla

Combine flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt in a medium sized bowl.

Melt margarine in a saucepan over medium heat. Cool slightly, then add 1 1/4 cups of the sugar. Whisk until smooth. Then whisk in egg replacer and add vanilla.

Add the margarine mixture to the flour mixture and mix just until combined (don't over-mix). Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 2 hours.

After the dough is chilled, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease the cookie sheet.
Form the dough into one-inch balls, and roll the balls in the leftover sugar until they're coated.
Place the dough balls on the pan and pat them down a bit to keep them from rolling around when you put them in the oven. Bake approx. 10-12 minutes. (It usually only takes 10 minutes in my oven, but I suppose times vary)

Doh! You know that moment when someone said to you, "Well, I just Googled your question and came up with the following 800 links?" and you felt like an idiot to have NOT thought to Google it in the first place? Well I feel that way about not looking for a vegan group on LJ. I don't have to rely on a random, Googled page for info; I can read a comm where people have tried the recipes. Duh!

THANK YOU! That recipe looks awesome and I'm now going to dive through the group and look for cool ideas. Again? Thank you!

Thank you so much for re-newing my livejournal account and getting me some more userpics! I really appreciate it! What a wonderful surprise! I'm not sure how I can repay you, but thank you again! Merry Christmas!!

P.S. I dunno any vegan recepies, but can they eat vegetarian lasagna? Well, I guess not, huh? They can't have cheese. Hmmmm....