Vegan Super Bowl Foods

The Super Bowl is almost upon us. What better way to celebrate than a list of easy pre-prepared vegan food, and a list of recipes.

Easy Pre-prepared Vegan Food

1) Gardein Sweet and Tangy Barbeque Wings, Chipotle Lime Crispy Fingers or Classic Buffalo Wings

    

2) Trader Joe's Vegetable Bird's Nests (ie tempura shredded vegetables)

3) Gardein Beefless Sliders

4) Annie Chun's Spicy Vegetable Wontons

5) Veggie Meatballs (Trader Joe's, Nate's Meatless Meatballs)

If you are willing to put a little more work into preparing your Super Bowl food, below is a list of delectable options. Or check VegWeb to search over 15,000 recipes.

List of Vegan Recipes for the Super Bowl

1) Vegan Cream Cheese Wontons

2) Chunkamole Dip

3) Basil Fritters (Foglie Di Basilico Fritte)

4) Roasted Kale Chips

5) Breaded Crispy Tofu Fingers

6) Easily Veganized Brownie Mix

Happy Holidays and Exciting News!

The past couple weeks have been a whirl wind, so I haven't been on here except to quick post the peanut brittle recipe. 

It is hard to believe, but a couple weeks ago, I was bestowed with some very exciting news. Two of the recipes I submitted to the VegNews holiday cookie contest were in the group of top ten finalists! Winners were to be announced a week later.

On the day the results were promised, I neurotically checked for them more times than I care to admit. It was my husband who first saw the announcement.

I won the VegNews holiday cookie contest! Many happy dances later.........I calmed down enough to see for myself. 

All the recipes sounded absolutely amazing, I was so blown away to be chosen. It was an honor to be a finalist, let alone win. I wish they shared the rest of the finalist recipes as they all sound delicious! 

The winning recipe was my chocolate sugar cookies iced with crushed candy cane topping. Since the VegNews staff are sent all sorts of vegan treats to test, it made the win all the more sweet. 

Still pinching myself that I'll soon be whipping up treats with the Kitchen Aid stand mixer that I won. I've dreamed of having one, but t'was not in the family budget. Thank you, thank you VegNews!

 This momma can hardly wait for the next vegan bake sale to utilize this wonderful prize for a good cause other than making treats for the family.

Vegan Vegkins Halloween Party Part Deux

The second annual vegan Vegkins Halloween party was a success. Twin cities represent! To keep it simple for food, we did a potluck again. I can't think of a more perfect way to learn new family friendly recipes, than having parents make their favorites at a potluck. If you are looking for other party ideas, check out my previous posts on Easy Vegan Halloween Food, White Chocolate Ghosts, and Homemade Halloween Candy.

There were a few Halloween themed goodies I just have to share with you. The first was a mom's first time baking vegan, and boy did it turn out delicious and festive! She told me that the recipe came from Veg News, which was linked up to Chef Chloe's recipe for Witches Fingers, you know the one that won Cupcake Wars on the Food Network. Yep, a vegan cupcake took the cake so to speak!

The next thematic dish was spaghetti worms with veggie meat eyeballs. Not only was it eye-catching (get it, eye catching), but it was a festive dish for our event. This was made by Betsy, who also shared her technique for peanut butter blossoms. She has some mad talent!

Not only did she make the kid-friendly spaghetti dish, she also carved this awesome brain watermelon. It looked fabulous!

I could go on and on about the other food, but lets get on to the fun had all around, with a craft, games, and a costume contest. Here is Anna from These Little Piggies have Tofu working on a Halloween mobile.

Between meal time and games, the kids all created a kid "mosh pit" type of game inside at folded up gymnastic floor mat. Kids really can have fun with just about anything!

Al and his wife Jen from These Little Piggies Had Tofu, planned the games for the party. They did not disappoint! The first was a musical shapes game. The kid's danced to music, when it stopped they needed to find an animal to stand on. Everyone played until they all had a chance to win.

The kid's loved Pin the Tail on the Cat, and some wanted multiple turns. Look how cute the kitty cat blind fold glasses were for the game!

At the end, we announced winners of the costume contest and then everyone got a treat bag full of vegan goodies to take home.

Do you attend or throw a vegan Halloween party for your kiddos? If not, you can always start up your own group. A fine place to start is Meetup.com online. There are vegan meet up groups all over the country on there, a perfect place to meet other parents. Our group is linked in with the Animal Rights Coalition, which send prospective families our way as well. Happy Party Planning

Don't forget to enter the contest to win either some butterscotch chips or a copy of 30 Day Vegan Challenge.

2nd Annual Vegan Waffle Party and Vegan 101 for Newbies

Right now we are on vacation, so that is why you've not heard anything from Growing Up Veg. While we were gone I made up a couple recipes which I'll share once we return. In the meantime, there is an event coming up that needs mention.

Vegan waffles? Check. Tasty Toppings? Check. Good company? Check. What is not to love? This coming Saturday you'll find our crew at the 2nd Annual Vegan Waffle Party at Fuller Park, which is sponsored by ARC. The fun starts at 10 AM, and goes until noon, so get your tail on down there for some good eats.

Afterward if you are new to veganism or vegan-curious, stick around for Help! I'm Going Vegan! Workshop. They will be covering all sorts of informational topics including: shopping tips, Thanksgiving dinner, moral debates, and shoes - they've got it covered. 

Afterwards, you can get yourself matched up with a vegan mentor.  This workshop will be ran by a Al over at These Little Piggies Had Tofu and Dallas Rising, program director at ARC. What a great resource for newbie vegans out there. Hope to see you there!

Vegkins Halloween Party

This year, the vegan/vegetarian family group which I lead, Vegkins, had a Halloween party. We decided to make it a potluck to take the burden off of organizers to prepare and purchase all the food. That worked out really well using evite's potluck option, so everyone could select a variety of dishes to bring.

The Animal Rights Coalition graciously paid for the room rental at a local park's recreational room. A couple parents chipped in to pay for the rest of the items (prizes, dinner ware, crafts, and treats). Overall it was a big hit.

The turn out was really great, and the families had a nice time. If you are interested in planning a vegan Halloween party in your city, I recommend contacting local animal rights groups for help getting the word out and organizing.

Considering the success of this year's party, I know we'll be having another one next year.

The Seven Year Itch

2010 marks the year my hubby and I have been together a decade! Seven of those years we have been married. In honor of our anniversary, I thought I'd post a quick link to the article about it, which was published in VegNews way back when.

http://swenconn.powweb.com/wedding6.html

We had a vegan wedding, which is detailed in the article above. It is hard to believe it has already been seven years, yet here we are now. Just thinking about the food and cake from that night, makes my mouth begins to water. It has turned into my "seven year itch" to re-create the food from that night.

Vegan Halloween Party for Kids

My family always did Halloween big. It is my favorite holiday. I am sure having a sweet tooth might have something to do with this. Once we had kids, I knew we'd enjoy having a party for the under three crowd. We had delicious food and drinks, dancing, cupcakes, and games. I can't speak for the other parents, but our kids slept well the night after the party. Evelyn had a great time, and our son didn't want it to end.

Although half of the children at the party were vegan, it didn't really matter as I think most families would say it was a Halloween party that just happened to be vegan. We ate peanut butter and jelly bat sandwiches, fruit, chips & pretzels, spring rolls, pita with hummus, and cupcakes. Since we have two little kids, we kept it simple. The owl cupcakes did take awhile, but turned out really nice. They were Chocolate Peanut Butter Oreo cupcakes. You can get the recipe here. I also made pumpkin spice cupcakes with maple frosting. It was my second time making them after tweaking the recipe.

Another treat we made for the party was mulled apple cider. My son loves juice and probably would have drank his weight in this stuff if we had let him.

We sent everyone home with goody bags with vegan homemade chocolates, Chew-ets, white chocolate ghost suckers, and Skittles (be sure to check before buying them, there are still ones with gelatin out there). The games had prizes like books from the dollar section at Target, stickers, crayons, etc. We also had little bags pretzels shaped like bats and pumpkins. All in all it was a good time. I'll end this post with a picture of some youngins getting down with their bad selves.

Vegan Birthday Party

At the beginning of this month my baby girl turned one. After losing our first son to a stillbirth, first birthdays are a big deal at our house. When we threw our first vegan birthday party for my son Elliott I was overwhelmed with determining what to serve for food. 


I baked three practice cakes to find a recipe I felt was delicious enough to represent vegan food. Prior to that my cake baking experience comprised of veganizing the cake recipe on the back of Hershey's Cocoa Powder.

Below is more detail on what food we served for the various birthday parties we've hosted if you are looking for ideas. We chose simple food since we have two little ones to keep up with while cooking.

Food

PB & J sandwiches shaped like dinosaurs

Hummus & pita chips

Veggie tray with onion dip

Fruit Salad

Vegan potato salad (recipe from here)

Chips & Salsa or Guacamole

Pretzels

Spring rolls

Veggie Nuggets

Sloppy Joes

Warm 3 Bean Dip

Drinks

Lemonade

Tea

Juice Boxes

Favor Boxes

Ritz Mini Peanut Butter Sandwiches

Annie's Fruit Snacks

Skittles (check for gelatin free there are still ones with gelatin out there)

Temporary Tattoos

Stickers

Birthday Cakes & Cupcakes

Classic Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting

Vanilla Cake with Almond Buttercream Frosting

Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Peanut Butter Frosting, topped with chocolate fondant -and-

Almond Cake with Almond Buttercream Frosting, topped with vanilla fondant

Until my kids came along, I never really decorated cakes other than the simple frosting and adding the obligatory "Happy Birthday" writing. At the parties there were a lot of people who thought the cakes were store bought. Personally I think they were just being kind, but for a novice I think they turned out pretty good. My ideas were gleaned from a birthday cake site, where people submit their homemade cakes with instruction on how to do them. The ladybug and digger cake were a combination of ideas, but it is a great place to get inspiration.