It is incredibly easy to prepare and a great dish to "do ahead." You prepare it in one pan and mix and bake for 40 minutes. While it's baking you could be getting ready for work or doing other dishes to go with it.

The Basic Scone Recipe is a little tricky, plus it calls for non-hydorgenated shortening that is not always easy to find. It also tells you decide on the extract and spices to use. Also, directions say to press the dough into a circle and cut it into 8 pieces, which are huge. You may wish to half the dough, then press and cut each half into 8 pieces.

Vegan baking can be fun, yet it can be "fatting" so, bake away and give away is my motto.

Another incredible Gladcow recipe is the Maple Mustard BBQ sauce. You could use it as a tofu marinade, then bake the tofu, use it with white beans for bbq beans or use it with seitan and make a bbq sandwich.

Other recipes suggested are the Not Curry and GGBs Oatmeal Cookies. It will take a long time to try all the yummy recipes in this cookbook!

For example, for grilled cheese lovers -- try Tofutti cheese between that bread you're making (see 365 list).

In Sarah Kramer's Vegan A Go Go cookbook there is an excellen fettuccini alfredo even your non-vegan family and / or guests will love. It is very deliciously creamy (easily created with cashews and pine nuts).

Learning to cook as a vegan you will find that the flavors in dishes many times can depend on the spices -- not the dairy or meat.

It is quite incredible to be able to continue enjoying flavors and dishes that you love and still stick to a vegan diet!

A good dish to make is no-chicken soup, especially if it is cold outside. No-chicken soup is very easy if you use no-chicken Better than Bouillon. Simply cut up carrots, celery, onions add pasta or brown rice.

Another good soup recipe is the Roasted Carrot Coconut soup from Sarah Kramer's Vegan A Go-Go cookbook. It is very good. It tastes a lot like a Thai curry sauce and can probably be useful with stir fried vegetables.

One thing you do need is a good food chopper like a Vita Mix and herb mincer to make the soup smoother.

Sarah Kramer's Vegan A Go Go cookbook is amazing with top notch vegan recipes!

Seitan gives you a nice chewy texture and can be thought of as "hearty" or filling. Others who are not vegan may be put aback by it's appearance though -- it does look somewhat unappealing.

Sometimes when you are vegan, you crave some of your favorite non-vegan meals. This is when beef flavored seitan can come in handy. You can make goulashes, and italian dishes that call for beef and replace it with seitan (the beef that is). Using it for goulashes or italian dishes can cover up it's kind of "ugly" appearance too.

You may get a "wild hair" and begin making regular recipes into vegan recipes by replacing non-vegan foods with vegan ones that are in the recipes. Sometimes, this is very easy to do and you can bring back some of those dishes that were not vegan.

And, another "wild hair" is when you may Not have all the ingredients for a recipe. Many times you do not Need every single spice that is called for, etc. So go ahead and make that recipe.

If I had an hd video camcorder I would have filmed it myself --starting with gathering ingredients, to mixing to kneading to boiling.

Seitan is a vegan food that vegans may want to try, yet may have a hard time finding. Recipes that use it can be somewhat complex too.

There is a basic instant gluetn recipe in Sarah Kramer's book, Vegan A Go Go. It calls for vital wheat gluten, which you can find in some Publix supermarkets.

You may wish to schedule a time to make it -- it can be involving.

You will really be proud of yourself once you make it (and it turns out okay LOL). It is a good indication that you are on the expert road to being vegan when you make seitan.

As you incorporate more and more vegan recipes into your meals and life, one day you will realize that your pantry is finally getting stocked with vegan staples. How great it will be when you look at a recipe and realize you actually have all the ingredients!

You can order a Torfurky from Vegan Essentials after Thanksgiving and then a start planning a Vegan Christmas menu.

Many times you can stick with traditional dishes like Brussels Sprouts, mashed potatoes, and the Tofurky. You could make Lemon Pie and Pumpkin Pie for dessert.

You might be a little nervous if you don't think you are a good cook and I you don't want your family and/or guests to be disappointed with the food.

With the Tofurky, you can use a crock-pot using this recipe from the website. You can even put in carrots, potatoes and onions.

You can steam the brussel sprouts or even roast them with a bit of honey. Use organic potatoes, boil till soft then mash.

Your family / guests will probably LOVE it and want the recipes. These foods are great for people with health or weight isuues.

You may be doing a lot cooking for Christmas week and have a lot of leftovers -- probably no need to go the supermarket.

A new project to consider could be Vegan Entertaining. -- like for the Sugar Bowl. You'll want to wow them with vegan food. Have suggestions?

Here are 3 recipes you might want to try on your Cooking Day:

* Chana Masala
* Cranberry Oatmeal Spice Bars
* Impossible Coconut Pie

Reviews of the Recipes:

Chana Masala: A great recipe that is easy to make with ingredients many already have -- except garam masala or curry powder. Even non-vegans like it.

Cranberry Spice Bars: Probably needs cinnamon. You may wish to add more flour and 1/4 cup of vegan margarine, bake for 20 minutes. Texture is good.

Impossible Coconut Pie: The silken tofu may throw some people off -- yet it does bake well. It would be a good chilled spring or summer pie.

When you have more time to cook, you may wish to use more fresh ingredients. Plus, you have more time to experiment. Once you find several good recipes you like, you will know what to buy to keep on hand.

Things like onions, green peppers Tofurky kielbasas are can certainly become vegan "staples."

You may not wish to buy it. Ask yourself, will you use ALL of it? Or will it go to waste.

Think about all those specialty flavored products like vinegar. Some people have a big collection of vinegars and oils for special recipes. They use it once or never. They may just sit in your cupboard turning old.

Let's look at spices. Same thing -- alot of spices that are never used. If you can buy spices from a bin it may be a better choice. Buy the unusual spices at just enough for a special recipe.

Trying to figure out what staples that will be used over and over will take time.

There is no need to have a lot of special stuff -- for cookbooks -- there are plenty of good vegan recipes on the internet.

When you decide to go vegan, you Can plan for such cravings. When it comes to cheese, though, it has been advised by other experienced vegans to wait a while before trying cheese substitutes (your taste buds may not be ready) -- so you can forget what real cheese taste likes. You may be more happy with it.

So after a time without cheese, you may wish to try a Vegan Pizza with vegan cheese substitute. You may also wish to add strong flavored vegetables -- black olives, onions, garlic, green peppers can increase the taste.

There is an incredible simple Vegan Pizza recipe at VegWeb

For the Pizza Crust, Vegan Guinea Pig posts that the Pillsbury crust in the can is vegan.

The biggest problem is finding a good vegan cheese substitute. Recommendations have been found for Teese Cheese which you can order from Vegan Essentials.
Next I had to find out what a good cheese alternative would be. Most folks seem happy with Teese and Follow Your Heart. I ordered some Teese from VeganEssetials last week and it arrived on Thursday.

A good tip to keep the crust from becoming too soggy with the sauce, is to pre-cook it about 5 minutes before adding the sauce, vegetables and cheese.

You may be surprised how good it turns out! Make sure you put enough vegetables on it and let the cheese brown (after adding sauce, vegetables and cheese, let it bake for 10 minutes or so).

Many NON-vegans love this vegan Pizza too.