Vegan Sweets and Eats Potluck! <3 And an Online Door Prize!

So I'm going to start off this post the same way we started our Vegan Sweets and Eats Potluck.... you get to guess how many chocolate mint lentils (you can buy them online here) are in the jar! Yes, you have a slight disadvantage in that you only have this photo (and at an odd angle too), but give it your best shot! I have a door prize to give out to whoever is the closest, so just leave your guess in a comment and I'll announce the winner on V-day. Those of you who were at the party are not eligible :-)


This was Society of PEACE's First Annual (which hopefully means there will be a second annual) Vegan Eats and Sweets Valentine potluck, hosted by yours truly! It was such a fun event to plan, what to get for door prizes, what food to make, and decorating the house with different shades of red and pink carnations (a much under appreciated flower).

To start with, the food. Everything was delicious. So many people kept remarking how good the food was and how we need to do these potluck things more often. I couldn't agree more. They are the perfect way to socialize with other veg*ns and get new recipe ideas. Below are only some of the dishes that we enjoyed, including raw cashew dip with fruit, hummus with pita chips and veggies, sweet potato fried, dahl, chili, stuffed mushrooms, and sushi. Not pictured were spring rolls, green bean salad, and some other Indian lentil thing that I totally forgot the name of (even though I asked two or three times)! Even though there was a ton of food, it all disappeared so quickly. Guess it was just that good.

To satisfy the vegan sweet tooth (cuz you know I have one!) there were dried apricots, two kinds of chocolate cupcakes, and peanut butter bombs. Thank goodness I saved a few cupcakes, the last one will be devoured tonight by me!!

After everyone stuffed themselves silly, it was time for door prizes! We had some great stuff; Cherrybrook Kitchen brownie, cookie, and cake mixes, Endangered Species chocolates, a Vegalicious calendar, a copy of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, and the latest issue of Vegetarian Times.

Best of all, we had up for grabs some of the adorable artwork of Mrs. Cakespy! She did a custom mini-watercolor of a vegan cupcake baker, just for the occasion (you simply must enlarge it by clicking on the photo or the previous link to truly appreciate it's cuteness)! Lucky for you, she even has this design (and another cute vegan themed one) on her cafepress site in the form of a T-shirt and magnets. I picked up a couple of the magnets for door prizes as well.


And no one went home empty handed, Mrs. Cakespy was sweet enough to let me use the watercolor design on a Vegan Sweets recipe booklet that everyone got to submit their favorite sweet recipe to before it was printed. A cute and useful keepsake!


And there is another shot of the lentil jar for you to ponder over, enlarge, and count individual lentils (dang, I'm giving you ideas!). Get your guess in by 9pm CST on Feb 14!!

A Taste of Things to Come...

I have been desperately trying to catch up on everyone's blogs (I'll get there, promise!), but it has been so gorgeous outside today that I had to get out and enjoy it for a little while. I just got the book Striking at the Roots: A Practical Guide to Animal Activism and enjoyed relaxing on a blanket in the sun and reading about vegan outreach techniques, such as leafleting! Yesterday I was busy getting ready for our Vegan Sweets and Eats Potluck party. It was such a great time, I promise a post by tomorrow night. But here's a sneak peak.... what could be hiding inside my cupcake? (thanks mom for finding this for me!)

Why they're vegan chocolate mint lentils! And this information may be of some help to you later... radius = 7mm; height = 4.5 mm; cubic close packing structure (ok, not really, just wanted to use a mineralogy term to show how nerdy I am)

Now get away from your computer and enjoy what's left of the weekend!

Seitan From A Can?

I have seen a few others blog about canned seitan, so I just had to try it for myself. I ordered this one awhile back from Vegan Essentials. I must say it made me very nervous to try seitan from a can....

And my gut feeling was correct, I couldn't stand this stuff. I thought it was squishy and weird tasting, made my stomach slither a bit. But, John loved it (I sauteed it in a little coconut oil before serving). So thankfully, it wasn't wasted and he ate up what was on my plate. I wasn't totally lazy in making dinner... we also had the tamarind lentils from V-con (added a bunch of steamed kale towards the end and subbed lime juice for tamarind) and the coconut lime rice from ED&BV. Both were very tasty and made plenty of leftovers. I was expecting the coconut flavor to be stronger in the rice, still trying to decide if it's worth the extra calories (I used lite coconut milk). I also tossed in some toasted coconut with the rice.
And just to show you that I really haven't been all that lazy, here is our dinner from two nights ago, using homemade seitan (recipe from Yellow Rose Recipes); seitan stroganoff from VWAV! I love this stuff and I'm sure I've posted it before. But this time I updated it slightly by adding some vegan sour cream both to the sauce and to top it off (also fresh chives). I think I could eat this every night.... (and luckily there was a bunch leftover, so we will be having it and the lentils tonight!)
And it's hard to contain my excitement, I should be getting my new laptop from Dell tomorrow!! I have been waiting a looonggg time it seems to get a new laptop and I'm finished suffering through the slow machine that I've been using. Plus, it's green! Oh, and I got a recycling kit for my old, dead computer, so I'm interested to see how that works.
One more thing, I sewed the first stitch of my life the other day!! Made me so proud :-) You'll have to wait another month though to find out what, sorry to keep you in such suspense.
Whew, tomorrow is Friday.