Week Two: Dietary & Lifestyle Restrictions
We love eating all the vegan food we can, but it’s good to learn how to cook for those who may have allergies or intolerances — and challenge ourselves in the process.

COOKIES! Oatmeal cookies! With chocolate chips!

On Saturday evening we headed up to our friends’ house for a joint housewarming and birthday party. The weather wasn’t great, with temperatures in the 60s and on and off drizzle, but our host Rachel provided us with plenty of fleece blankets while we sat out on the deck. And once we got inside, we could (try to) cuddle her pups for warmth (while gazing longingly at her aloof kitties).

If the best part of a gathering is getting to hang out with your friends’ pets, the second best is getting to share yummy vegan food! We had pasta salad, a Mediterranean quinoa salad, lots of veggie burgers and dogs, impromptu tater tots (!), chips, salsa, and pretzels. One of Rachel’s sweet (and non-vegan) friends made a super rich, super yummy vegan chocolate cake, and Steven brought a batch of oatmeal cookies as our contribution. I had a busy day, so I delegated the task of making a dessert to him, and he killed it! Just look at these perfectly uniform beauties.

Rarely do I have the patience to roll out dough balls of equal size, let alone press additional chocolate chips into the just-baked cookies. Yet Steven warmed to the opportunity. Flecks of coconut and chocolate chips make these a little fancier than your average oatmeal cookie, and partygoers devoured every last one of them.

Okay, so oatmeal cookies aren’t exactly pushing the boundaries of allergen-free food. But I’m gonna call it close enough. These cookies were too pretty not to share!