This Mother’s Day, make Mom smile. Give her four gifts for the price of just one. Award-winning All American Vegan is a cookbook, a history book, a joke book and a time traveler’s guide to the future, all in one! To purchase, click here.

Here’s some more ideas to get her whistling a happy tune: flowers, vegan chocolates, or a vegan dinner out says I love you in a beautiful and/or delicious, cruelty-free way.

To purchase:

1. Vegan Store
2. Natural Candy Store*
3. Cakewalk Baking Company
4. Sjaak’s Organic Chocolates*
5. Rose City Chocolates*
6. Allison’s Gourmet

* Also sells non-vegan products. Be sure the products you purchase are labeled vegan.

To purchase, click here.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups vegan sugar
• 1 cup non-dairy cream
• 1 tsp. salt
• 5 Tbs. Earth Balance margarine
• ¼ cup peanut butter (use a brand that does not contain palm oil)
• 1 tsp. vanilla

Optional:

• ½ cup melted vegan chocolate

To Prepare:

1. Line an 8 x 8 inch pan with two strips of criss-crossed parchment paper, covering bottom and sides of pan.
2. In a large, heavy-bottom stockpot, combine sugar, non-dairy cream, and salt over low heat and stir until sugar is dissolved.
3. Increase heat to medium-high and cook until mixture reaches 240 degrees, stirring frequently.
4. Remove mixture from heat and add margarine, peanut butter and vanilla. Stir to combine.
5. Beat mixture on high with electric mixer until it loses its sheen and thickens up considerably. This should take about 8-10 minutes (longer if done by hand).
6. Press fudge flat into pan.
7. Allow to cool. If you are using chocolate, drizzle top lightly with chocolate as pictured above.
8. Let fudge set for several hours (overnight is best) before serving.

For a PDF copy of the recipe, click here.

 To purchase a copy between now and January 31 at this special price, click here.

Why wait for January 1 to start your New Year’s resolution to go vegan when you can start the night before? And we’re going to make it very easy by veganizing the most popular American cocktails and giving you a host of vegan hors d’oeuvres. So pop that cork and start the celebration of the new vegan you. Cheers!

Not all beer, wine, champagne, and cocktail ingredients are vegan as many are processed using animal products. To find out if your favorite booze fits the bill, click here.

For a PDF of the meatballs and mushrooms, click the images below:

To purchase a copy of All American Vegan, click here.

What can we say? We like big bundts and we cannot lie. For a PDF of the recipe for our big bundt, click the image below:

This holiday season, give a gift that is fun, educational, tasty, award-winning, and vegan! Designed to introduce vegan philosophy and vegan cooking to the uninitiated in a fun, non-threatening way, All American Vegan is the perfect present for the animal lover on your holiday gift list. One peek inside at the colorful illustrations, light-hearted humor and recipes for delicious, familiar foods, and they’ll keep reading, hungry for more. “It’s like the Magic School Bus meets veganism,” wrote one reviewer. “You’re learning but you don’t even know it.”

For just the cost of the cover price, you’ll get a signed copy of the book, gift wrapped, with a card, mailed to the recipient. This offer only valid within the U.S. (Must purchase by December 20 for guaranteed Christmas delivery.)

To order, click here.

Ingredients:

• ¾ cup vegan margarine (Earth Balance or Soy Garden), softened
• 1 cup vegan powdered sugar, divided (Whole Foods Organic Powdered Sugar)
• 2 Tbs. lime juice
• 1 Tbs. vanilla
• 1¾ cups plus 4 Tbs. all-purpose flour
• 2 Tbs. cornstarch
• ¼ tsp. salt

To Prepare:

1. In a large bowl, whisk together margarine and ½ cup powdered sugar until pale and fluffy.
2. Add lime juice and vanilla, and stir to combine.
3. Separately, mix together flour, cornstarch, and salt. Add to margarine/sugar mixture, and stir until just combined.
4. Divide dough in half. Place each half on an 8-by-12-inch sheet of parchment paper. Roll in parchment to form logs that are 1¼ inches in diameter.
5. Refrigerate logs until cold and firm, at least 1 hour.
6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Remove parchment from logs and gently roll logs to get rid of any wrinkles caused by parchment.
7. Cut into 1¼-inch-thick rounds. Space rounds 1 inch apart on parchment paper-lined baking sheets.
8. Bake until barely golden, about 13 minutes.
9. Cool for 10 minutes. Then toss in a plastic bag with remaining ½ cup powdered sugar to coat.

Makes 2½ dozen. 

For a PDF of this recipe, click here.

For other holiday recipes, click here.

Nathan is Jewish. But he’s not a very knowledgeable one. Whenever I ask him about Jewish traditions, he just shrugs his shoulders. When I ask him why he doesn’t know, he tells me he’s never really been a good Jew, reminds me he married a Goy, and that I should look it up online. When is Hannukah? He doesn’t know. How do you spell it? He’s not sure. What is it a celebration of? He mumbles something about the candles burning for 8 days. He once described the Maccabees as Macadamias.

But when being Jewish serves him, he’s devout. Like camping. He hates camping and when I press him about it and remind him how much the kids and I love it, he tells us emphatically that “Jews don’t camp.” When I go online and find no authority for this in either the Torah or Google, he tells me that as a Goy, I simply wouldn’t understand. Oy!

But at least when it comes to food, he’s a true Jewish scholar. Nathan speaks the language of potato knish, challah, matzo ball soup, and latkes. He can tell you the variations, where they originated, when you eat them, how you eat them, and what they signify. So enjoy, confident as you go forward to your old world relatives with a new vegan twist to ancient traditions that the following recipes (along with the matzo ball recipe in our cookbook and the delicious store-bough knishes we featured earlier) have been approved by Nathan. When it comes to Jewish food, he’s the next best thing to your friendly, neighborhood Rabbi.

Ingredients:

• 2 ½ cups lukewarm water
• 1 Tbs. active dry yeast
• ½ cup vegan sugar
• 4 Tbs. vegetable oil
• Reconstituted Ener-G Egg Replacer equivalent to 2 eggs (3 tsp. powder mixed with 4 Tbs. water)
• 1 Tbs. salt
• 3 Tbs. nutritional yeast
• ¼ tsp. tumeric
• 8 ¼ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• vegetable oil for brushing
• Optional: 1 Tbs. poppy or sesame seeds

To Prepare:

1. In a large bowl, combine water, yeast, sugar, oil, and egg replacer.
2. Add the salt, nutritional yeast and tumeric, stirring to combine.
3. Add flour one cup at a time, beating after each addition, until dough is no longer sticky and able to be kneaded.
4. Knead dough until it is smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes.
5. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise for 1 1/2 hours or until dough has doubled in size.
6. Punch down the risen dough and turn out onto floured board. Divide in half and knead each half for five minutes or so, adding flour as needed to keep from getting sticky.
7. Divide each half into thirds and roll into long, thin pieces that are aproximately 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Pinch the ends of the three pieces together firmly and braid from middle, pinching together at end. Place each loaf on a greased or parchment paper-lined baking sheet.
8. Cover with damp cloth and let rise one hour.
9. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
10. Brush dough with vegetable oil and sprinkle with poppy or sesame seeds if desired.
11. Bake at 375 degrees for 30-35 minutes. Bread should have a hollow sound when thumped on the bottom.
12. To encourage softness, cool bread inside an empty microwave (do not turn it on) and then store in a plastic bag when thoroughly cooled.
13. Before serving, brush once again with vegetable oil so it will shine.

Makes 2 Braided Loaves.

For a PDF of this recipe, click here.

Ingredients:

• 4 cups peeled and shredded potatoes
• 2 Tbs. grated onion
• Ener-G Egg Egg Replacer equivalent to 6 eggs (9 tsp. powder plus 12 Tbs. water)
• 4 Tbs. all-purpose flour
• 1 ½ tsp. salt
• Peanut oil for frying

To Prepare:

1. Place shredded potatoes in cheesecloth and wring, extracting as much moisture as possible.
2. In a large bowl, combine potatoes, onion, egg replacer, flour and salt. Stir well.
3. In a large heavy-bottomed skillet over medium-high heat, heat ¼ -½ inch oil until hot.
4. Place large spoonfuls of latke mixture into the hot oil, pressing down on them to form ¼ -½ inch thick patties. Brown on one side, turn and brown on the other. (Tip: To ensure easier flipping, remove any latke mixture that sticks to spatual between uses.)
5. Remove done latkes to paper towels.

Serve hot with Tofutti Better Than Sour Cream or vegan applesauce.

Makes 1 dozen 3 inch latkes.

For a PDF of this recipe, click here.

Spinning the dreidel on Hannukah? Order vegan chocolate Hannukah gelt by clicking here. But don’t bother asking Nathan what the rules are or how to play. I assure you since the dreidel itself isn’t edible, he has no idea.