VeganMoFo IV: Baskets, Road Trips, and More!

I can't believe it's over already!  Well, sorta.  This month feels like it started forever ago, but the year is swiftly coming to an end and I'm wondering where the time went.  This has been my favorite VeganMoFo to date.  I just felt more connected to a community that I have come to thoroughly enjoy over the past few years.  I saw some of the greatest blogging in my life this year.  There are tons of new blogs I fell in love with (and thousands of posts I have to read).  More than anything, I'm proud of pushing myself further than I ever thought I'd go.  So, thanks to everybody for a wonderful November!  I have a ton of blogs to catch up on but I will do it...even if it takes several months. :)

I decided to make a short video about my vegan journey and why I know I'll be vegan for the rest of my life.  Pardon the video thumbnail.  Youtube seriously hates me because there was this one and two others with my mouth wide open and me looking crazy!



Next month, Era and I are taking the dogs and driving to San Antonio.  I'm dreading it a bit because of my Spring Break trip, but I'll have another driver with me this time so it shouldn't be so bad.  I'm excited and trying to think of some good, healthy road trip foods because I hate wasting money at fast food places and would rather not stop.  I'm the type of road tripper who loves going for 5 hours straight, only stopping to get gas.

I've also spent today thinking about Christmas/Festivus gifts to give to the family.  I'm doing gift bags this year because I can't afford more than that until Southern California decides it wants to hire people again.  I always love making gift baskets or bags because it's cheap but takes a lot of effort.  I thought I'd share my formula with you.

I try to go with something sweet, something savory, something inedible, and something d-i-y.  I'm still trying to narrow down the cookies I'm making.  But I think I'm going with a couple of different cookies, biscotti, breads, and crackers.  Also thinking candy and spiced nuts.  Each person gets a little of each.  Here are examples of stuff I did in the past.

Breakfast Basket
Jam, Wholesome cookies
Cocoa/Coffee
Mug
Pancake Mix

Secret Santa
Coffee
Mug, Tin
Three kinds of cookies
Savory Crackers

Christmas 07
Candles
Cookies, toffee, bread
Mugs

Game Night
Board Game, Cards
Popcorn
Candy
Chips, Snack Mix

The possibilities are endless.  That's why I love giving them.  It's never a boring ordeal.  What do you like to put in a gift basket or bag?

VeganMoFo IV: Kitchen Gadgets

Here I am talking about my favorite and least favorite kitchen items.  Thanks to Kimberly for the suggestion!



What are your favorite kitchen things?  Is there anything that you never use or wasn't worth the money?

VeganMoFo IV: Free Dates and Cookbook Lovin'

Yesterday we did our big Thanksgiving shopping.  The stores weren't nearly as packed as I expected.  I'm glad that we got it out of the way, though.  I'm super stoked, and the menu is finalized.  In fact, I think I'll start the prep work today so I don't have to chop onions all day Wednesday.  I'm determined to NOT follow my family's tradition of eating at 7PM this year.  We always aim for noon, but never actually make it.

On to the title of this post...  Era scored some free dates!  He always gets really good free stuff, which is one of the cool things about living in farm land.Fresh dates are juicy and not that dried out garbage you get on the grocery shelf.  If ever you visit SoCal, make sure to come here because this place will rock your date loving world!

5 lbs of dates....for free!

This week is pretty much going to be non stop video and super quick posts.  I'm currently editing another episode of the show.  Hoping to get it up tomorrow!  For now, this is the last of the Top 5 that I taped two weeks ago.  I'm going to tape the two suggestions I got tomorrow.  Here I am geeking out over my most used  cookbooks (I really love tres leches...ha ha).



Links to everything:
5. 500 Vegan Recipes-By Celine Steen and Joni Marie Newman
4. Vegan Brunch-By Isa Chandra Moskowitz
3. Vegan with a Vengeance-By Isa Chandra Moskowitz
2. Veganomicon-By Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero
1. Viva Vegan-By Terry Hope Romero

VeganMoFo IV: Top 5 Restaurant Experiences

Want to see me talk about some of my favorite restaurant experiences?  How about seeing all my wild gesticulations?  No?  Well, sorry.  That's all I have today.

On yesterday's insanity...I'm going to edit the instructions to include that if you are gluten and/or soy free, you could easily replace the seitan layers with tofu, nut, or bean loaf.  Just bake it in a cake pan and make sure it's firm enough to flip.  I didn't include that before because I thought nobody would be insane enough to make this.  Ha ha.



So, Era and I are about to do shopping for next week.  I have some fun things planned.  There's some party action, dinner and a movie, a first, some cookbook love, and an entry about breakfast.  We are hoping to film tomorrow as well.  Fingers crossed.

Happy Saturday, everybody!  I'm trying to catch up with all the blogs.  There are soooo many this year!

VeganMoFo IV: Vlog On It

Hello everybody!  Since I love lists so frickin hard, I thought why not do some vlogs on my favorite things.  I've filmed three so far and today I present my Top 5 Vegan Ingredients.

Note, the expressive eyebrows (runs in the family).  Also, I had to mention my sister by name because she told me that I didn't credit her idea for a pie I made two years ago.  What...ev...er.  Haha.



Happy MoFo y'all.  Any ideas for other top 5 lists?  Or any ideas for vlog subjects?  I have some blogs to read now, yo.