One of the most infamous flavor combinations in confection history has to be mint and chocolate; and for good reason, they just taste so darn good together! I think many of you agree. When I asked for your favorite ice cream flavor, Mint Chocolate Chip won hands down. When I asked for a cookie flavor you would like to see, Mint Chocolate received numerous votes. So, I thought it only fitting to ring in the cool and creamy dessert season with a naturally rich Mint Chocolate Mousse.  This deliciously easy recipe is from AllergyCooks (a wonderful food allergy recipe site). It contains just a few ingredients, and is gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, vegan, and optionally soy-free.

Yes, another salad dressing. It is summer after all, aaaaand they are just too easy and delicious not to share! Besides, fitting in that big bowl of greens is so much tastier when you have so many wonderful and healthy salad dressings to experiment with. I discovered this fabulously flavorful Sesame-Orange Dressing in the latest issue of Cooking Light. Their version seemed a bit too firey for our tastes, so I toned it down a bit, added some green onions (which melded nicely), thickened the dressing slightly, and doubled the recipe overall. To sweeten the deal, this recipe is low fat (less than 3g of unsaturated fat per serving!), vegan, egg-free, nut-free, soy protein-free, optionally gluten-free, and of course, dairy-free. It goes beautifully over a vegetarian salad of spinach, red bell peppers, carrots, and snow peas (as dished up in the mag) or as I discovered, over a light chicken salad.

We receive so many inquiries about dairy-free "cheese" that it seemed about time we put up a comparison review of the most popular brands. Each of the "cheeses" tested are dairy-free (that means casein-free, lactose-free, whey-free, etc.), gluten-free, and vegan. This review and comparison is from the popular vegan restaurant reviewer, quarrygirl.com.

PIZZA!! it’s the one thing i really miss as a vegan. i fantasize about one day in my future, when nondairy cheese is just as convincing as vegan ice cream—when the soy stuff tastes and feels like the real thing. until then, I am constantly looking for the best solution, even if that means ordering several vegan cheeses online and pitting them against each other in the ultimate pizza challenge. …so here it goes! ...

Yeah, summer is here!  Is there any better time than this to eat raw food?  I have to admit that when I first considered reading this book, I thought I was a raw food enthusiast.  I eat a lot of raw food on a regular basis. Yet, when I started reading Alive in 5: Raw Gourmet Meals in Five Minutes by Angela Elliott, I realized that this was going to be a little harder than I thought. 

The book is set up very well.  There is a lot of helpful information on a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, a pantry guide, and helpful tips for working with raw foods.  It also has a menu plan for a week to get you started. Plus, the recipes are easy to follow and written well.  I have included a few photos below to show you what some of the end results will look like.  Everything looks fresh and bright! ...

This Sweet, Dairy-Free Sunday is brought to you by Ani Phyo and her enticing new cookbook, Ani’s Raw Food Desserts: 85 Easy, Delectable, Sweets and Treats. If you have read or used Ani's first cookbook, Ani's Raw Food Kitchen, then you know that her recipes are amazingly simple - and the recipes in her new cookbook are no exception. Ani offers up a good dose of sweet flavor, while keeping the recipes very accessible. She recognizes that most people don't want to turn to raw food only to spend even more time in the kitchen. I love that about her. Plus, because the recipes are raw and vegan, they are by default dairy-free, egg-free, soy-free, and gluten-free! A bonus for many of you who live with food allergies and intolerances. Should you need just a bit more encouragement in the raw food arena, then try one of the following dessert recipes that Ani has so graciously shared from her cookbook ...

Faced with a full pantry and a bare-bones fridge, I had to do some quick thinking for our next meal that we were quickly growing hungry for. Out came the tomatoes, olives, and pasta, but a plain old marinara would not do. We were both craving a good dose of flavor, and thus this Slightly Spicy Pasta Puttanesque-a Recipe was born. Most chefs would mock my version of puttanesca (hence my clever name, don’t you think?), but I still couldn’t think of a better label for this blend of flavors. True, it lacks the salty anchovies (making it suitable for vegans / vegetarians), and I did allow some leeway on the olives you can use (pitted kalamata olives would be best, but when you only have cheap black ones on hand they will just have to do!), but this is still a nice, flavorful dish that can be dressed up or down, however you like.