Any vegan recipes using chocolate cake mix and canned pumpkin, OR canned pumpkin and oatmeal?
Anyone know any tried and true, GOOD tasting recipes using either:
Chocolate cake mix and canned pumpkin
OR
Canned pumpkin and oatmeal?
I’m not looking for anything fussy, just something I can simply throw together in not a lot of time with not a lot of ingredients.
Cakes, cookies, breads, cupcakes, muffins, whatever.. I’m just looking to get rid of these things.
Thanks in advance!
- BunnyMoon
What’s the most delicious vegan recipe for cookies?
I’m baking something for a rockstar and a need a delicious recipe for cookies, or maybe like cupcakes or muffins, and it has to be completely vegan. Thank you very much! ?
To the anonymous answerer:
VEGETARIAN is somebody who doesn’t eat meat.
VEGAN is somebody who doesn’t eat meat, milk products, egg products or anything else from animals.
Chocolate isn’t vegan, right? I’d need to use carob?
- Rabbit
3 Tips to Save Money on Food at Your Wedding Reception
Are you getting married in the near future? Are you trying to cut costs in certain areas? Want to have a champagne wedding and you don’t even have a beer budget? If you are concerned about the cost of food for your wedding reception, consider the following tips on how to save money on food at your wedding reception.
Keep in mind that the majority of your guests are not coming to your reception to eat. They are coming to help you celebrate your joyous occasion. (The ones who are coming just to eat probably should not have been invited.)
Don’t put yourself in further debt, just to impress a few guests with an extravagant menu. It really isn’t worth it in the long run. Prioritize what’s important to you and spend your budget accordingly. You do have a budget right? If a beautifully decorated tiered wedding cake is what you have your heart set on spend the majority of money on the cake. Save money by serving a wine punch rather than champagne. White sangria would be lovely and is simple to make. For every 4 bottles of wine, that’s 3 liters, add 2 liters of lemon lime soda. Add sliced lemons, oranges and strawberries and gently stir. Surround the punch bowl with flowers and no one will even miss the bubbly.
Tip number one. Ask close friends and family members to prepare a dish to bring. You will probably find that they are more than willing to help you out… especially if they know you are trying to save money.
You can still plan the menu. Simply give each person the choice of making whatever they prefer from your master list. When planning the menu think of dishes that can be served at room temperature. That way you don’t have to worry about keeping hot dishes hot and cold dishes cold. This works very well for a buffet. If you want to add something substantial to the menu, order a sliced spiral cut ham or turkey.
Tip number two. Instead of a traditional wedding cake opt for a ‘cupcake cake’. These are becoming increasingly popular, even for more extravagant weddings. They can be as fancy as you want them to be. An added perk is the fact that you can use several flavors of cupcakes, as opposed to just one or two. Your guests will appreciate the variety. Have the bakery decorate the different flavors differently. For example chocolate cupcakes could have a pink frosting rose, while lemon has a yellow rose, and spice has a white rose.
Tip number three. Think small. Order mini sandwiches from the deli at your grocers. Compliment with a tray of baby vegetables and dip and one of cheeses. Add a basket of fresh strawberries. Serve mini green salads in small 3 or 4 ounce glasses or clear plastic cups. Top with a tablespoon of vinaigrette dressing. The salads will add color to the table and take up quite a bit of space making the table look bountiful.
You can save money on your wedding reception food and still serve your guests a feast.
- Dee Power
Wedding Cake Guide
The wedding cake is the focal point of your wedding. All eyes will be on it as guests stream in to your reception hall, and it ranks second only to The Dress as the most memorable part of your wedding. So make sure you choose your cake wisely.
Fortunately wedding cakes have come a long way from the traditional three tiered designs dripping with butter and cream icing. The modern bride can choose from cakes that have flower petals cascading down their sides, designs that feature embedded crystals, cupcake tiers and multi colored icing! Whatever your wedding theme or budget, you are sure to find a cake that strikes the right sweet note!
Choosing the Cake
The first thing you’ll have to decide on is the size of the cake. Include all the guests who you expect to arrive for the reception and also the people who can’t attend if you’re going to be sending them some. If you plan on serving other desserts at the reception, all guests might not want a slice of the cake.
The Design
The design of the cake is just as important if not more than the actual taste of the cake. Remember, your wedding cake will be an important part of your wedding album, so put some thought into its presentation. Ask your baker or confectioner for cake sample pictures. Browse through bridal magazines for inspiration or hunt online for wedding cake ideas. A tiered cake speaks of tradition and class, while a heart shaped cake spells whimsy. Or go for a cupcake tiered cake - assemble an assortment of cupcakes in different flavors in a tiered design. Not only does it look unique, but your guests will also love being able to walk over to the cake and pick their own cup of confectionery heaven! If you do choose a tiered cake, accent it with beautiful embellishments. A white cake will look lovelier with light green orchids. White pearls will accentuate a pink cake. Striped ribbons, roses and other accents can be used to add imagination and style to your cake. Choose your cake after you have decided on the décor, the food and other reception details. The perfect wedding cake should be one that not just matches the décor but also reflects the personality of the couple. Get creative! Lose the plastic bride and groom figurines. Cake toppers come in unique styles these days, and vintage ones are especially popular.
Taste and Flavor
Never assume that an elegant, but bland cake is going to score you any points. Guests will be quick to note the difference in the style and taste of the cake. The traditional vanilla, carrot and chocolate flavors are safe choices. If you’d like to add some sinful chocolate to your cake, but have your heart set on a pretty white design, consider a sumptuous chocolate filling. Exotic spice cakes that include ginger, cardamom, cinnamon and other fiery ingredients will ensure your guests will remember the taste of the cake long after they have forgotten the dress or the reception!
If you’ve picked out a really elaborate cake design, make sure your guests remember its appearance long after the wedding by gifting them beautiful heart design wedding cake servers or for a fall wedding, autumn wedding cake candle wedding favors.
Whatever the type of cake you choose, make sure your baker knows all your specifications including the size, decoration details, the kind of cake toppers required and the exact date and time of delivery. The wedding cake has the shortest lifespan of all the elements of a beautiful wedding - choose one that people will remember long after it’s gone!
Find many more wedding articles like this provided by Truly Wedding Favors by visiting our directory, Articles By Yours Truly.
- Melissa Ingram
Groundhog Day Treats
Groundhog Day Cookies
These tasty ginger cookies will add some spice to your home-school day. Make sure to make enough to share with your whole Christian home-school co-op!
Groundhog Day Cupcake
This is the most adorable cupcake that we’ve ever seen. Make a cute little groundhog treat using this fun recipe. Your Almond Joy groundhog will be peeking its head out of it’s cupcake burrow to find his shadow.
Groundhog Day Party Menu
Develop this fun Groundhog Day feast for your home-school co-op. Groundhog Pecans, Palisades Park Park French Fries, Pennsylvania Dutch Baked Beans, and Georgia Macaroni will get them started. Whistle Dogs will be the main course. New York Hot Dog Cart Onion Sauce will be a perfect condiment, and polish off the whole things with some Groundhog Day Cupcakes. This will be a delectable feast that you won’t soon forget.
Punxsutawney Pancake Breakfast
These pancakes are tops. There’s nothing better than staying in on a cold Pennsylvania morning with some piping hot coffee or hot chocolate. These buttermilk pancakes will warm your heart and soul. Trust Chef Donna Pilato. She knows pancakes!
Groundhog Cake
This teddy bear cake pan can be easily improvised for a Groundhog Day cake. The little groundhog pokes his head out of his cakey burrow in this fun holiday treat.
Groundhog Day Cake
Here’s yet another cake if you haven’t had enough of it yet. This one’s a little bit different and uses oatmeal for an interesting earthy taste.
- Mimi Rothschild
Vegetarian Lifestyles
(c) 2008 Vernon DeFlanders
A total vegetarian or vegan diet, contrary to popular belief, is interesting, flavorful and usually includes a much wider variety of foods than those consumed by the average omnivore. By adopting a vegetarian diet, not only do we avoid the risks presented by consuming animal products, we enjoy colorful fruits and vegetables, whole grains, nuts and legumes provide an abundance of vitamins, minerals and antioxidant packages that go to work to help protect our cells against heart
disease and invading cancers.
Vegetarianism (for health) doesn’t need to be a religion. It will be a meal by meal choice. Their staples like rice, oats, beans, and pasta are very inexpensive. Vegetarians do not need to eat special combinations of foods to meet protein needs. However, it is important to be aware of fat.
Meats and other non-vegetarian products add toxins in the body and make it a bit difficult to get rid off; thus leading to further health complications. A vegetarian diet on the
other hand, is easy on the body, is a healthier option, and helps the body to get rid off toxins easily. One of the most important health factors of a vegetarian diet is the lowered amount of cholesterol intake, you will lower your cholesterol levels greatly by a vegetarian diet, but a vegan diet will stop your intake 100 percent.
Vegetarian alternatives are now more accessible to everyone. Serve simple foods that can easily be duplicated by food service (rather than more expensive foods like fake meats). You may choose to serve several at one sitting, or go periodically, say once a month, with different selections. Serve with salad, we also like couscous with herbs and spices and roasted veg. It works well and as my daughter (at the moment) will eat chicken but not much in the way of red meat we are surviving. Serve the kabobs with a tossed green salad and something light for dessert, such as a fruit sorbet. Vegetarian diets that are poorly planned may range from a lack of protein, iron, and zinc, vitamin B12 to having a deficient amount of omega-3 fatty acids to vitamin A, B2, D and iodine. Without a proper diet, people who are vegans may be deficient in vitamin B12 and calcium. Vegetarian Times is packed with delicious, easy recipes that can aid proper weight control. Our pages contain everything from quick dinners for the family to elegant company meals.
For most vegans, veganism is more than just a diet it is also a lifestyle. Vegans or total vegetarians only eat plant foods, which include legumes or dried beans and peas, grains, seeds and nuts. Lactovegetarians eat plant food and include cheese and other dairy products. Vegans can get adequate calcium from plant products but it is a challenge! Studies suggest that vegetarians don’t need as much calcium as non-vegetarians - but as much doesn’t mean not any. If you are using tofu as a calcium source, be sure it is calcium set. Soy, itself, does not contain substantial calcium; it is a certain process of making the tofu that adds the calcium. Vegans are considered vegetarians but are usually known as total vegetarians since they do not eat meat of any kind, never wear clothing made from animals (wool for example), and never consume animal-based products like milk and eggs. That is the most extreme of the vegetarians.
Meat consumption is a risk factor for pancreatic cancer (number four in both men and women), whereas legumes and dried fruits appear to be protective. Ovarian cancer, number five in women, has been linked with dairy (including skim milk), egg, and meat consumption.
Meat analogs produced by high-moisture extrusion of soy proteins are good alternatives to animal meat and have many health benefits. In addition to textural properties, an abundant fibrous structure in such extrudates is a key factor for consumer acceptance. Meat analogs can be purchased to replace hamburger, steak, chicken, hot dogs, sausage, and many other meat products. Meat analogs are vegetable-protein based foods made to resemble and simulate various kinds of meat. These analogs have become a healthy alternative for the mainstream consumer interested in reducing the meat in their diets. Meat eating contributes to a mentality of violence through “karmic consequences.”.Fear begets fear, fear begets violence, and violence begets violence. Meat-eaters inflict a heavy burden on vegetarians we pay dearly for the meat addictions of our fellow citizens today; and if things continue as they are, future generations of vegetarians will pay even more dearly. As of yet we vegetarians are not allowed tax breaks nor lower insurance premiums for our gentle lifestyle.
Animal wastes cause 10 times more water pollution than does the U.S. Meat producers are the number one industrial polluters in our nation, contributing to half the water pollution in the United States. Animal agribusiness requires vast resources, resulting in the devastation of the environment, and is a major contributor global warming (more, in fact, than all the world’s cars, trucks and airplanes combined). And avoiding meat is better for our bodies: the American Dietetic Association reports that vegetarians have lower rates of death from ischemic heart disease, lower blood cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, and lower rates of hypertension, type-2 diabetes, and prostate and colon cancer and that vegetarians are less likely to be obese than meat-eaters.
Eating nuts and whole grains, while eliminating dairy products and meat, will improve your cardiovascular health. A British study indicates that a vegan diet reduces the risk for heart disease and Type 2 diabetes. Eating flourishing is digit of the easiest structure to secure both your feeling and fleshly eudaemonia rest at their constructive peek.
Vegetarians do not support the meat producing industry, an industry that accounts for more waste production than all other industries in the United States combined. As a vegetarian, you benefit from a more healthy lifestyle, as well as promoting a healthier planet. The SDA vegetarian diet recommends some legumes, nuts, and low-fat diary products in moderation. Examples of recommended dairy products would be milk, yogurt, light cheeses, with eggs used sparingly. Add a massive orange juice (they only come in “massive” these days) and you have a pretty healthy veggie meal for a couple
of bucks. The eggs are on the register but not the menu. Even though fatty meats may be limited on a vegetarian diet, a steady diet of fatty dairy products could cause the amount of artery-clogging saturated fat that is consumed to be off the Richter scale!
IMPORTANT NOTICE It is strongly advised that all persons seek advice and guidance from a competent medical doctor regarding and prior to embarking on a vegetarian dietary lifestyle change. This is particularly true for pregnant women or mothers who are breast feeding infant children, senior citizens, growing children, and/or any individual who is suffering from or being treated for any disease or health disorder.
- Vernon DeFlanders
A Guide to Choosing the Perfect Wedding Cake
Aside from the dress, the cake is probably the most admired element of the wedding. There’s a reason why it’s placed at the center of the reception hall, so everybody who enters can admire it. The perfect wedding cake should not only reflect the personalities of the bride and groom, but also blend into the theme of the wedding seamlessly.
Decide on a design for the cake much before the actual date of the wedding. As D-day draws nearer, you might find yourself tied down with a million things to do, and not have time to look into the details of the cake.
The first thing you’ll look into is the design of the cake. Gone are the days of a single three tiered cake as the only choice for a wedding. Nowadays, cakes come studded with crystals, have roses falling all over the sides, can resemble Christmas trees, and a myriad other possibilities.
Choose a design that stands out from the rest, and blends with your personality. An elegant couple will probably do well to choose an equally elegant and traditional white three tiered vanilla cake. A whimsical eclectic couple on the other hand, will have more room for innovation. A cupcake wedding confection that consists of a number of cupcakes of different flavors all arranged to make one large tiered cake is another off beat idea that allows guests to sample different flavors of cake at a single wedding.
Make sure you pay attention to the details; rest assured guests will want to spend time looking over the cake, and appreciating its finer details. Pale green or pink ribbons of frosting draped on a white cake can make it seem extra special, while cascades of red roses all over the cake spell glamour. Look around, before you make a choice. Your cake designer will show you a catalog of various styles, but you don’t have to be restricted to those. Scour the internet for one of a kind imaginative designs until you find one that appeals to you. If your favorite celebrity’s wedding cake had you swooning at the design, hunt for a picture of the cake (you’ll easily find it online), and show your designer exactly what you want your cake to look like.
Remember, a perfect wedding cake is one that people remember for long after your wedding is over, and they’ve left for home!
- Caroline Miller
A good place to sell cupcakes?
I’m trying to earn extra money and I thought baking would be a great way to do so. But I can’t host a bake sale. I would like to sell vegan cupcakes for about a dollar a cupcake. Any ideas as to where to sell?
Sadly the only college in my town in by a very violent city.
- Vegan
Healthy Portion Sizes for Vegans and Vegetarians
Many people today with the various diets and lifestyles, lack the essential understanding and awareness of recommended serving sizes. We will often look at that insightful nutrition information label, but we’ll overlook the part that tells us exactly how much of the product the nutrition facts actually apply to. In general and contrary to the common assumption among many people, the ‘Nutrition Facts Label Serving Size’ is not related to the ‘Food Pyramid’ recommended servings.
It appears that today the serving sizes that are being printed on products in the US “are more uniform and reflect the amounts people actually eat” (according to the FDA website). A level of concern about this may not be unfounded, especially considering rumors you may have seen on several websites (I’ve been unable to prove or disprove them) stating such unbelievable statistics as 40% of the average diet in America being comprised of dairy and only 8% being fresh fruit!
Glancing at a few products, the serving sizes do seem reasonable so far, for instance 5 crackers amount to one serving. Therefore it would seem they may be studying the healthier half of the American population to derive these portions. There’s no justifiable cause for over-reaction to the aforementioned FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) statement at the current time. Thank goodness.
Still, I would like to provide for you a basic outline of suggested daily servings and portion examples for a balanced plant-based diet (source cited below):
Breads/Grains — 6 to 11 servings daily - 1 oz ready-to-eat cereal ~ 5 or 6 small crackers ~ ½ cup cooked cereal, rice, pasta, noodles ~ 1 slice of bread ~ ½ hamburger bun, English muffin ~ 1 small roll, muffin, biscuit
Vegetables –– 3 to 5 servings daily – ½ cup cooked beans, peas, legumes ~ 1 cup raw leafy vegetables ~ ½ cup cooked or raw vegetables ~ ¾ cup vegetable juice
Fruits — 2 to 4 servings daily – ¼ cup dried fruit ~ ½ cup chopped fruit ~ 1 melon wedge ~ ¾ cup fruit juice ~ ½ grapefruit ~ 1 medium apple, banana, orange
“Meat group” Substitution — 2 to 3 servings daily – 2 tablespoons peanut butter ~ 2 tablespoons nuts or seeds ~ ¼ cup tofu or tempeh ~ 1 cup soy milk ~ 1 egg or 2 egg whites ~ ½ cup cooked dry beans or peas
Milk/Yogurt/Cheese — 2 to 3 servings daily – 1 cup milk ~ 1.5 oz natural cheese ~ 2 oz processed cheese ~ 1 cup or 8 oz yogurt
(To maintain a vegan diet you can substitute these animal products with nuts and seeds, tofu, kale, edible seaweeds, watercress, parsley, dried figs, or calcium-fortified soy milk for example)
Fats, Oils, Sweets which are low in hydrogenated, saturated, and trans- fats, to be used sparingly of course!
Credit to source: “Vegetarian Diet Information” (copyright 2003-2008)
- Heather Richards
Vegan Cupcakes Take over the World?
I just got a copy of that book. If you already have it, please let me know which recipes you have tried and liked.
Thanks
- Pacific ocean
