How-To Eat Milk & Cookies

For those who think going vegan means giving up comfort foods, after-school snacks, and midnight munchies like milk and cookies... Think again.

There are probably a dozen commercial types of vegan dairy milk alternatives. My personal fave is unsweetened plain almond milk.

If you don't like one, try another. You're not limited to soy-based products any longer. Nuts, seeds, grains, and rice of all different types and multiple brands and flavors of each type make dairy substitutions in recipes stupid easy.

Or just pour yourself a glass and dunk away.

Oh, the cookies? Those are mint chocolate Newman's O's sandwich cookies over there. But yeah, Oreos are an option too, as are MANY store-bought brands, some way healthier than others (I personally avoid anything hydrogenated or made with high fructose corn syrup... unless I am traveling, starving, drunk...or all three, haha).

Vegan cookies aren't difficult to make. There are thousands of recipes online, and some fabulous cookbooks you can purchase or check out from the library, such as Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar.

Here is the Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe in the above cookbook from the Post Punk Kitchen. I add an additional 1/3 cup flour when I make mine so they don't spread so much.

Nothing beats this classic for a lunchbox treat or stocking the cookie jar (if they even last long enough to be cool enough to put inside!)

Ahhh, you're gluten-free, you say? You don't use soy products? You don't want heaps of sugar in your cookies? Yes, you still have plenty of vegan options. From raw refrigerator cookies made from literally a few whole foods ingredients, to the yummy gluten-free soy-free vegan double chocolate chip cookies I made from Oh She Glows using coconut "sugar" instead of cane sugar... just seek the web and ye shall find. And raw cookies are equally delicious. One of my 8 year old's favorite bedtime reading books includes drooling over the food porn in Rawsome Vegan Baking.

Whether you're baking with kids or indulging on the go, being vegan won't stop you.