Food Gifts - The easiest pumpkin spice cake in the world

This recipe is accidentally vegan. An elderly woman at the grocery store gave it to my mom as a "thank you" for helping her get a product off of the shelves. Since then it's been my favorite pumpkin spice cake and I make it about 47 times every year between the months on October and January. Because it's so pretty, tasty and festive, this cake makes a fantastic present as well. Do you know what the best part is, though?

 

It has 2 ingredients.

Spice cake mix (most are vegan, just check the ingredients)

1 can of pumpkin puree (or equal amounts of homemade puree)

 

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and beat the two ingredients together in a large bowl.

Pour (or actually scoop, it's a pretty thick batter) into whatever pans you are using and bake until a toothpick comes out clean.

  

I used these adorable mini loaf pans I found. With the extra batter I made some muffins to snack on. The mini loaves baked for just over 30 minutes and the muffins took exactly 20 minutes to bake.

You can also bake the cake in a bundt pan and garnish with little stars made from homemade apple leather. Just spread some applesauce out on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet and bake at 200 degrees until it's solid and fairly dry. Then use a knife or cookie cutters to make shapes.

This is seriously the easiest holiday present you'll give this year, I promise you.

 

Food Gifts: Roasted Veggie Pasta Sauce

Yet another roasted food gift.
I guess warm, roasted foods just feel good this time of year (even when you're in Florida and the weather is barely discernible from summer).

My favorite thing about giving pasta sauce as a present is that pretty much everyone likes it and if you include an artisan pasta or a homemade pasta, you've basically given an entire delicious meal. Feel free to take it a step further with a bottle of wine and some bread dip mix (just mix some salt, pepper and high quality Italian herbs. They just add olive oil). Last year I made pastas myself. It takes a while, but if you have a pasta machine and the time, it's definitely worth it.

This sauce is so easy to make and was a huge hit last year.

This is all you'll need:

Tomatoes (get a variety of whatever looks good at the store or farmer's market)
An onion
Garlic
Any other veggies that you can find fresh and think will go well. I used carrots, bell peppers and an artichoke to experiment with.
Salt
Canned whole tomatoes (These help if the sauce is too dry when you blend it up)
Olive oil 
Basil
Red wine (optional)
Jars

  

Preheat your oven to 250 degrees.

Peel any veggies that need to be peeled, then cut them up into large pieces and put them in a baking dish drizzled with olive oil. Sprinkle some kosher salt on top.

Put them in the oven for a couple of hours. When they all start to get soft and brown just a little, bring the temperature up to 350 and roast everything for another 20 to 30 minutes. Parts of the veggies should be nice and browned.

Add all of the veggies to your blender or food processor. If you don't have a really big blender or food processor you might need to do this in batches. I ended up not using the artichoke. It was too pretty to blend up anyways.

 

Add in the basil and the wine if you're using it. I just put in a couple splashes. Then blend it all up.

Once it's blended add in the canned whole tomatoes. Don't blend it completely smooth, a little bit of texture works really well for this sauce.

Now you can jar it up. On the tag, write that the sauce should be simmered about ten minutes before serving, just to heat it all through.

Food Gifts: Balsamic Roasted Garlic

Since I have to get all of my Christmas presents done early this year (we'll be out of town the week before), I thought it might be a good idea to share with you guys some of the gifts I'll be making. Hopefully these ideas and how-to's help you with your gift-giving this year.

I'm a big advocate of the homemade present, and particularly the edible homemade present. I always try to incorporate handmade edibles into all of my gift giving and I change it up each year. One year I did giant cupcakes decorated as ornaments and I gifted them in adorable, festive boxes. That same year I also made mini ornament cupcakes for parties and large groups I was bringing gifts for. I've also done cookies of all kinds and one year I made a couple of weeks worth of frozen meals for my parents. They were all designed to just defrost and throw in the oven so that my family could have a home cooked meal even when they were busy. The options are endless.

This will be a series of posts and I'll also include ideas for labeling and wrapping the food gifts as well.

This year, one of the gifts I'm giving is balsamic roasted garlic. It seems a little odd, but it's useful and fun little present for any chefs and garlic lovers in your life. The plus, this stuff lasts a really long time if it's sealed and in the fridge so you can make it a little ways ahead of time.

 

All you need to make this is:

Aluminum foil

Lots of heads of garlic (depending on how much you want to give)

Balsamic vinegar

Olive oil

Kosher or sea salt

Jars (I used a couple of sizes of mason jars. Use whatever you like but make sure it's pretty and seals fairly well)

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Then, chop the very tops off of the heads of garlic, so a little bit of each clove is exposed.

Line a baking pan of some kind (I used glass) with foil and drizzle a little olive oil over the foil. Then arrange the heads of garlic cut side up.

Drizzle them with a little more olive oil and some balsamic, then sprinkle them with a little salt.

 

It should look a little like this. 

Now, cover the pans with foil and toss them in the oven for about 45 minutes to an hour.

When they come out, let them cool a little and remove each of the cloves from their skin. It shouldn't be too hard now that they are cooked.

Put the cloves back into the foil, drizzle them with more olive oil and balsamic vinegar, then wrap the foil around them to make a little pouch.

Toss them back into the oven for another 15 minutes or so. Take them out of the oven, stir them up, and roast them for another 15 minutes. They should be golden, smell delicious, and be a bit soft.

Now you can package them up.

Roasted garlic has a ton of uses, and it might be a good idea to include a little gift tag with ideas. It's great spread on toast and it a wonderful addition to virtually any pasta sauce. You can also spread it on crackers or even eat it on it's own.

 

Double Chocolate Peppermint Cookies

Christmas season has officially begun!

My fiance and I were starting to set up my Christmas decorations and I decided that we needed a festive treat. I couldn't find any that I liked and had all of the ingredients for, so I made one up.

The result was a crazy fluffy cookie that was definitely a hit. They aren't overpoweringly chocolatey or minty, they are just a teensy bit chewy around the edges, and they absolutely melt in your mouth. This is definitely a recipe that will be added to my Christmas cookies folder.

To decorate them, my fiance made little paper cutouts that we placed over the cookies and dusted with powdered sugar.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups of unbleached flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons cocoa powder

1 cup of sugar
1/3 cup of applesauce
1 tablespoon molasses
1/4 almond milk (soy, rice or hemp will work too)
1/4 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

1 1/2 ounces semisweet baking chocolate
1 1/2 tablespoons Earth Balance

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract

1/2 cup vegan chocolate chips

How to make them:

Preheat oven to 350.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder into a mixing bowl.

Melt the baking chocolate in a double boiler. If you don't have a double boiler, melt the chocolate in a glass bowl on top of a saucepan with simmering water in it.
When it is all melted, remove from heat and mix in the Earth Balance. 

Add the sugar, applesauce, molasses, milk and vinegar to the flour mixture. When it is mixed together, add the melted chocolate and mix well.

Mix in the extracts and the chocolate chips.

Put tablespoon sized pieces of dough on a lightly greased cookie sheet and bake for 8 minutes. Cool on a cooling rack.

Vegan Cooking Tips

I love to cook, so when I started my transition into the vegan lifestyle, experimenting with foods was a big part of my adventure. Here are a collection of tips that I've come across either from other vegan cooks or from my own experiments. Some of them might not be new to the more seasoned vegans out there, but hopefully there are some that you've never heard of before.

What milk do I use? With so many non-dairy milks on the market, it's sometimes confusing deciding which to use in certain recipes. 

As a general rule, almond milk is the most mild and is usually best in most savory recipes and can also be used in desserts.You can also use soy, rice, and hemp milk in most recipes.

Soy milk is highest in protein and is therefore best when you need to curdle the milk (for example, when you are replacing buttermilk. By the way, the recipe for that is about 1 tsp of vinegar to a cup of soy milk). Curdling works with most non-dairy milks, but soy will get you the best results.

When you are making desserts, coconut is usually a great option. It's flavor is a bit more distinct, but it has a much higher fat content and is a beautiful bright white that works well in lots of cakes and sauces. 

Also use coconut milk when your recipe calls for a higher fat form of dairy, like cream. If you need the milk to be even thicker and fattier, refrigerate a can of coconut milk for a few hours. The fat will begin to separate and rise to the top, so use the top of the can for your recipe.

Rice milk is one of the lightest tasting milks, so use it when you don't want the plant milk to weigh down your dish.

Cooking tofu. Tofu can be delicious if cooked well, but usually it's a tasteless spongy mush.

Freeze your tofu. When I buy tofu, I get home and I drain it and then I immediately put it in the freezer in little freezer bags. When you defrost the tofu later, it will drain out the water and you get a much more hearty, meaty texture. It also makes it way easier to marinate and season tofu, which is very important.

Crumbled tofu is a great way to get used to eat tofu and a great way to please people that don't like it. There are two ways to do it. 
First, crumble up the tofu with a fork. Spread the tofu on a lightly greased baking sheet, and then sprinkle seasonings over it. Make sure to use some salt, and don't really worry too much about over seasoning it. Bake the tofu at a low temperature, around 250, for a few hours. Stir it up every half hour or so. The tofu is done when it is a golden color and getting crispy around the edges. You can add this into anything an omnivore would add ground beef to. It's particularly yummy when you use it to stuff peppers and mushrooms or make tacos with. 
The other method is to crumble and marinate the tofu. Crumble it up in a bowl, and then add vinegar, soy sauce, and lots of herbs and spices. Stir periodically and let it sit for a while. Then cook up the tofu in a saute pan until it just starts to brown. This version is particularly good in lasagnas and other pasta dishes.

If you're looking to make slices of tofu, the same principle of marinating applies. Drain the tofu really, really well. Cut it into slices and marinate the slices in a casserole dish or baking pan. The longer they marinate, the better. Then drain the slices again (reserve the marinate!), and cook them in a saute pan with a little oil until they are golden on both sides. Put the slices back into the dish with the marinate, cover with foil, and bake at 350 for about 30 minutes. Depending on the type of marinate you used, serve with veggies, rice, mashed potatoes, or whatever fits. 

Eggs, eggs, eggs. There are a lot of options to replace eggs with when you're baking. Honestly, I think omnivores are so limited just putting eggs in everything. Here are some of the options and what they work best in. Keep in mind that you can mix different egg subs. Think about each individual recipe and which combination you think fits best.
Also, keep in mind that with all of these subs, you will need to add a bit more baking powder or baking soda than the recipe calls for. I find myself adding more even to recipes that are already vegan.

Ener-G - This is an egg replacing powder. You whisk a bit of the powder with warm water, and it actually gets a kind of eggy consistency. This is good in some cookie recipes and where another sub just doesn't seem to fit.

Bananas - A half of a mashed banana equals one egg. This sub is really great in quick breads, muffins, and particularly pancakes. It sometimes makes a dish come out a bit oilier, so cut down on the oil a tiny bit. Keep in mind that this will add a banana flavor to your dish. Usually that's a good thing.

Applesauce - 1/4 cup equals one egg. This is my absolute favorite egg sub. It works best in brownies and chocolate cakes. It doesn't add much of any flavor to the dish, so it's great when you have a lot of other flavors at play. You can also use applesauce to replace some of the oil in a recipe. Go ahead and try making brownies where you replace all of the eggs and all but a teaspoon of the oil with applesauce. They will be the best brownies you've ever had.

Ground Flax Seed - Mix it with warm water to make an egg. This is kind of an all purpose sub, but it tends to work best in savory or particularly hearty dishes.

Tofu - 1/4 cup of blended tofu equals one egg. This is good in recipes like cheesecakes and pies. Be careful about using too much, as it will get a very soy-like flavor. Obviously this only matters if you don't like soy flavors.

Pumpkin - 1/4 cup equals one egg. This is another fun egg sub. It's also best in quick breads and heartier desserts or muffins.

Whipped Cream. There are plenty of good dairy free whipped creams out there now, but sometimes it's nice to make a homemade version, and this one is good.

Take a can of full fat coconut milk and put it in your fridge. It needs to sit there at least a day or two without moving around much, so I usually just make sure I always have a can in the back of my fridge. 
Carefully open the can and spoon out the really thick fat off the top into a bowl. Add a teensy bit of vanilla and some powdered sugar (I'm not giving a strict amount because it depends so much on how sweet you like your whipped cream, but usually around a half cup is a good starting point). 
Then whip it up with a hand or stand mixer. It will take a little while, but soon enough it will look exactly like the dairy version, except it will taste way better.
Stick the bowl into the fridge for a little while so it can firm up just a bit more. Then serve. This is particularly good on a slice of vegan pumpkin pie.

Cutting down on meat cravings. Most vegans don't really crave meat after the first couple of months, but for those of you who are earlier on in your transition, this is the technique I used to avoid them. 

When you are craving meat, you usually aren't actually craving dead animal flesh. The flavors we associate with meat are actually just seasonings, sauces, and cooking methods. Therefore, take all of those delicious sauces and seasonings and throw them on veggies. Growing up, basically all of the meat I ate was seasoned with Adobo (a Hispanic seasoning blend). So I sprinkled it on to all of my veggies before roasting them or sauteing them and I never had any bad cravings. I never even felt like the meat was missing off my plate.

A Vegan Wedding: The Cake - Vegan Bakeries

In the Orlando area, there are two vegan bakeries that do wedding cakes. The first one is BabyCakesNYC. They have a small spot in Downtown Disney, and all of their cakes are also gluten free and low glycemic. I like their cakes, and so does my fiance. I was a little worried that the texture of their frosting might throw off some guests, but we looked into their wedding cakes anyways. Their designs, however, are not very attractive to us. I can definitely see how they would fit in with other weddings, but it just was not us as at all. So BabyCakes got crossed off the list.

Raphsodic Bakery on Mills is the other one. They also have gluten free cakes, but it's not all they do. They are also ridiculously accommodating with allergies. 
My fiance and I have been there many times and think their wedding cakes are beautiful, but we just never saw their flavors as our thing for our wedding. We didn't want to write them off, though, because no bakery is going to understand what we want in a vegan cake better. When we set up the tasting, my fiance got to pick a bunch of different cakes, frostings, and fillings to try out. This was a nice change from everyone giving us plain chocolate cake when we didn't want chocolate cake at our wedding.
We tried a chocolate biscotti cake, a spice cake, a lemon caramel cake, an almond cake, and a marzipan cake. For frostings and fillings we tried a vanilla butter cream, a spiced vanilla butter cream, chocolate butter cream, chocolate ganache, and apple butter.
Holy crap everything was so good. The marzipan cake might have actually been the best cake I've ever had. The frostings were rich and flavorful and didn't have that chemical taste that so many others had. I was in love. 
When we started talking about designs, the owner was great. Since they don't use fondant and chemical food colorings, she was very open and honest with us about what the design limitations were. Within those limitations (which are a small price to pay for something so good and good for you), we could still definitely create a cake that would look beautiful and fit with the rest of our wedding.
When she gave us the prices, I almost cried. They were the lowest prices we'd been quoted for. I called my mom afterwards and told her the cost and she didn't believe me. They are also much more flexible with payments and orders than more traditional bakeries, which is great for us.
I don't think it really needs to be stated, but this is where we are getting our cake.

A Vegan Wedding: The Cake - Traditional Bakeries

A big part of the wedding we are working on right now is the cake. A lot of wedding checklists out there on the internet say we can probably wait a little while for this one, but since we'll be getting a vegan cake we decided it is best to start early. I'm breaking up the cake ordeal into a few different posts as we look at different bakers.

Since the all-vegan options in the area are limited, we decided to also look at traditional bakeries that make vegan cakes.

We started out each email asking if they were able to provide an all vegan cake. I feel as though this is a very important thing to begin with. If a company can't accommodate our vegan diet, then we would only be wasting their time and ours if we didn't find out right away. I think it's rude to the vendor and wasteful for me. We also tried to stick mostly with contacting bakers we had heard could do vegan cakes or who advertised alternative diets on their website. These are the bakeries we contacted:

Michael Anthony Cakes: His cakes are beautiful, and he advertises in many places on his website that he can create a delicious vegan cake. He was one of the first we contacted and we were very excited, but the response was disheartening. 

"The options are two fold for vegan cakes:

1) to have separate floating tiers ie. 12", 10", 8", 6" in a simple rustic design.

2) to have a small cake on top and to do cupcakes on the cupcake tree around

The main reason for this is there isn't a product on the market yet that is vegan that sets up like buttercream firm enough to put fondant on etc.

There is one that has recently been introduced called Melt which has come the closest yet. This non firming feature hinders a stack type cake being done."

He also said that it would have to be a "simple rustic" design. Rustic is not us at all. He sent us a picture of a vegan cake he had made and it was very ugly compared to his other works of art. We had our hearts set on a tiered cake, and also know that it is a complete lie that you can't create a vegan tiered cake, because so many other bakeries do it all the time!

Sprinkles: Sprinkles is an award winning bakery and their cakes are complete and total works of art. When we contacted them, we were told that they could do vegan cakes, and the prices they gave us were very reasonable. We set up a tasting right away. When we got to the adorable little bakery, we were served 4 flavors of cake, a few different fruit fillings, and buttercream. It was all on an ugly paper plate, but the couple next to us had a nice, pretty plate. It was a bit of a turn off but obviously not a huge deal. We were still excited. Then we tried the cakes. The buttercream tasted like bleach. It actually made me sick. I'm assuming they used a cheap margarine or something, since I don't know how else a food product could have that strange flavor. The vanilla cake tasted exactly like the very first vegan cake I ever made almost 4 years ago. It didn't taste bad, but it was very thin and dense, and really not "cake-like" at all. The chocolate cake tasted like mushy paper. It was dark brown but I couldn't really get a chocolate or a cake taste out of it. The other two flavors were a marble and a fruit swirl. The fruit swirl tasted exactly like the vanilla cake, and the marble was actually not that bad. The fillings were all fruit. They weren't horrible but they did taste a bit artificial. I'm honestly not a big fan of fruit in the first place, so I asked if there was any way they could do a chocolate filling. The woman helping us went into the back and brought a chocolate buttercream. It was actually pretty good. I was eating it on its own since I couldn't stand any of the other flavors. Needless to say, we crossed Sprinkles off of our list.

Cupcake Crazy: We set up a tasting after they told us they could do great vegan cakes and gave us an incredibly fair price estimate. When we got to the tasting, we ended up waiting for a really long time, and an employee asked us if we had to try vegan cakes. I was a bit taken aback and ready to walk out the door. However, my fiance encouraged me to wait and the owner of the bakery came out to see us. She was energetic and very, very kind. However, they only had frozen chocolate cupcakes for us, since an employee had sold all of the vegan samples for our tasting. The cake was great, and the buttercream was pretty good too.
When we started to draw out ideas for the cake, it turned into something very elaborate that I was a little uncomfortable with. My fiance loved it, and every time I tried to tone it down a little, I felt kind of like the baker and my fiance were ganging up on me against it.
In the end, though, I was overall happy with the service and the cake - I just wish we could have tried more flavors. Vegan chocolate cake is basically the easiest thing in the world. Vanilla can be a little trickier.
Another interesting note on Cupcake Crazy that confused me was that the owner is vegan (or mostly vegan, that wasn't very clear to me). I think it's strange that a vegan would run a bakery of predominantly non-vegan cakes. Especially with such a quickly growing vegan market and so many consumers looking to cut down on dairy, wouldn't it make sense for her to run a vegan bakery? I also wondered if she tries her own cakes that she makes for customers, or if she just goes by sight.

The Sugar Suite: The Sugar Suite was actually the very first place we contacted because I had heard that they do vegan cakes well. I was really, really excited for this tasting. We walked in and the cakes were amazing. Jennyfer, the owner, was incredibly sweet and professional. She served us a chocolate cake and a vanilla cake. Both were very tasty, and the buttercream was wonderful as well (if you haven't noticed, I take my buttercream seriously). We talked about design options and I just fell in love. I love piping on cakes and that seems to be Jennyfer's thing. We came up with a gorgeous design where she would copy the lace on my dress onto an ombre green cake. 
Unfortunately, when we got the quote it was around $800, and that's just too much.

Frosting On the Cake: We contacted this baker when the Citrus Club (a very pretty business club in downtown) told us they could do an all vegan wedding, including the cake. This is the only baker they allow for weddings there, so I took that to mean that this baker could do a vegan cake. When I contacted them, this was my response "No I am sorry. I do not do vegan cakes." So I explained that I had been told by the Citrus Club that they could handle vegan cakes and went on with my day.

Puff Pastry with Gingered Pumpkin and Agave - Happy World Vegan Day!

Yesterday was Halloween. I've been so busy with life, that I barely even realized that it was October 31st. This really stinks because I love Halloween. I love costumes and I particularly love making fun and festive Halloween desserts. Yesterday afternoon, when I realized I wanted to do something for the holiday, I decided I was going to make a delicious pumpkin dessert and I was going to carve pumpkins with my fiance.

Unfortunately, it's actually pretty hard to find a pumpkin to carve on Halloween. Everyone already has their pumpkins and all the little patches have closed down. So we didn't get to carve pumpkins, but we did get this delicious dessert. Puff Pastry with Gingered Pumpkin and Agave. It's a little bit like a simplified napoleon, and it was very tasty. 

It's a much lighter dish than a lot of fall desserts. No offense to pumpkin spice cake, but it was refreshing.

You can make the filling in advance and just store it in the fridge. That actually helps it to stiffen up a little and makes it easier to serve.

Filling:
1 can of pumpkin puree (or you can use homemade puree)
4 tablespoons of agave
1 Ener-G egg (use a flax egg or another egg sub if you don't have Ener-G)
1/4 cup of vegan cream cheese
1/8 block of firm tofu, cut into cubes
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
a dash or two each of cloves, cinnamon and all spice
1 inch of fresh ginger root, peeled

Pastry:
1 sheet of frozen puff pastry (check ingredient, most are actually vegan!)
1 tablespoon of Earth Balance
1 teaspoon of cinnamon sugar

Topping:
Agave
Powdered Sugar (optional)

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

To make the filling, just throw everything in your blender and set it on high until everything is really smooth. Make sure there's no chunks of ginger and tofu in there, because that would be weird.
Throw the filling in the fridge and let it sit there until you serve the dessert.

Defrost the puff pastry and cut along the folds. Then, cut each strip into 3 even pieces. You will have one oddball square of puff pastry when this is all done, but I'm sure you'll find a good use for it. Place each of the squares on a lightly greased cookie sheet

Melt the Earth Balance and mix in the cinnamon sugar. Brush the mixture over the top of each pastry square.

Bake the pastry for 10-15 minutes, until everything is golden and puffy.

To serve, place one square of puff pastry on a plate and top with a big spoonful of the pumpkin filling. Carefully put a second square of the pastry on top, creating a little sandwich. Then add a tiny spoonful of the filling on top.

Drizzle the whole thing with agave nectar and sift some powdered sugar over all of it.

A Vegan Wedding: The Dress

When I first started researching vegan weddings, something that came up a lot was a dress. Books and blogs stressed how difficult it was to find a vegan wedding dress and how hard you'd have to work. They also said that bamboo and other sustainable fabrics were becoming very common and could be found by many designers in all sorts of styles.

I found both of these assertions to be completely false during my search.

When I started looking at bridal salons, I emailed every single highly rated one with the same email (I am obsessed with rating things and looking at ratings. WeddingWire has been my friend). I explained that I was recently engaged and wanted a dress that contains no silk or silk blends. Literally one shop responded saying most of their dresses were silk. The vast majority said they carry little or no silk at all.

Simultaneously, I searched designers that make dresses from more sustainable fabrics like bamboo and hemp. I did find a couple online, but their selection is limited to fitting just one or two very specific styles. Many of the dresses were of a very simple, almost hippie-like aesthetic. Which is perfect for some people, but definitely not for me. There are a few designers out there that can build you a custom dress from these fabrics, but they aren't in my budget and they aren't in my area.

Two of my favorite designers throughout my search were Maggie Sottero and Allure. They might not be your style at all, but both designers make all or nearly all of their dresses out of synthetic fabrics that are comfy and don't feel cheap at all. 

I ended up buying an Allure Bridals dress that I fell in love with.

If you're looking for a truly sustainable dress, they might not be the best option. But for brides that have veganism as the biggest priority and don't love (or can't afford) the bamboo and hemp options these designers are a fantastic starting point. Hopefully soon these fabrics will become more mainstream and feature a wider range of styles and availability.

Unfortunately, something all of the vegan wedding books and blogs don't seem to stress much at all is that most tuxedos are made from wool. We have a lot more time to search for a tux, but we aren't finding too many places that carry vegan options. Men's Wearhouse carries a few choices and the other option is a formal suit made from linen. If we find more as the wedding gets closer, I'll definitely write a tux post as well.

A Vegan Wedding

A few weeks ago, my now fiance proposed to me while on a picnic along a beautiful little river.
A few hours later, we started planning the wedding.
The two of us want to get married in May of next year for an assortment of reasons, so there wasn't really any time to waste.
Of course, we are planning a vegan wedding. Of everyone at the wedding, there will only be 3 vegans. My future husband, my younger brother, and me. Therefore we are trying to make it as vegan as possible and as accessible as possible.
While I've been planning, I haven't really found a ton of resources for vegan couples, particularly in the Central Florida area. So I'm going to try to post a lot of reviews and stories about my experiences to help future brides with their vegan weddings.
If there's anything that you'd like to see my talk about or share, let me know!

Dietary Statistics in the United States

Organizations sometimes try to cater to offering extensive gluten free and kosher products, saying that there is a serious demand over offering vegan and vegetarian options. However, that perception is largely fabricated.

% of US population that identify as Jewish - 1.8% (and declining)
% of US population with Celiac Disease - 1%
% of US population that is vegan - 2-7% (and growing rapidly)
% of US population that is vegetarian - 5-6%

What do you think?

Sources:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/01/america-jews-religion-jewish/2900871/
http://www.celiaccentral.org/celiac-disease/facts-and-figures/
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2013/02/food-issues-polarizing-america.html#more
http://www.vrg.org/blog/2011/12/05/how-many-adults-are-vegan-in-the-u-s/

Spreading Your Message and Changing the World

Almost all of us have something (or many things) we are very passionate about, and a lot of us participate in some sort of activism or advocacy related to it. We go to events, we join organizations, and we spread our message both online and in the real world.

However, a lot of times when people are very passionate about their cause, they often get combative out of passion and can hurt their message.

I have created this post to offer a slightly different take on spreading your message and changing the world, one that draws from ideas used in corporate public relations, politics and other fields skilled in changing people's minds. It's a kinder method, one that makes your cause seem like the friendly, open option even for those who are skeptical.

This line represents all people and their feelings/attitudes/opinions on your message. The purple oval on the left is where you probably fall. You feel very strongly about your message or cause and you'd do anything for it. The people in this area aren't likely to change. You don't need to worry about losing them, because they are as passionate as you are.

The green area on the left represents all of the other members of your cause. They feel strongly about it too, and are instrumental in spreading your message as they are the core of your "side." However, these people aren't as solid as you might be, so remember to be nice to them. Even if they might not be quite as passionate as you, don't alienate them. Make them feel good about themselves and what they are doing to make the world a better place. Don't trash them for not being "good" enough. Do that enough times and you could lose their support.

The same sort of idea applies to the purple and green areas on the right. These are the people that strongly oppose you. The individuals in the purple oval on the right aren't going anywhere. So don't try. You aren't going to make Tea Party leaders go all in for universal healthcare. By pushing at them, you not only waste your valuable time and energy, but you make yourself an antagonist as well.
The green on the right also probably isn't worth too much of your time. At least not yet. They are pretty solidly on that side and probably aren't going to change - at least not until the rest of the world is already there. Even then, you still might not get them.

The orange in the middle is where you want to focus your valuable resources. These are the people who aren't really sure how they feel about veganism, fossil fuels, a woman's right to choose. Maybe they are less informed, maybe they've never sat down to think about it, or maybe they have thought about the issue but don't know where to begin. These people are also those who might feel strongly about part of your issue but not another part. 

Be friendly. That doesn't mean you shouldn't share with them the ugly side of eating eggs, or the lies anti-choice people spread about abortion. It just means you shouldn't start with an attack or by alienating them. Be welcoming. Some examples that can be applied to virtually any good cause:

• Give out free vegan food. Don't put giant posters of slaughtered animals by your table or station. Walk up to someone who looks sad and give them a cupcake. Once they've thanked you, tell them it has no dairy or eggs in it and is still super yummy. If they ask more, share with them why you are vegan. Try and gauge which issues are going to be most important to them. Are they in gym clothes? Start with the health aspect. Are they walking a dog? Start with animal rights.

• Do you want more people to bike to work? Understand that this isn't feasible for everyone. If you see someone complaining about the drive to work, tell them how you fixed that problem by riding your bike. Be really excited about it, but not pushy. If you see someone who is thinking about getting a bike but isn't sure, help them pick one out! Think about their budget, their needs, etc. Share your knowledge and passion.

Don't attack people for not being there yet. If they'll listen to you talk, then they are already doing good and you should be thankful. Share with them why you are so passionate about things. Tell them how easy your lifestyle is or how much good it does. Give them examples. And if they are still unsure, tell them that baby steps are good too. Give them resources, give them science. Become their support system.
If your initial reaction is to attack, you are going to put people on the defensive before they can even listen to your point. You are also going to make them form a bad impression of your cause. Particularly if you are pushing for a cause that is often seen as antagonistic, patronizing, or pushy, you need to be incredibly cautious of this (examples include veganism, environmentalism, and atheism). People are already going to be wary, and you need to prove them wrong. A good way to overcome this, if you are a member of one of those groups, is to not start with emotionally charged arguments. Start with science, facts, numbers. This causes the person you are talking to to think before they fight. Don't let things become a battle. Let it be a discussion of ideas and action plans.
Some other tips:

• Before participating in any sort of event for your cause, become familiar with commonly asked questions and attacks. Practice well thought out, friendly responses to them. If you know that you are particularly prone to getting heated, find someone in your group who won't and stick with them. They can pick up questions that might be triggering to you or might cause you to react poorly.
• This does not mean you can't stand up for yourself. Don't start a fight but don't let anyone personally attack your or your friends. If you are with a group make sure you all know to pay attention and stand up for one another. Don't let someone sit there and get verbally beaten up for standing up for your cause.
• Don't walk up to people in crowded areas and shove information into their face. Set up a sign or an area and let interested people come to you. Make yourself look friendly and available for discussion. Have little things to give away, along with stacks of literature that approach your cause from a few different angles.
• Always have resources and literature on hand. Save a document on your computer with a list of sources for your claims and lists of resources for people who need them. Keep business card sized bits of literature and links in your wallet. If you're vegan, keep some mini recipe cards with you. If it's pro-choice that's your cause, keep a card with contact information for local women's clinics. Always be ready to help those in need and share with those interested.
• Always, always, always make sure you aren't giving off a "holier than thou" air. Condescension won't get you anywhere, and with that you won't only hurt those in the middle but you can also seriously hurt the feelings of people on your side.
• Have lots of events to support your cause. Some of them should be strictly serious - like protests or volunteer events - but others should be fun. Put an exciting spin on fundraisers and have parties and get togethers related to your cause (e.g. a vegan potluck, a hiking trip, an upcycled fashion show, a trip to a farm sanctuary). This will make your cause feel more like a community and will also get other people to show up just to have fun. While they are there, they'll learn more about the issue in a positive, relaxing setting.
• Make all of your criticism constructive, and only criticize when it will actually serve a purpose. Phrase your criticisms as suggestions or interesting ideas if possible. Never say something like "this is the WORST EVER." Say "wow, it's so cool to see people put forth this kind of an effort. Another thing you could do is ____" or "another way to do it would be____" or even "to get even better results, we could also try ____."

I hope these tips help and please share any others that you may have!

Welcome to Plants + Animals

This blog will focus on the vegan lifestyle - particularly vegan activism and the plant-based diet.

I will review vegan foods and restaurants, share recipes, talk about issues within veganism (coming from an animal rights perspective as well as a health, environmental, and human rights perspective), and share tips and ideas for vegan advocacy.

I hope to be a resource for those new to the vegan lifestyle or those who are curious about it, and I hope to also help push forward the vegan cause alongside long time vegans.

I hope you enjoy your stay and please feel free to say hi!