vegan

Some of my favorite childhood Christmas memories are of the holiday cookies. Each member of my dad's side of the family would make one or two types of cookies each year and bring them to my grandmother's house. In the basement were two long folding tables with endless tins of cookies of all types. After dinner, my grandmother would let us go downstairs and pick whatever Christmas cookies we wanted.

We also got to participate in making some of the cookies. As children, that usually meant roll-out sugar cookies that we got to decorate.

French toast is another one of my Sunday morning brunch favorites. It's pancakes' quicker and easier cousin. But both are equally delicious! It's also a traditional Christmas morning breakfast in the United States.

When I set out to make this vegan French toast recipe, it was important to me to get both the flavor and the texture right. That means I needed a little bit of a savory egg-like flavor, a touch of cinnamon, a firm toasted exterior, and a soft, chewy center. The nutritional yeast in this recipe helps to create the savory flavor, while a flax egg and aquafaba create the perfect texture. (Aquafaba is the liquid from a can of garbanzo beans.)

When I was in college and learning to cook, the first dishes I perfected were Italian pasta dishes, like lasagna, fettuccine alfredo, and of course, stuffed shells. Stuffed shells are a delicious comfort food for me, but they're made with cheese and eggs. Fortunately, I've managed to create delicious vegan ricotta from tofu, and stuffed shells are once again on the menu in my kitchen. A little bit of flour helps to bind everything together in place of an egg.

These vegan stuffed shells are so easy to make, they can be made any day. But they are also perfect for holidays like Christmas and Easter, or family gatherings; the whole family will love them.

My favorite way to prepare pretty much any kind of vegetable, from sweet potatoes to bell peppers, is roasting. Roasted vegetables are so easy to prepare, they're healthy, and they taste amazing. When Easter, Thanksgiving, or Christmas come around, I like to give my roasted vegetables a little something extra.

This roasted carrots recipe gets some added flair with a glaze made from vegan butter, maple syrup, and lemon juice, and a cashew-tahini sauce with a delicious blend of spices. Rainbow carrots add a colorful wow factor (but plain orange carrots work too!) This is the perfect side dish for the holidays or any special occasion.

Back when I was first teaching myself to cook, in my late teens, one of my favorite dishes to cook was a butternut squash casserole with goat cheese. It was simple, but delicious. Today, my version of butternut squash casserole has morphed into something a little more complex, and 100% vegan. But it's the most delicious version of it that I've ever made.

It's made with butternut squash, kale, leeks, and pecans, and tossed in a creamy sauce made of cashews. It could be described as comfort food, but it gets points for nutrition, too. This recipe has lots of vitamins A and C, plus 8 grams of protein per serving. To get to this masterpiece, I took some inspiration from this Epicurious (non-vegan) recipe, and this recipe from Oh She Glows.

You've planned your entire Thanksgiving feast. But now you're in need of the perfect appetizer for you and your family to snack on while Thanksgiving dinner's being prepared. Don't worry!

In years past, we've snacked on my delicious spinach & artichoke dip. This year, I'm adding a new menu item to the holiday appetizer list: vegan cranberry and cashew goat cheese crostini! (This recipe is also a great option for holiday parties.)

Crostini (an Italian word meaning "little toasts") share some traits with their better-known antipasto cousin, bruschetta. Both are finger foods made from toasted bread slices with various toppings. However, bruschetta traditionally uses larger slices of bread (from a loaf of Italian bread, for example). Crostini are made with smaller bread slices, typically from baguettes. Crostini are also toasted in the oven on a baking tray, while bruschetta is usually grilled over a fire.

Apple crisp is one of my favorite desserts of all time. The tangy apples, sweet brown sugar and cinnamon, combined with a crumbly, crunchy oat topping make the perfect companion to my non-dairy vanilla ice cream.

Today I live in Miami, where it's warm year-round. But when the calendar reads October, I start daydreaming of picking apples at the apple orchard and taking hayrides in the crisp fall air. And, of course, making the perfect fall dessert: apple crisp.

Thanksgiving dinner just isn't the same without a creamy, crunchy, delicious green bean casserole. Obviously, the traditional version isn't vegan, but we can easily transform it!

I prefer this vegan version because I like everything as fresh as possible. Creating my own cashew cream sauce and using fresh mushrooms instead of using canned cream of mushroom soup makes a difference you can taste in the flavor. Green bean casserole used to be a "meh" dish for me, but now it's become a favorite of the holiday season!

Many years ago, I had a small baking business selling cupcakes at pop-up markets. I was obsessed with creating the perfect cupcake recipes, and I was known to most people as "the cupcake lady."

Now that I'm vegan, I can't use those recipes anymore. But lucky for you, I've been in the kitchen working hard at making vegan versions of some of those recipes! Chocolate is always my first choice of flavor for any sweet food, so the first recipe I've veganized is, of course, my famous chocolate cupcake recipe. I made these over and over, tweaking amounts and ingredients until I had them just right. I knew I finally had a winner when I almost made myself sick from eating so many of them.

A few weeks ago, I woke up with three words in my head: cookie butter frosting. I'm not saying that God herself tasked me with making a vegan recipe for cake frosting for you. But I'm also not saying that she didn't.

For those of you who don't know, I used to sell cupcakes many years ago. So veganizing my cupcake recipes has been on my to-do list for a while. But cookie butter frosting wasn't ever on my radar. I've seen some recipes for traditional (non-vegan) cookie butter frosting, but so far I haven't seen any vegan ones!