Vegan Ranch Dressing

Vegan Ranch Dressing is easy to make. I very often make it without measuring ingredients exactly. Anything that's roughly in the ballpark of the proportions below will be delicious.

Ingredients

1 Cup Just Mayo

2 Tsp. Dried Minced Onion

1 Tsp. Onion Powder

1 Tsp. Garlic Powder

1 Tsp. Dried Chives

1 Tsp. Dill Weed

1 Tsp. Dried Parsley

2 Tsp. Fresh Ground Black Pepper

1 Tbsp. Apple Cider Vinegar

Steps

1   Mix all ingredients. That’s it.

Vegan Gastonia Barbecue Slaw

As far as I know, this slaw is unique to Gastonia. If you're from the Gastonia area, you'll certainly recognize this slaw from R.O.'s or Black's. Yeah... I know both restaurant's takes on this slaw are slightly different, but they have more in common with each other than they do any other barbecue slaw.  What you'll find here is my own vegan take on it. I think it's delicious and I hope you'll agree.
Use it as a dip or make toasted sandwiches like you would get at one of the aforementioned Gastonia restaurants... just use Tofurky slices (or some similar vegan product) instead of dead-animal slices.

Ingredients

1 Medium Cabbage

1 Tbsp. Paprika

½ Cup Sweet Relish

1 Cup Hampton Creek Just Mayo

1 Cup Tomato Catsup

3 Tbsp. Brown Sugar

4 Oz. Diced Pimentos, drained

½ Tsp. Cayenne Red Pepper

½ Tsp. Chili Powder

1 Tbsp. Dijon Mustard

2 Tsp. Fresh Ground Black Pepper

⅛ Tsp. Salt

1 Tsp.  Hot Sauce (Texas Pete or similar)

Steps

1   1) Roughly chop cabbage, add to blender, and blend - you ultimately want a finely grated consistency.

     2) Add remaining ingredients to blender and mix thoroughly.

Vegan Pimento Cheese

There is a wonderful vegan restaurant called Bean Vegan Cuisine in Charlotte, North Carolina. They make a delicious vegan pimento cheese and I would encourage you to go there for it if you can. They are the masters of this bit of culinary magic.

But I found that I didn't get to make the trek to Charlotte nearly often enough to satisfy my craving for this fantastic stuff, so I set out to reverse engineer the recipe to the best of my ability. If you can't go to Charlotte, you can still enjoy a close approximation of their vegan pimento cheese by following some simple directions to prepare my version. Some of the ingredients are slightly different, but I think you'll find that I've done a reasonably good job.
You can make delicious toasted pimento cheese sandwiches with it, use it as a dip, or just eat the damn stuff right out of a bowl. It takes all the restraint I can muster to refrain from eating the entire batch immediately every time I make it.
If you're not from the southern U.S., you may not know what the hell pimento cheese is. Trust me: it's worth trying.

Ingredients

2 Cups Jasmine Rice*

3 Tbsp. Red Miso

5 Tbsp. Tahini

¾ Cup Hampton Creek Just Mayo

6 Tbsp. Nutritional Yeast

16 Oz. Diced Pimentos (4 x 4 ounce jars)

1 ½ Tbsp. Sriracha

Steps

1   1) Cook the rice with vegetable broth.

     2) Add rice, Just Mayo, red miso, tahini, and nutritional yeast to food processor and blend thoroughly.

     3) Drain pimentos and save the liquid.

     4) Add pimentos and sriracha and mix completely.

     5)  Add saved liquid as necessary to adjust consistency. (Or save it to cook the next batch of rice with.)

        *I actually use a mixture of Jasmine and Basmati rice

God, Greed, Guns, and Logic

"You can dance if you want to."

What am I missing here?

Help me out.

How can many conservative Christians reconcile what they clearly believe with what they profess to believe?

Let’s address the guns first.

How can you possibly reconcile that one with scripture?

God apparently felt strongly enough about this one to include it in his commandments at least twice. “Thou shalt not kill.” We see it in both Exodus 20:13 and Deuteronomy 5:17.

How exactly does this permit you to own a weapon of deadly force?

I can hear the excuses already. “It’s a prohibition against murder, not self-defense.” “We’re no longer bound by the law since Jesus came to fulfill it.”

If the Old Testament is no longer important, why is it even included in the Christian Bible?

Wasn’t Jesus rather clear about its importance? In Matthew 5:17-19, he said, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

And, if you consider that in any way vague, how do you spin Matthew 5:39 to your advantage in the gun argument? “But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.”

It seems to me that this edict puts you in a difficult position.

I suppose you could assert that you have received some special divine revelation that supersedes these words, but that creates another conundrum regarding Biblical inerrancy.

The Biblical issues are not the only logical contradictions in the pro-gun camp.

I often hear, “Guns don’t kill people, people do.” And I’ll grant you that, but it’s baffling that, in nearly the same breath, anyone can insist that their personal ownership of firearms is necessary. Either a gun is a more efficient killing machine or it isn’t. Playing both sides of that fence is logically impossible.

If it’s truly about self-defense, wouldn’t it be far better to seek out non-lethal means to do so?

The curious bloodthirsty nature of the way many gun enthusiasts articulate their position really doesn’t bear out the claim of the defensive nature of their weapons. There’s a certain “eye for an eye” tenor to the argument (a position clearly refuted by Jesus in Matthew). It often even goes beyond this “like for like” standard of vengeance too, demanding a life for the temerity to so much as trespass on the real estate of the gun owner. A man's home is his castle, right? Surely he must defend it. But Jesus wasn’t a big proponent of that idea. “Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.” (Matthew 19:21)

Despite this unambiguous enunciation of Jesus, it is all too common for conservative Christians to completely ignore this moral precept. They would rather opt for: I’ve got mine, Jack. Keep your hands off of my stack. (I paraphrase Pink Floyd here… and even they weren’t promoting this as a good idea.)

Conservative Christian Republicans are always willing to give some lip service to Jesus, but often ignore most of what he is actually purported to have said. They seem to be more enamored of the gospel of Ayn Rand, who was an atheist and a humanist, but not a glowing example of either. It’s the hateful example of Ayn Rand that we see expressed in the most vocal Republicans more often than any teaching of love from Christ.

“For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” (1 Timothy 6:10)

“And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19:24)

Until they acknowledge that greed and guns are the antithesis of the teachings of Christ, I can’t help but detect a bit of hypocrisy in these folks.

I’m not saying every conservative Christian Republican is like this. That would be naive and simplistic. But the most vocal of them certainly are. And, even if this isn’t the majority, it would seem that way due to their willingness to drown out any other voices. If you are among the conservative Christian Republicans who don’t agree with the narrative you’re being saddled with, it’s time for you to get loud and denounce these folks who would speak for you.

Of Hypocrites and Psychopaths

You've got to reject dairy and eggs too.

It’s awful that there are people who delight in the pain and suffering of animals.

I don’t like it, but I have to accept that there are people who have no conscience… people who think it’s appropriate to make fucking bacon jokes when you point out the suffering and death of sentient beings… people who say they’ll kill two animals for every one you save.

The fact of the matter is: there is a small percentage of the population that is purely psychopathic or sociopathic. Barring a way to treat this sort of dysfunction, we just have to find ways to restrain the actions of these people where we can.

But the actions of these people aren’t as dispiriting to me as the more insidious actions of otherwise good people. It’s their casual disregard of the importance of non-companion animals that I find really frustrating. They may love dogs and cats, but it apparently ends there.

How can you discuss how much you love animals while eating a ham sandwich?

How can you say how much you oppose animal cruelty over a plate of bacon and eggs?

You clearly don’t get it.

I wrote these words right after seeing a recipe posted by an “animal lover.” A recipe that included cream cheese and eggs. It probably included milk too. but I stopped reading ingredients before I got that far. I had seen enough.

The recipe poster is very involved in rescuing companion animals. This is a clear sign that this person believes that non-humans matter morally. But, apparently, only a very specific and arbitrary set of non-humans.

This person is a hypocrite.

Am I being too harsh?

I don’t think so.

I was once a hypocrite myself. I wish that someone had called me out on this years ago. I would have gone vegan long before I actually did if I had really been forced to confront my hypocrisy.

I find this brand of animal-loving hypocrisy more disturbing than outright cruelty because it’s so much more prevalent. A small percentage of the population is sociopathic or psychopathic, but most of the people I know engage in the casual disregard that perpetuates the animal holocaust. And it is the great shame of my life that I was once one of them.

We all have enemies, but isn’t somehow worse when we find that our friends have sold us out?

Please join me in trying to be a genuine friend to animals.

Live your values. Go Vegan!

New Year’s Resolution

I’ve never been one for New Year’s Resolutions.

The New Year is just an arbitrary point on the calendar. No more special than a new month, new week, or new day. Yet we seem to attach inordinate significance to it.

Perhaps it would be best to think of each day in this way. Instead of trying to make resolutions involving long-term plans, we could make more modest daily resolutions.

Our brains are poorly equipped to deal with the future and we very often don’t do the things necessary for long term-plans. We’re very good at post hoc rationalizations for why we didn't follow through, but not so good at the actual follow-through.

With that in mind, I’m going to try to be a little better at communicating with others every day.

It’s another skill that we humans aren't particularly good at in general. We misunderstand and are misunderstood more times each day than we care to admit or even realize.

Some months back, this was brought to my attention when I heard someone say of me that I thought he didn't have any compassion because he wasn't vegan.

Not just any someone… but my best friend.

If someone who knows me better than any other human being on the planet can so profoundly misunderstand me, how can I even hope to communicate effectively with people who don’t know me so well? With strangers?

Let me be as clear as I can with what abilities I have right now to communicate.

Rest assured that if I talk to you about veganism, I definitely don’t think you are without compassion. I. indeed, think the exact opposite.

There are psychopaths and sociopaths who truly have no compassion. No empathy for others.

I have no idea how to talk to them. I’m not even clear that it would ever be possible to effectively communicate a concept like veganism to them.

When I talk to anyone about choosing a vegan lifestyle, I am presupposing that they are compassionate. It would be more reasonable to assume that I think you are incapable of kindness and empathy if I don’t mention veganism to you.

So, you may notice by my Facebook posts that I believe all my friends are compassionate. And this belief is several orders of magnitude greater than that for my best friend. Without his compassion, kindness, and frequent selflessness, it’s unlikely that I would even be alive today.

I cannot overstate this point.

I am inspired every day through this friendship to try to be a better person, more cognizant of how my actions affect others.

When I speak to him and others about veganism, I am presupposing that they are compassionate. I just want to point out that there is a conflict between their beliefs and their actions. This is the cognitive dissonance that will hopefully drive them toward living in accordance with their values.

If you detect anger in anything I say about this, it is directed toward me more than anyone else. It is the greatest shame of my life that I spent roughly half of it consuming the flesh of animals while having the temerity to say that I loved them. In retrospect it seems like a rather hypocritical stance, yet I was somehow able to suppress this disconnect of values and actions for too many years. We are immersed in cultural conditioning that leaves us with the implicit assumption that it’s okay.

It’s not.

For about two decades, I thought being a vegetarian was enough.

It’s not.

If you’re still consuming dairy and eggs, you are financially supporting industries that are, indeed, likely more horrific and violent than the meat industry itself. I am ashamed that I didn't see this sooner.

And that is the motivation behind the evangelical vegan you know me as today. Spreading the word is my attempt to atone in some small way for all the harm I’ve caused. I’m doing what I wish someone had done for me many years ago. I wish someone would have presented me with the facts and challenged me to think about what I was doing.

So that will be my challenge to my friends. Examine your beliefs and actions. Do what you know is right. Be vegan.

I am addressing this challenge to all my friends, but particularly those of you who rescue and foster dogs and cats, but are not yet vegan. In doing what you do for companion animals, you are sending a clear signal that nonhumans matter morally, but you are choosing to ignore this precept with regard to other animals, many of whom are every bit as loving and intelligent as your dogs. You are underwriting a system that tortures and murders sentient life on a mind-boggling scale.

We condemn at least 56 billion sentient land animals to death and worse every year. And that number is dwarfed by the devastation we visit on sea life.

Comprehending numbers on this scale is yet another thing we humans are kind of bad at, so it’s easy to read statistics like this and fail to connect them to real life atrocities, but please try to wrap your head around it, because it’s important. If those of us who have compassion and love animals cannot be counted on to stand up for them, what hope do these poor, innocent creatures have?

Please don’t think that what you do as an individual won’t help. If everyone took this rather fatalistic stance, no injustice would ever be overcome. So, do what you can and encourage others to do so as well. Sometimes the progress is excruciatingly slow, but the world is changing.

Animal rights is the great social justice issue of our time. They have no voice or power to improve their circumstance and that’s what makes our crimes against them so despicable.

I implore you to be an advocate for the voiceless and powerless.

Please, please, please make this your resolution every day. Try to make the lives of others better, regardless of their species. The moral baseline of this commitment is veganism, unless you’re completely comfortable in participating in a system that procures nourishment (and clothing, and entertainment, etc...) through unnecessary violence.

If you’re really okay with doing nothing to help at this point, I truly don’t know how to talk to you.

I consider it a failure on my part to effectively communicate the importance of this issue, because I know that if I do it right, my friends will respond. They're too good not to.

My resolution is to improve my skill in communication.

Let yours be to show the kind of person you really are by refusing take part in the exploitation of the voiceless nonhuman Earthlings we share this planet with.

Vegan Fruitcake

There was a time when I didn't understand why fruitcakes deserved popular derision. My earliest memories of fruitcake were nothing but pleasant. The fruitcake I was familiar with bore no resemblance to the re-gifted bricks that starred in many a holiday joke. The fruitcake that I loved was from The Collin Street Bakery in Texas. My parents discovered this delicious fruitcake while my dad was in The U.S. Air Force, stationed in Texas. They maintained the tradition of ordering these Texas fruitcakes every Christmas, thus my love of fruitcake was born.
Only many years later did I venture to sample any other fruitcake. After trying one of the bricks that they tried to pass off as fruitcake in the grocery store, I learned why people have a negative impression of them. Most folks have never had a good one.
Needless to say, when I decided to make a vegan fruitcake, I was attempting to mimic the masterpiece of The Collin Street Bakery, not the quasi-edible building material that most folks associate with the term.
While The Collin Street Bakery's fruitcake includes nuts, I've left them out of mine. I prefer a more pure fruit and sugar experience.
And, while I can't exactly argue that this is health food, it is unquestionably better for you than the counterparts which include dairy and eggs.

Ingredients

4 tsp egg replacer

8 Tbsp water

½ cup vegan margarine

16 ounces candied cherries

16 ounces candied pineapple

2 - 3 ounces candied fruit and peel mix

1 cup brown sugar

2 ½ cups orange juice with pulp

3 ⅕ cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp allspice

½ tsp cinnamon

½ tsp nutmeg

Ingredient notes:

Egg replacer: Use Ener-G Egg Replacer or ground flax seeds. I use a half and half mixture of both.

For vegan margarine, I recommend Earth Balance. I’ve never tasted a better margarine and even if I had no ethical qualms with butter, I would still prefer Earth Balance.

Candied fruit: There is certainly some latitude on amounts and types of fruit here. The ingredients here are just my personal preference.

Flour: I use a mixture of unbleached all-purpose flour and whole wheat flour (about ¾ to ¼)

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Briefly whip the egg replacer and water until fluffy.

Mix margarine, sugar, whipped egg replacer, candied fruit, and orange juice in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, then cool for 5 - 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, and spices, then mix in the boiled mixture from the previous steps.

Transfer completely mixed ingredients to loaf tins and bake for 35 - 40 minutes.

(spray loaf tins with cooking oil spray first - I use canola)

Preparation notes:

I’ve found that once the cakes begin to brown on top that flipping each of them over into other loaf tins will make them cook more evenly. (Of course - spray the tins with cooking oil first.)