clothes swap party, with lots of vegan yummy treats **peppermint patties**

  

hummus platter, with chips, crackers and salsa

 Yesterday, I hosted a bunch of my ladies for a clothes swap. Swap parties are a lot of fun, its a great way to get rid of cute clothes, jewelry, bags, shoes and other stuff, and you get cool stuff from your friends :) My friends always dress so cute, and I love to grab the stuff they don't want anymore. I had a blast yesterday hanging out with wonderful ladies, adorable new (to me) clothes and eating yummy treats. I made a lil snack station with goodies to keep everyone full and happy.

I made a lil hummus platter, with assorted chips and rice crackers. I didn't make the hummus, it was store bought Sabra roasted garlic. We love this brand of hummus in my house, so creamy and decadent!

veggie pizza

 I also put together one of my veggie appetizer pizzas. This is super yummy and always a hit. I love how colorful it is. It's basically cresent roll dough, covered with a creamy cheesy topping and veggies. Recipe --> here

lemon squares

I made some lemon squares, recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking. I feel like I've blogged about this cookbook a lot, but it's so dependable. These tasted just like lemon bar I remember my mom making, buttery cookie layer on the bottom, and tangy gooey lemon filling on top. Yum! I found the recipe posted online --> here. You should probably just buy this book though, if you like vegan desserts, it's the best!

peppermint patties

The snacky that got all my ladies the most excited were these peppermint patties I made. They were very convincingly "york." The recipe is easy and pretty simple. Disclaimer: yes, I actually bought corn syrup to make these, super gmo... but so yummy and I really didn't eat that many!! And everyone who has tried them, loved em. So I think it's okay to use corn syrup once in a blue moon, right?
I found the recipe on vegweb.com, recipe for the patties --> here

p.s. my friend nicole also blogged about the swap --> here

more baking :) chocolate cake for the MIL

i've been doing a little more baking, and this is totally NOT the weather for baking!! here's a cute lil cake that i made for my mother in law, i did bake it a couple days ago when it wasn't quite so ungodly hot :) it's a chocolate cake, recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking (can you tell that i totally love this cookbook?? all the recipes are easy and delicious, i can't help loving it).

i topped the cake with an indulgent cream cheese frosting, i found the recipe --> here, and the hubby made the cake pretty by arranging some raspberries on the top. the cake came out cute and super yummy! and my mother in law loved it, so yay!

family party time!

I hosted my first ever family party this weekend. I was quite nervous about cooking up a vegan feast, for my non-vegan/gigantic family. I put a lot of work into a family friendly menu and the whole party went off without a hitch.

Vegweb.com is such an amazing resource and I found some great recipes on there for the party. As usual when there are too many people around, I forget to take pictures of food... but I do think I documented the dishes that came out the best :) I've made vegandad's sausages before, and they do NOT disappoint. They got gobbled up, along with lots of other goodies, that I made and were contributed :)

On the menu:
-Potato angels (pictured below).. these came out so yummy and the "deviled egg" job amazingly. The whole platter was cleared within minutes
-Red cabbage asian coleslaw.. I made this with cabbage, carrots, slivered almonds, ramen noodles and a sesame dressing
-Marinated chickpea and artichoke salad
-Spicy sausages
-Grilled veggies (eggplant, red, orange and yellow peppers, and porcini mushrooms)
-Pineapple Upside-down Cake (super easy recipe, SUPER delicious cake, i highly recommend!)
-homebrewed iced tea