VeganWheeker's Holiday Gift Giving Guide

It's that time of the year again. Daylight Savings Time has ended, the stores are decked out in holiday glitter, and the shopping frenzy will soon begin.

I came across Plant Based on a Budget's excellent Holiday Gift Giving Guide today and wanted to do something similar that benefited small animal rescues.

Flat Bonnie promotes responsible adoption of bunnies through adorable handmade stuffed toys. A portion of the sales are donated to rescues. They're cute gifts for young ones and the young at heart. Here's Benny with his Flat Bonnie.

Wee Companions is selling handmade wood burned art featuring rabbits, guinea pigs, and rats.

Need a calendar for 2014? Check out the "Real Men Love Guinea Pigs 2014 Calendar" from Orange County Cavy Haven. Their Wheek Boutique also carries the Guinea Pig Cookie Cutter for your baking needs. They're almost too cute to eat, as evidenced in CaliCavyCollective's treat for this year's Pignic. For vegan cookie recipes, check out The PPK's Gingerbread Cutout Cookies and Veggie Kid's The Best Vegan Sugar Cookies.

Rabbit themed calendars are also available from BunnyLuv and House Rabbit Network.

If you need more options, you could still benefit your favorite rescue at no additional cost when you shop online. Sign up at iGive and when you click through their site to shop, a percentage of the sale is donated to your non-profit of choice. Percentage varies depending on the store.

Amazon.com recently launched AmazonSmile which donates 0.5% of the price of your eligible AmazonSmile purchases to the charitable organization of your choice. (Strangely, you'd get 0.8% if you click through iGive.)

Of course you could also donate directly to a rescue as a gift to someone (what I do with my friends). Within my family, we will be enforcing an "edible gifts only" policy to get ourselves to be creative in the kitchen instead of at the mall. Time for me to get that guinea pig cookie cutter!

What will you be doing for the holidays?

World Vegan Day

Happy World Vegan Day!

We celebrated at the grand opening of a new Loving Hut in the Westfield Valley Fair mall in Santa Clara, Northern California. They have noodle soup, burgers/sandwiches, and many selections for their steam table. The eggplant dish was my fav. They also have vegan soft serve!

Southern Californians got to celebrate the opening of a new Veggie Grill in Westlake on Wednesday. Yay for more vegan restaurants!

Emma would like to know what vegan noms you had today!

VeganMofo #10: Lemongrass seitan

If this looks somewhat similar to yesterday's lunch, it's because we had to use up the veggies on Friday so they didn't go bad over the weekend. :-) Today's special item is lemongrass seitan. We use lemongrass that's already minced up in a jar that you can get in the frozen section of the Asian market. Very convenient!

Benny's a complete gentleman to the guinea pigs, knowing he's the newbie in the house. You can see here that he's "bowing" to Bert, who still rumbles at him. They have supervised floor time together and poor Benny is always bullied by the pigs. I hope they will accept him soon enough. At least there aren't any blood drawn! :-)

VeganMofo #9: Pesto Pasta

My co-worker  made this yummy pasta for lunch. It's got veggies and portabella mushroom swimming pesto sauce.

In pet news, Belle had teary eyes and was getting lethargic so we brought her to the vet. The vet confirmed she had early signs of respiratory problems. Glad we caught it early this time. It was time for her teeth trim. Aside from the usual malocclusion problems, she also managed to crack her front top incisor vertically, which the doc couldn't remove. She said it's best to let it grow out, hopefully correctly. *fingers crossed*

VeganMofo #8: Sweet n Sour Tofu + Blissful Chef's Tempeh Fakin' Bacon

Hi! Thanks for visiting!

Today we bought a fresh pineapple from Whole Foods. Half of it was juiced and the other half ended up in this Sweet n Sour Tofu dish.

The main ingredients were pineapple, bell pepper, onion, and tofu. I can't remember the sauce ingredient because I used a mish mash of what I found online and what I had in the kitchen. I didn't have tomato paste so I used ketchup. There was sugar involved. Cornstarch was called for but I only had tapioca starch, which I don't think was quite right for it, though I've read it was interchangeable (even says so on the box!). In the end, the taste was milder than what I'm used to eating at the restaurants, but it was still good. 

I also had a craving for The Blissful Chef's Tempeh Fakin' Bacon so I made a batch of it. Though her recipe called for 1 packet of tempeh it easily worked for one and a half. She also said to marinate the tempeh in the sauce for an hour, but I stuck it right in the oven and it turned out fine. In fact, the sauce was totally absorbed into the tempeh, giving it that extra oomph!

VeganMofo #7: Potato-corn-leek stew

It's another clean-out the fridge day. I had some corn-on-the cobs and a passing-its-prime stick of leek. A Google search for some recipes that contain those two ingredients resulted in some sort of chowder. Not feeling like soup, I used less water and turned it into more like stew that can be spooned over rice.

Ingredients:
2 corn on the cob, kernels removed (or use frozen corn)
1 stick of leek, sliced
1 potato, peeled and cut into chunks
1/2 Field Roast classic meatloaf, cut into chunks
1 cup water
salt and pepper to taste (or use soy sauce) (Keep in mind the meatloaf is quite salty so you don't need to add much.)

Fry the leek with water or oil until soft, add the corn, fry for another few minutes. Add the potato and water, bring to a boil and lower heat. Cook for 20 min or so until potato is soft. Add more water if necessary. Add Field Roast and seasoning, cook for another 5-10 minutes so the meatloaf is heated through.

Belle prefers the bunny's pellets. Or maybe she finds it more fun eating out of that bowl?

VeganMofo #6: Banana Bread from the PPK

I discovered a bunch of overripe bananas that were overlooked in the fridge. I froze half for a future smooth and used the rest in a banana bread recipe by Isa Chandra.

It turned out really nice in the bread machine. I thought it tasted a touch too sweet (1 cup of sugar!!) so next time I'll reduce that.

What do you do with overripe bananas? I'm on the hunt for a cake or cupcake that uses banana as an egg replacer. If you know of any, please share!