Recent Celebrations: Easter and the Royal Wedding

If I may back up a little bit...

Easter

Easter baskets were a little scanty this year because I forgot to order things online in time (and there were so many great-looking treats I wanted to get myself the kids). But I was okay with that because I feel like we've had quite a few celebrations lately - and I wanted to use these Peter Rabbit pails I'd bought once and put away; they were the perfect size for the amount of stuff I had. They each got a Where the Wild Things Are sticker scene set from the $1 bins at Target, a candy bar, a Lake Champlain dark chocolate square (*ambiguous sugar), Divine dark chocolate eggs (*ambiguous sugar), and some Surf Sweets gummy bears. (We also re-use green paper shreds for our Easter baskets.)

We paint wooden, ceramic, or paper mache eggs every year for Easter.

For breakfast, we had yogurt (sprinkled with flax) in egg cups,

fruit in the shape of a cross,

and Bitt of Raw's gluten-free Carrot Muffins with Cashew Cream Cheese.

my little sweeties, after church

(Sweetie #3 had a black eye.)

Royal Wedding Party

I became fanatically excited about the Royal Wedding. (Sorry to those who are terribly sick of the coverage. Don't read any further!) I think I watched every possible "secrets behind the royal family" and "how Will & Kate met" show possible. We planned a fun little event (just me and the kids) for Friday morning. We dressed up - my 10 year old would only don a knight's cape for a brief period...

but my 6 year old (who is surprisingly quite fond of fashion and dressing up) went all out.

And we girls were very serious about choosing our outfits and headwear.

(I'm wearing a formal from my sister's highschool days.)

The Spread

(on my daughter's little table set up in my bedroom)

How cute are they all? I don't really have an opinion about the monarchy in general (and it's not my tax money; sorry, Penny!), but I do love a good celebration. And they seem pretty nice and down to earth. I was obsessed with finding out what her dress would look like - it was perfect! And strangely, I cried. The kids asked me WHY I was crying and to please stop.

"It should have been ME!"

Scones

I was really proud of my scones (because I don't know if I've ever made them before and didn't know what they would be like). I can't point you in the direction of a recipe because I kind of combined two. I made part of them with fresh strawberries and used Just Cherries for the other half. I will make these again because they were a hit in this house.

English Muffins

The English Muffins were also a hit. I made them cinnamon toast style, using Food For Life Gluten-Free, Multi-Seed Muffins and toasting them in the oven with Earth Balance, cinnamon, and a little sugar.

I printed off the Royal Bunting to hang around part of the table. I found this at Make Merry!. Since the kids aren't big tea drinkers, we mixed in a little apple juice with the tea.

For some reason, I was absolutely enamored with my Will & Kate plates. I got the idea from a party planner on Regis & Kelly. :) I happened to have a pack of Chinet hard plastic plates, leftover from an event. All you have to do is print off a picture, cut it to size and put it between two plates. I told Ryan I loved my Will & Kate plates so much, it's going to be hard to go back to eating off regular plates.

I'm going to wash and save these plates and use this idea for future events. And try to hide it in future blogging photos that I may or may not still be eating off Will & Kate.

This was the perfect time to try out Bitt of Raw's Raw Vegan Cranberry Cheesecake. I topped it with the love birds' wedding topper from my wedding, hee hee. Her cheesecake looks a "bitt" different than mine (better, of course), but I was pleased.

I thought this was really, really good. I made it the day before and gave it plenty of time to chill. I loved the texture and consistency, and it is my favorite raw cheesecake I've made so far (as well as one of my favorite cheesecakes period). I also love how the cranberries give it such a strong color.

I was in a hurry while making it so I did not make the crust raw and homemade (but I will next time!). I just crumbled up an Arrowhead Mills Organic Graham Cracker Crust into the bottom of the pan. (This would have been better if I'd melted in a little oil or Earth Balance to make it stick together, but I was trying to watch my calories.)

We reconvened back to Party Central for lunch (and more royal wedding coverage!). This time, it was baby carrots, apple slices, Tofurky deli slices, avocado slices, and cucumber sandwiches.

My little Brits had to eat their sandwiches on wheat bread with crusts and not too terribly fancy. Since I'm trying to avoid soy protein isolate now as much as possible (which isn't 100% easy but getting easier), I made homemade cream cheese for the first time.

Pip, pip cheerio!

E.A.T. World! Challenge: Korea & Ireland

We recently explored the country of South Korea during our homeschool studies.

I wrote about it on my family/homeschool blog.

I made a Korean meal to culminate our studies: stir-fry, kimchi, rice, and Bulgogi.

Bulgogi is Korean barbecue. We got the recipe from a fellow homeschool blogger mom who adopted her sons from South Korea. Here is the veganized version:

Bulgogi (Korean BBQ)

Marinade:

4 Tbsp. soy sauce

2 tsp. sesame oil

2 tsp. sugar

1/2 tsp. black pepper

1 clove of garlic - finely chopped together

Mix together. Add 1 lb. chopped seitan. Marinade for a few hours or overnight. Cook in wok or frying pan. This was really delicious!

We began learning about Ireland around St. Patrick's Day and finished up tonight with an Irish meal (complete with Irish flag paper confetti on the table).

I was a little nervous I wouldn't get supper finished before our power went off in all of the storms swirling around tonight. We spent a portion of time in the closet under the stairs while the storm sirens blared and possible tornadoes were reported near our house. Therefore, meal prep was a little touch and go.

Potato Soup

I based it off this recipe, which uses pureed tofu. So it's actually Potato Tofu Soup. I also added freeze-dried dill. It's extra thick because my husband requested it as such.

We have been reading some Irish folktales about a man named Jamie O'Rourke. In this particular book, Jamie plants a magical potato seed which results in such a huge "pratie," the entire town grows sick of eating potatoes. We don't eat too many potatoes around our house, for some reason, so I bought a bag the other day - in honor of Jamie O'Rourke - and we've been trying to see how many ways we can eat them (so far - fried, roasted, mashed, and in soup...we've got plenty of potatoes to go, too).

Corned "Beef" and Cabbage

This is based on a recipe from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen. I didn't have a few of the ingredients, including horseradish and wine. It was good, regardless, although my 6 year old wanted no part in it.

Irish Apple Mash

I used this recipe. It's basically mashed potatoes mixed with mashed apples. Pretty good stuff, if you like mashed potatoes and cooked apples.

Irish Soda Bread

This came from the same Fat Free Vegan Kitchen post as the seitan recipe. Ryan has requested that I now make this regularly. As I am not a maker of bread, I will say this one was super, super easy. It's just whole wheat flour, baking soda, salt, sugar, and plain soy yogurt. Stir, throw the resulting ball of dough on the cookie sheet, and bake.

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Next, we're moving on to Great Britain. We're planning on dressing up fancy to watch the Royal Wedding on Friday. And drink tea and eat crumpets and cucumber sandwiches all day. Ooo, maybe we'll even make a wedding cake.

Wing-it Vegan's E.A.T. (Eating Around The) World! Challenge:

E.A.T. World Challenge (China)

I had almost finished this post back in the days of Vegan Mofo, but then I went on vacation and never finished it. So...a little late, I present to you, "Our Night in China." Update: So...duh! It's Chinese New Year! Perfect timing! Happy Chinese New Year!

We like to celebrate big things and little things in our house. We have what we call "Family Fun Nights" with special themes. Often, they go along with what we are learning about at the time.(For example: here was our Ocean Unit party.)

Recently, the 4 kids of good friends of ours spent the night at our house. They are homeschoolers, too, and they appreciated joining in on a little of our Asian studies we've had going on around here lately.

We made hats and fans and looked at books and talked about the Chinese culture and food. (And we decorated with paper lanterns, etc. that we already had in our "party supply" tubs.)

We like to get recipe ideas from the juvenile non-fiction section of the library. There are a lot of pictures and easy, step-by-step instructions for the kids (easily veganized). I'd actually recommend children's cooking books for visual-learning adults like myself! Here are two of the Chinese food books we read: Foods of China by Barbara Sheen & A World of Recipes: China (There are several other country titles in this series.) by Julie McCulloch.

Here, they had rice cooked 3 ways; that seemed easy enough.

Fried Tofu with Rice

For our "fried rice with eggs," we just fried tofu in a skillet and mixed it with long grain rice and a little sprinkling of soy sauce.

Coconut Rice

and

Rice with organic Tamari and Peas & Carrots

The coconut rice was very interesting; the kids were shoveling it in! You are supposed to cook it in coconut milk for it to soak in the flavor. But I didn't have time to make a separate batch of rice so I just poured the (canned) coconut milk into the rice with a little sprinkling of organic sugar. The other section is just rice with (from frozen) peas & carrots.

Moo Goo Gai Pan

I was very excited and proud of myself for this one. I was just excited about making something called Moo Goo Gai Pan. I wove it into the conversation that night as many times as possible. I am a rather bland cook, and I'm a dunce when it comes to spices so this was stepping out for me! Here is a "sort-of" recipe:

*1 bag of Buffalo style Gardein strips (without using the sauce), tossed with salt, pepper, garlic, and organic cornstarch

*Cook shiitake mushrooms in a little oil, add 4 tbs. soy sauce. Mix in chopped onions, water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, and fresh minced garlic. (I added a tiny bit of ginger and would have added more if my kids weren't eating it.

*Stir in the sauce (about 1/2 cup vegetable broth, 2 tbs. hoisin sauce, 1 tsp. sugar, and 1 tbs. cornstarch.

I say this is a "sort of" recipe because I was trying to jot down everything I did, but I didn't measure the veggies, etc. and just "sort of" did what looked "right." It was delicious!

Seitan Broccoli and Hoisin Stir Fry

I based this dish on about.com's Chinese Vegetable and Hoisin Stir Fry recipe.

Vermicelli and Vegetables

Everybody also got a small glass of Cherry Apple Rooibos Tea (mixed with a little sugar) to try. Some kids liked it, and some did not. My oldest child gulped down cup after cup.

These two are quite a (comical) handful when you get them together. (That's my 5 year old on the right.) Fortunately, our house guests are used to healthy food and vegetables at home; they weren't picky (like some of the other kids who come to our house) and ate everything (although I didn't offer them the soy dishes because I know their Mom is leery of it).

You wouldn't believe what the aftermath of 7 kids mixed with rice, noodles, and chopsticks looks like.

We made the Sweet Chestnut Balls Recipe from the A World of Recipes: China book. They are made from processing chestnuts with a little agave nectar. (The recipe called for honey.) This is what they looked like before the balls were rolled in powdered sugar and cinnamon.

And this is with the cinnamon and powdered sugar. I rolled them in the sugar right before they ate them because if not, the sugar soaked into the ball and became invisible. These were tasty but a little sweet for my tastebuds to eat more than one.

We also had fruit salad for dessert, inspired by the Chinese belief in "good luck" fruit salad.

I am including this post as a part of

Wing-It Vegan's E.A.T. World! challenge.