Mexican Chocolate Snickerdoodles and Almond Pignoli cookies. From Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. Holiday baking is such a treat – these babies are destined for our friend Leslie. This was my first time baking either recipe – but I’ve learned you can rarely go wrong with this tasty little cookbook. I want to eat the pages, everything looks so amazing. Or, even better, get that machine from Weird Science and feed the pages into that.

Cowgirl Cookies were in order:

The stickers on the back were contributed by Casey.

I’ve been reading Food Revolution by John Robbins. With the exception of this blog, I don’t go didactic about veganism with the people I interact with. I simply do my best in my daily life to eat, shop, and live sustainably and cruelty-free. But this book makes me want to liberate livestock from factory farms, chain myself to old growth trees in endangered-soon-to-be-clearcut rainforests, and pelt the headquarters of U.S. agribusiness giants with their own toxic genetically modified frankenfoods. Which is funny, since Robbins isn’t a rabble-rouser. His writing is quiet, factual, and behind every word is a deeply felt sadness for the state of our planet. Yes, he’s preaching to the choir when vegans read his book (although there’s plenty for vegans to learn to reinforce their commitment to the lifestyle), but everyone has so much to learn from Food Revolution. If I had just one wish, I’d use it to get everyone in the world to read this book and take its lessons to heart.

That’s a French Toast donut, topped with a baby Apple Spice donut.

And if I’m going to do donuts, I might as well go all out and have a soy mocha (although I forgot to ask for soy whipped cream!)

Baby girl gets a plain donut (’cause she’s sweet enough), but that doesn’t mean she’s sharing.

Yes, the Best Pumpkin Muffin recipe from Vegan With a Vengeance lives up to its name. I’ve made these before with canned pumpkin, but from here on out, it’s fresh roasted pumpkin, people.

Since I’m starving when I wake up in the morning (and my little one is, too), I often bake breakfast the night before so all we have to do is pop muffins in the toaster oven for a quick warm-up. Slather on some Earth Balance, steep some rooibos tea, and we’re starting the day right.

Seconds, anyone?

Not only was it quick and yummy, but there was plenty left over for a bagel melt sandwich lunch the following day:

And a homemade pesto pizza for dinner No. 2!

I really can’t rave enough about this pesto recipe. We’re going to be eating this one again and again!