Local Kale, Fair-Trade Coffee
Our local farmers market just had it’s opening weekend, and we’re so excited to be able to buy wonderful local produce again! 
In our town, the farmers market is not only a great venue to purchase fresh organic produce from farmers we know personally, it’s also a social event with ready-to-eat food, live music and free yoga and qigong classes. Getting kale from a farmer you know, grown on land nearby, feels so much better than buying greens that were shipped hundreds of miles in a refrigerated truck while losing their vitality.
Unfortunately, there are some items that we simply can’t buy locally, at least not at this latitude. Tropical fruits like coconuts, bananas and mangoes as well as coffee, tea and chocolate are all luxury items that we’ve become accustomed to in our global economy. 
Although these foods travel long distances to our grocery stores, there is an upside to purchasing these products from other continents. When we use our dollars to buy fair-trade coffee, tea, chocolate and fruit, we directly support the farmers growing these products who, in turn, contribute to their local economies and help their families and neighbors live more prosperous lives. In a way, buying fair-trade coffee is similar to buying kale from the farmers market. Fair-trade certification, like meeting the farmer in person, tells you that the farmers are directly benefiting from the sale of their products and that the products you purchase are higher quality for the farmers’ loving care.
(Wheat-Free) Chocolate Chip Pecan: Our Next Cookie Flavor
We’re super excited about our new (Wheat-Free) Peanut Butter Cookies! They’ll be the cookie of the month flavor coming up in July, and they’re fantastically wheat-free! In fact, we think they’re so great that we’ve already started perfecting our next flavor of wheat-free gourmet cookies: 
Chocolate Chip Pecan. These nutty cookies are one of our most popular gourmet cookie flavors, and we’re excited to have them re-created wheat-free. Even though they’re not the flavor of the month until October, Chocolate Chip Pecan is one of those flavors that’s so delicious we like to keep them available all year round. Keep your eyes out for a new “Wheat-Free Cookies” page coming to our website soon!
As our selection of Wheat-Free cookie and brownie options grows, we may start offering a Wheat-Free Sampler like the Baker’s Choice Samplers we offer now. Would you be interested in a Sampler containing all Wheat-Free cookies and brownies?
Gift Ideas for Chocolate Lovers
Looking for the perfect gift for a true chocolate lover in your life? Let me recommend our outrageously decadent Peppermint Bark and Cherry Almond Bark. 
Made from the highest quality organic, fair-trade chocolate, these rich dark barks will wow any chocolate lover.
When ordering chocolate barks, or any of our other premium fair-trade chocolate products, we highly recommend that you include the suggested chill pack, especially in these warmer months, to insure that your chocolates arrive in perfect condition.
Weekly Wrap-up: Blog Posts, Shout Outs, & News
Let me start by saying “w00t” to all of you who dug our Coconut Ice Cream with Sautéed Spiced Apples post from earlier this week. We’re so glad that you loved it and shared your love with others. You rock!
We also had some nice feedback on our First Wheat-Free Cookie Flavor post, and our Wedding Favors post. Your feedback helps us post stuff you love, so keep it coming!!
I’d like to offer vegansaurus a special ‘woop, woop’ – and by that I mean thank you, for giving us a shout out on Twitter yesterday. We heart you, vegansaurus!
Thank you to those who had delicious and thoughtful comments on Facebook the other day when we asked about your favorite summertime dessert! Personally, I’d have to go with Jill on the brownies dipped in chocolate and served on a stick…have mercy.
Huge news this week: we love to support fellow bakers of amazing vegan sweets, so join us in congratulating vegan chef Chloe Coscarelli for winning the latest edition of Cupcake Wars on The Food Network. This is a huge success for the vegan community and we are thrilled to have someone as talented as Chloe breaking through. Read about her victory on VegNews.
Other crazy highlights from this week included a new heart attack burger, courtesy of Friendly’s, and the very sad but true lion burgers in Arizona. Other than providing the links, I won’t spend any time on these two things because I know we all agree that these issues are unbelievable and ridiculous.
Sorry to end on a sad note, but these things, they are very real and just so crazy. I s’pose it’s all the more reason to keep sharing the joys of the vegan life! Anywhoo, have a nice weekend everyone!
Independence Day for Animals
Have you made your July 4th plans yet? Instead of the “great” American tradition of cooking cows, chickens or the mystery meat know as hot dogs over the holiday weekend, why not try a vegan Independence Day celebration? 
Have fun with yummy foods this long weekend and encourage animals’ independence from the cruelty of industrial farming practices. Show your compassion by making some grilled veggies, or Tuna(less) Salad Sandwiches rather than the usual boring and cruel holiday picnic fare, and make extra to share to encourage you friends and loved ones to take steps towards going veg. They’ll be amazed how delicious and easy it can be!
Over the many years I’ve been vegan, I’ve discovered that the best way to help omnivores experience veganism in a positive way is by sharing excellent food that they can enjoy without the “it’s good… for vegan” qualifier that so often accompanies veg options. For some tried and true comfort food recipes, check out my Veganize It! column in VegNews Magazine. We’re lucky enough these days that there are also a plethora of vegan cookbooks available, including “quick and easy” cookbooks for people on the go. Just a handful of my favorite authors include Jo Stepaniak, Isa Chandra Moskowitz, Colleen Patrick Goodreau, Dreena Burton, Robin Robertson, and Lorna Sass. Enjoy!
Wedding Favors Made Easy
If you’re getting married this summer or fall, we’d love to help! We offer 2- or 4-piece vegan wedding favors in a variety of colored boxes to match your theme. We’re happy to personalize your order with a printed message and if you’re looking for a color you don’t see, just ask. 
We’re happy to special order boxes as long as we have enough advanced notice. Let us help you make your wedding or other special occasion compassionate, delicious, and worry-free!
I say “other special occasion” because, although we call them vegan wedding favors, they also make great party favors for showers, birthdays, or soirées of any variety.
From Allison’s Test Kitchen: Our First Wheat-Free Cookie Flavor
We’ve been working in Allison’s test kitchen for the last couple of weeks to perfect our first flavor of wheat-free vegan cookies! 
We’re getting close, and hopefully we’ll have the formula for new Wheat-Free Peanut Butter Cookies perfected in time for July’s monthly club shipments next week.
Creating wheat-free vegan cookies is no small task even for a master baker like Allison. But, since we have such high standards for the quality of our ingredients, and Allison insists that only the very best products make it out of the testing phases, even the duds are pretty tasty. I keep sneaking into the kitchen to steal cookies from the reject batches. 
Being taste-testers is part of everyone’s job here at Allison’s, and we love it! It’s one of the sweet perks to working at a vegan bakery.
Coconut Ice Cream with Sautéed Spiced Apples…YUM!
Just because she owns a rockin’ vegan bakery doesn’t mean that Allison’s creativity in the kitchen stops at brownies and confections. Many of her creations, like this awesome Coconut Ice Cream with Sautéed Spiced Apples, we would love to be able to share with you, but they just wouldn’t survive the shipping. 
So, we’ll tantalize you with this photo instead, and encourage you to try your own version of this decadent dessert.
Allison makes her own vanilla bean coconut ice cream, but for us mere mortals, there are several excellent vegan ice cream choices available in most health food stores. My favorite is Turtle Mountain’s Purely Decadent Made with Coconut Milk. As for the Sautéed Spiced Apples, here’s Allison’s recipe:
What to use…
4 Gala or Fuji Apples
1 tablespoon lemon juice, freshly squeezed
1 teaspoon non-hydrogenated vegan margarine
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon mace
1/8 teaspoon cardamom
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
…and how
1. Wash, peel, core, and slice the apples into 1/4-inch thick slices. in a large bowl, toss with lemon juice and set aside.
2. Over medium-high heat, place a large skillet. Add margarine, spices, salt, and prepared apples. Saute for 5 minutes. Reduce heat and cover. Simmer for 15-20 minutes, or until soft.
3. Serve over your favorite vegan ice cream.
That’s it, just few easy steps! You don’t have to own a vegan bakery to make outrageous desserts for yourself and your friends!
Weekly Wrap-up: Blog Mania
Welcome to the weekly wrap-up. This week we had a lot of buzz on our blog for the Father’s Day Giveaway and chose a winner on Wednesday. Congratulations again, Lori! Allison’s blog post yesterday, “Where do you get your protein?” also got several retweets. All this attention to our blog made me realize that there are a few specific veg blogs that I check everyday, no matter how busy the ‘interwebs’ are.
These are blogs that always have the latest and greatest info, some of them share super interesting info and others are just plain hilarious. I wanted to share with you some of my faves. Here they are in no particular order:
VeganSaurus!
Girlie Girl Army
Ecorazzi
The Discerning Brute
This Just In
Café VegNews
Eco-Vegan Gal
Gone Raw
These are just a few of the thousands of helpful, educational, funny, and interesting veg-related blogs out there today, but they happen to be at the top of my personal must-read list. What’s your go-to veg blog for recipes, helpful tips, fashion, etc?
Join Allison’s Gourmet on Facebook and Twitter today!
That’s all for now; have a great weekend!
Where do you get your protein?
I’ve been asked this question so many times since becoming vegan (heck, even when I became vegetarian!) that I’ve lost track. 
This seems to be such a big concern that I want to touch briefly on a few of the issues and possibly allay some fears. A friend of mine recently answered this questions by saying, “The short answer is ‘everywhere’!” In fact, you may be surprised to know that most plant foods contain protein.
If you eat high-quality, nutritious, plant-based foods in standard portions, it’s likely that you are getting enough protein, especially if you live in a developed country. 
The source of this protein confusion is that the RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) for protein is based on animal sources of protein, which are digested differently from plant foods. Some of my favorite healthy and delicious foods include organic greens: kale, collards, spinach; organic grains: quinoa, brown rice; and organic beans: pink beans, lentils and garbanzos.
In the US, most people eat too much protein. Take a look at some of the most common health problems in our society and you’ll see that they all point to over-consumption of animal products: heart disease, stroke, high cholesterol, osteoporosis, kidney disease, obesity, cancer and more. Even the American Dietetic Association acknowledges the benefits of a veg diet!
I suspect there are more people who are deficient in dark leafy greens than in protein. I love this ANDI (Aggregate Nutrient Density Index) chart from Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s website. After seeing this, I immediately boosted our family’s kale intake and as a result, I am the lucky Mama of a toddler who LOVES kale.
It’s easy to get enough protein on a vegan diet and many top athletes do just that. Take a look! If they can get their nutritional needs met on a vegan diet, I’m confident that those of us who aren’t professionals are perfectly fine. If you wish to delve more deeply into this topic, information abounds on the web, making it easy to get an in-depth education on this topic.
