Chocolate-Dipped Ice Cream Sandwiches

This vegan take on ice cream sandwiches improves everyone’s favorite summertime treat by dipping it in chocolate and covering it in sprinkles.

By Chloe Coscarelli

Makes 8 sandwiches

What you need:

• 2 ¼ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon Ener-G egg replacer
• ¾ teaspoon salt
• ¾ teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 cup non-hydrogenated margarine
• ¾ cup sugar
• ¾ cup brown sugar
• ¼ cup water
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 3 cups chocolate chips, divided
• 1 pint Vanilla Ice Cream (see recipe)
• 1 cup topping of your choice (sprinkles, toasted almond silvers, coconut, etc)

What you do:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees and line cookie sheet with parchment.
2. In medium bowl, whisk flour, baking soda, egg replacer, salt, and cinnamon. In mixer, beat margarine, sugar, brown sugar, water, and vanilla until fluffy. Stir in flour mixture ½ cup at a time, then add 1 cup chocolate chips.
3. Scoop about 2 tablespoons of dough at a time and flatten with the palm of your hand. Repeat with remaining dough, and space on ungreased baking sheet. Bake until desired brownness (about 5 to 10 minutes).
4. Let the pint of ice cream soften in the refrigerator for about 15 to 30 minutes while the cookies cool.
5. Between 2 cookies, sandwich 1 scoop of ice cream and freeze. Repeat with all remaining cookies.
6. While these sandwiches firm up in the freezer, melt remaining chocolate chips over a double boiler or using the microwave.
7. Dip half of each ice cream sandwich in the melted chocolate and roll in desired topping until coated. Refreeze immediately. Enjoy!

I got this from VegNews.com 

http://www.vegnews.com/web/articles/page.do?pageId=2280&catId=11

I think I'm gonna try it out this weekend! Looks delicious!

Refreshing Vegan Summer Snack/Beverages

I hate summer. Unless I'm submerged in water, I'm grumpy throughout the entire season. I'm probably the only person that actually gains weight for swimsuit season because I refuse to exert myself past walking from my air conditioned car into an air conditioned building. So, when I'm holed up in my home, air conditioner blasting, I do not want to cook. Below are a few easy snack ideas to help keep ya full and cool. 

Homemade popsicles. Channel your inner kid and buy some cheap popsicle molds from Walmart or Target. I like to make my own juice w/my juicer for the molds (I swear, the juicer is the best invention ever! I love my Jack LaLanne!). Voila! Delicious, healthy goodness!

Speaking of my juicer, I also make my own fruit and veggie juice. You would think veggies would taste bad juiced, but you are wrong! Well, celery tastes awful. If you buy a juicer (which I recommend because this is the best way to have a cocktail. Add vodka and you are in heaven!), make sure you add your favorite fruit first and second, then a half of a vegetable (squash, zucchini, and carrots taste great), and alternate until the end. Make sure you also put your fave fruit in last. I swear, the order you put the items in your juicer affects the flavor!!!

Tofutti Cream Cheese and crackers (just watch the label for milk, whey, any form of cheese, and honey). Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, and the natural food section of Raley's and some Safeways have some great options.

Fruit Salad. Summer is the perfect time to throw some pineapple, mango, watermelon, grapes, apple, banana, orange slices, kiwi, etc. into a big bowl. It's always a hit at BBQs and brunches also.

Fancy lemonade. I usually buy an all natural lemonade rather than a zillion lemons to try to juice. Simply lemonade is great. I then add a handful of frozen blueberries and/or raspberries. Let it sit a few minutes (but don't forget about it for a coupla hours, cuz then it's disgusting). 

Chips and salsa are a fave of mine. My favorite is Herdez salsa with fresh cilantro and a buncha avocado. Yum!

Iced tea w/pineapple. When I went to visit my family in North Carolina, I became addicted to the tea. They sweeten it with pineapple slices. Word to the wise, don't plan on keeping the pitcher overnight, the pineapple breaks apart and becomes a mess. Serve it at a party, or just add a slice as you go.

Vegan ranch and veggies. I eat this all year round actually. I make my own veggie tray to take to work for lunch. Carrots, broccoli, mushrooms, etc. I have a fantastic recipe for vegan ranch in one of my earliest posts. DO NOT BUY VEGAN RANCH AT THE STORE. It is revolting. I repeat, revolting!

I used to love grabbing an ice cream cone during or after work (in fact, I'm sure I'll break down a few times this summer, as I work next door to a coffee shop that sells phenomenal cones!). Now, I keep either sorbet or ice cream made with coconut milk on hand instead. I'm surprised at how fantastic some vegan ice creams are! It's like a delicacy!

Strawberries dipped in chocolate. This. Is. Amazing. Melt some dark chocolate and either drizzle over the berries, or do what I do and submerge the entire berry up to your knuckles.

Hansens Natural flavored drink mix. 100% Vitamin C. It's the healthy version of Crystal Lite on the go packets. I freeze my bottle of water until it gets a thin coat of ice to break up. I then add a packet, shake and go.

Kudos to Kale

I had never heard of kale prior to becoming vegetarian. And I hadn't knowingly tried it until a few months ago at the urging of a good friend. Mainly because I didn't know how to cook it, and I was too lazy to put much thought into it. Well, it turns out that kale is such a great vegetable, the British have decided to devote an entire website to our leafy friend (http://www.discoverkale.co.uk/). 

Kale is part of the cabbage family, and is considered a "superfood", providing beta-carotene, vitamin C, and folate. In fact, kale is one of the vegetables most rich in calcium, iron, potassium, and magnesium. It also provides sulpher phytochemicals, which is thought to help protect against some cancers, as well as reducing the risk of cataracts and macular degeneration by way of providing the phytochemicals zeaxanthin and lutein.

As discoverkale.co.uk points out, kale contains four times more magnesium and five times more calcium than brussel sprouts! And really, who wants to eat brussel sprouts (unless you have had my sisters! That woman is an angel with brussel sprouts!). Kale also carries 17 times more vitamin C than carrots, and four times more than spinach. And that's just naming a few of the benefits!

Kale is easily introduced into ones diet. I'm gonna tell ya right now, remove the leaves from the stalk!!! It's really bitter. I don't care for it at all. I use kale almost on a daily basis. I have a juicer (which I highly recommend to anyone remotely interested in losing weight or getting healthy!) and I juice my daily servings of fruits & veggies (including kale) for breakfast and lunch. Kale is also great to just saute a bit with some other veggies, alone, or to have raw over a salad. I expect you to put kale on your grocery list! And let me know what you thought of our new friend.

Don't Plants Have Feelings, Too?

All vegetarians/vegans hear the question "Don't plants have feelings, too?" Most of the people asking this question ask as if it's a joke. I hope you want a serious answer, and that you are not trying to belittle my way of life. Well, here is the short answer: Plants do not have pain receptors, nerves, or a central nervous system. If you do not have pain receptors, you do not feel pain. Although those are the facts, that usually doesn't satisfy folks. Why? Because many people that ask that question are really wanting to know how far one must go to become vegan. Where do they have to draw the line? Unfortunately, instead of asking their questions in a constructive way in which we may seriously discuss the need and/or desire to stop eating animals, they phrase the question to make vegans like me seem absurd. And when it's friends and family that do this, it truly hurts. Sure, maybe we will learn something about plants in the near or distant future that we do not know now. But for now, we do know that they lack pain receptors, thus feeling no pain. We do know that humans and animals have pain receptors, nerves, and a central nervous system. Therefore, we know that they feel pain, they can suffer, and they struggle to live when being forced to die. That is the bottom line. All I can do, all any of us can do, is make the best of the information that we have here, that we have right now.

Vegan's Daily Companion

I Like Animals Because...

One of my favorite books right now is "Vegan's Daily Companion: 365 Days of Inspiration for Cooking, Eating, and Living Compassionately" by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau. When I start to get overwhelmed by the sadness I feel from living in a world in which animals are so mistreated and unappreciated, I pick up this book. It reminds me that I am not the only person out there trying to save lives and that strives to make a difference in an indifferent world. So far, I haven't tried any of the recipes, as I've been combing the 320 pages for the stories and photos of rescued animals, incredible tales of how meat eaters were awakened by an event in their life to switch to a vegan lifestyle, and essays such as the one I have included below that share my inner compassionate voice. This book is also a great tool for the kitchen, with information on how to optimize your health for the body, mind, and spirit. We hear from Mark Twain (a huge supporter of animal advocacy), Roald Dahl, poet William Cowper, Richard Adams (author of Watership Down, and president of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals from 1980-1982), Walt Whitman, and Mary Wollstonecraft (author of Frankenstein, which she published under the name Mary Shelley), just to name a few. The stories of hope, rescue, and transformation are spell binding, tear inducing, and beyond inspirational.


"I Like Animals" By Laura Moretti, founder and editor of The Animals Voice


"Why do you suppose you like animals so much?" was the million-dollar question put to me Christmas Eve (and one I hadn't provoked). I knew my family was expecting me to say something like, "I like animals because they're cute and cuddly and furry and fun to play with." But instead I said, "I like animals because they are honest."

My observation triggered a facetious comment from one of my brothers. “About what?"--as if honesty were merely about telling the truth, and everyone knows animals can't talk! His notation was met with hearty laughter; for once, they thought they'd repaid me for all the discomfort I'd caused them at other family gatherings.

"I like that animals don't pretend to be someone they're not," I continued in my reply, hushing the crowd. "To quote a phrase, 'Dogs don't lie about love.' Animals don't fake their feelings. I like that they're emotionally fearless."

We were lounging on sofas and armchairs after our feast and present opening. Coffee was being served, so I seized the opportunity. "I like animals," I added, "because they only take out of life what they need. They don't abuse their environment, annihilate species, pollute their water, contaminate the air they breathe. They don't build weapons of mass destruction and use them against others-particularly members of their own species. I like animals because they have no use for those things, or for war or terrorism. They don't build nations around genocide."

My uncle seemed momentarily lost in thought. He had been born and raised in New York City. "That's because they don't know any better," a brother-in-law argued. "They don't do those things because they don't know how."

"A pride of lions doesn't get together," I countered him, "and decide how to exterminate zebras-their very source of nourishment. I don't think it's because they don't know how. I think it's because it's counter-productive." They laughed. "

I also like animals," I continued," because they don't punish themselves for their perceived inadequacies. They don't dwell on things of the past, nor use them as excuses for behavior in the present. And they don't plan to live some day in the future, they live today, this moment, fully, completely, and purely. I like animals because they live their lives with so much more freedom than humans live theirs."

"That's because they don't think," one of my cousins offered.

"Is that the difference?" I wondered. "'I think therefore I'm cruel, destructive, insecure, abusive?' You meant to say they don't think the way we think." The room had become strangely quiet. I was amazed at how closely my family was listening, despite the occasional grunt to the contrary.

"I like animals because they don't bow down to imaginary gods they've created, nor annihilate each other in the name of those gods; gods, they say, who are all-knowing and all-loving and just. I like animals because they only know how to give unconditional love and implicit trust. I mean, animals either extend those things to you or they don't; there are no shades of gray. They have the best of what makes us human and, as one observer put it, "none of our vices.'" "And thank God," someone injected.

"Lastly," I added, remembering why I was an animal rights activist, "Animals are the most victimized living creatures on earth; more than children, more than women, more than people of color. Our prejudice enables us to exploit and use them, as scientific tools and expendable commodities, and to eat them. We do to them any atrocity our creative minds can summon. We justify our cruelties; we have to or we can't commit them. I like animals because they don't do to themselves or to others the things we do to them. And they don't make excuses for unethical actions because they don't commit unethical acts."

"And finally," I finished, "I like animals because they're not hypocrites. They don't say one thing and do another. They are, as I've said, honest. Animals-not humans-are the best this planet has to offer." And, interestingly enough, despite my soapbox rant, not a one of them made a snide comment or a hint of laughter. The conversation actually rolled into shared stories of animals they've known, stories of animal loyalty and intelligence, their humor and innocence. And it was me who'd become the listener with the occasional comment: "Now, if only humans could only be, well, like animals." And that is why I fight the good fight; I rise on behalf of the best among us.”

Meet Rambo, Charlie, Barbie, and Malachi—four adorable, lovable, rescued animals. Read about their story, and others, in Vegan's Daily Companion.

Vegan Avocado Pesto Pasta

This pasta dish is one of my new fave meals to make at home. As I've mentioned in the past, I hate to cook. HATE IT! But, I'm really trying to stay away from processed foods and the evils of spending boatloads of money on take out. Thus, my search for fast, healthy meals that I can make at home on a modest budget (I have a bad habit of spending mucho dinero on food). This pesto literally takes 5 minutes to make. You can't beat that.

Most of these ingredients already lurk in my kitchen, so any time I'm too lazy to run to the store, or I have last minute visitors, I throw this together. It's always a hit! What's great about this meal is that you can serve it over any type of pasta, and it's great hot or cold. Perfect for picnics, summer BBQs, or romantic dinners for two at home.

What you need (serves 6):

1 lb pasta of your choice (I've had it over whole wheat spaghetti, penne, those corkscrew lookin' noodles, etc.)

1 bunch basil leaves (about 2.5ou)

1/2 cup pine nuts

2 ripe avocados, pitted & peeled

2tbsp fresh lemon juice (about 1/2 lemon)

3 cloves garlic

1/2 cup olive oil

Salt & pepper to taste

1/4 cup chopped sun dried tomatoes to throw over the top (the pesto tastes great if you add them directly into the food processor w/everything else, but make sure you then cut back on the olive oil, or it turns out really oily)

Directions:

Cook pasta per package instructions. Once you throw the pasta into boiling water, mix everything else into a food processor and blend. Toss pesto w/hot pasta. If you're feeling fancy, add a basil leaf and the chopped sun dried tomatoes for garnish.

For more delish dishes, check out: http://vegnews.com

Bottomless Vegan Brunch

My new favorite place to get brunch, lunch, dinner, and/or dessert is the Sugar Plum Cafe in Midtown (Sacramento). Boasting a completely vegan menu, Sugar Plum uses organic, mostly local produce and products which I love. I'm always in favor of supporting local farmers, businesses, etc. This quaint little cafe is tucked into an adorable Victorian house with lovely outdoor seating in the front yard. The laid back staff, cozily worn furniture, and interesting artwork throughout create an extremely relaxed environment that has one forgetting that they aren't casually hanging out at a friends house.

Every time I go into Sugar Plum, I agonize over the menu. Everything from the Portobello Street Tacos (served on fresh corn tortillas with shredded lettuce, pico de gallo, avocado, sour cream, and cilantro) to the delectable raspberry and mango cupcakes, look and sound mouth-wateringly delightful. I've personally tried the award winning tuna melt (trust me, get the fries on the side! Yum!!), the above mentioned cupcake, the bacon cheeseburger (which is my favorite so far), and just about everything offered in their all-you-can-eat brunch. Unfortunately, it doesn't start until 11:00am (contrary to the 10:00am time listed on their website). But believe me, the jalapeno cheddar biscuits and country gravy, breakfast potatoes, tofu frittata, cinnamon rolls, chocolate chip or blueberry pancakes (they like to change it up!), french toast, etc. are worth getting up a little late on a Saturday or Sunday morning! I will say this, they ran out of syrup and french toast last time I was there, and they did not mention it prior to my paying the $12. So check out the buffet-style brunch for your favorites before paying! The donuts and muffins (not offered in the brunch) are scrumptious as well if you want a snack while waiting for brunch to begin. You can view most of the menu online, but they are always featuring new goodies, so scour the menu of the day when you walk in as well (it's usually on the counter next to the register). 

Sugar Plum also offers a large selection of gluten and soy free foods, treats for those with allergies or currently on a raw diet, full service catering, wedding and party menus, and they sell their goodies at the local farmers market. They have a shop next door with clothing, accessories, etc., but it's been closed the last few times I've stopped by the cafe, so I can't give you much info on that end of the business. I truly love this little midtown gem, and even my meat and dairy eating friends enjoy the food! So stop by the Sugar Plum Cafe after work with friends for a casual dinner and dessert before walking across the street for a drink at The Golden Bear or drop by on a lazy weekend and start your day out with a filling, healthy, great tasting meal.

Sugar Plum Cafe, 2315 K Street, Sacramento, 916.706.3302

Hours: Closed Mon, Tue-Thu 10a-7p, Fri-Sat 10a-9p, Sun 10a-3p.

http://sugarplumvegan.com/Sacrament_Vegan_Bakery_Cafe.html

Photo from: http://sugarplumvegan.wordpress.com/

I'm baaaacccckkkk!!!!

Ok. Several of you are wondering why I dropped off the face of the Earth. Honestly, I wasn't sure if anyone was even reading this. So, after NUMEROUS requests, I am going to get back to blogging about delicious vegetarian and vegan recipes, restaurants, meal plans, book reviews, etc.

First, I should let you all know that I am eating 100% vegan now. No more vegan Mon-Thu w/vegetarian weekends. Like I always tell all of you: Being vegan doesn't mean giving up your fave foods... It just means adopting an animal/health friendly way of cooking it, or you cut back on how often you consume it. For example, I've been craving crab cakes for about 2 months now. So, next time I vacation on the coast, if I still have the urge to eat them, I'll eat them. 

I've been trying out some new vegan recipes, foods, cafes, etc. so I'll start jotting things down ASAP. Also, I've been trying to eat more raw foods for a healthier lifestyle. More on that as well.

To all of you that have been bugging me about getting back into this... Thanks. It's nice to know you're reading this, and that you are trying to improve your health, our planet, etc. And I love knowing that you are contributing to a more compassionate future for our animals!