Easter Fruit Tart and Recipe Round-Up

March 28, 2013 5 Comments

round up

It’s almost Easter, have you figured out your holiday plans yet?

Easter, traditionally, is one seriously omnivorous celebration. From dyeing to hunting eggs, to baskets full of chocolates and candies, to tables centered around a ham, it covers quite a few creatures in the animal kingdom. Stressing about what to eat? How to celebrate with children? Don’t worry, I’ve searched the web high and low and offer you my findings:

First for the menu, determined to explore and feature different blogs than those I highlighted in my  St. Patty’s Round-up, I am excited to report I found so many amazing recipes while learning about a few new blogs. You definitely want to take a look for yourself:

And for my contribution to this Cyber Potluck I bring you my fresh fruit tart with vanilla pastry cream, the dessert I brought for last year’s Easter meal. It was well received.

tart

This year I’m bringing Orange Pistachio Cinnamon Rolls, and cannot wait to share the recipe with you!

But, as I said, there is more to address as vegan parents. What about all the celebration around eggs? This year is Eden’s first year to join her cousins on an Egg hunt which happens on my parent’s farm, Fern Creek Farm. And while I appreciate her cousins are finding eggs from happy chicken, I needed an alternative for Eden. Therefore I picked up a bunch of plastic eggs and filled them with healthy, but slightly indulgent treats.

eggs

In each eggs she will find dehydrated raspberries, dried cherries, Amy’s Bunny Grahams, or dark chocolate covered raisins (although I think I’ve eaten a few of those).

I also had a lot of fun putting together her first Easter basket.

basketStuffed inside that green frog is a bunny that I crocheted for her before she was born, a coloring book, bubbles, and a few homemade eggs shakers.  I also bought The Velveteen Rabbit, a book she’s a bit too young for but I think I’ll start a tradition of reading her the book every year.

So this in my vegan Easter.

What about yours? Do you have any veg traditions? If so, please share!

 

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A Merry Christmas Round-up

A Merry Christmas Round-up

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized, vegan baby Tagged With: , , , ,

A first birthday and a lemon cake

January 24, 2013 11 Comments

cake

One year ago today I started the biggest, most fulfilling adventure of my 30 years. Unsure if I was ready for my life to be forever changed, I apprehensively went into labor. For 18 hours I labored, growing stronger as I transitioned into a changed me. In the moment I met Eden the world as I knew it faded away and nothing else matter.

I was madly in love.

baby

And somehow today I am even more in love than that moment I met her.

We started out her birthday celebration at Dovetail Bakery. Eden, who has been kept away from sugar until now, was welcomed into the sweet life with a hot-out-of-the-oven vegan sticky bun. We sat side by side sharing bites and talking about her nose (a new favorite topic). I think this may become a birthday tradition.

b.t.w. If you live in Portland or anywhere in the Northwest or anywhere, you really ought to check out this all vegan bakery. And don’t leave without a Lemon Blueberry Scone. Seriously good.

photo

In the afternoon I worked on assembling Eden’s lemon birthday cake. She did her best to help by pulling out a baking box and one by one removing every item.

photo (2)

At least it kept her occupied while I frosted and decorated this cake:

cake3

The lemon cake is my Orange Poppy Seed Pound Cake recipe subbing lemons for oranges and omitting the poppy seeds.

I used this cream cheese frosting recipe.

And filled the layers with lemon curd.

It. Was. Delicious.

cake2

Eden agreed.

IMG_2383

Happy Birthday sweet sweet child.

 

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Filed Under: vegan baby Tagged With: , ,

Learning How to Eat

August 31, 2012 2 Comments

Before Eden began eating solid foods I had big plans to make her a clean eater. I didn’t understand why kids had to get SO messy while they ate and simply put, pureed squash smeared across the face kind of grossed me out. Those first few days of eating I would hold her hands with one hand while spoon feeding her with the other. Her tongue explored the tastes and textures of this new experience, but that wasn’t enough. She wanted more. She wanted to feel the food between her fingers and learn how to bring the food to her mouth. She wanted an active part in this new experience of eating. And so my plans quickly changed.

Yesterday as she rubbed the pureed vegetables between her fingers before she shoved it in around her mouth, I started thinking about our relationship with food and the importance to Eden’s process became clear to me. To become intimate with our food, and thus responsible global (and local) citizens , good stewards of this earth, and learn a life-long respect for animals, maybe we need to smear a little summer squash on our faces now and again.

As I have pondered how I will raise me daughter to eat, how to make her aware of the importance of our consumption, I mistakenly thought of raising a vegan as a list of negatives, what she can’t eat. But as I watched her eat yesterday I realized that learning how to eat should not be focused on what I will keep her from, but rather the process of becoming closer to her food.

So how will I teach Eden to eat? Here are a few things I have been thinking about”

1. Grow a Garden: One of the clearest ways to understand where our produce comes from is to pull it from the earth ourselves. I hope to teach Eden how important it is to treat our soil well, how weather affects our crops, and ultimately how our life is affected by how we treat the earth. Having children watch food grow from seed, over the course of a season, and harvested moments before dinner will help them understand that growing of food takes time and labor that should not be taken for granted.

2. Know your farmer. I want Eden to know where her food comes from. We can know our local farmers by being part of a CSA or buying produce at farmers markets. We can also know our global farmers. If Jason and I splurge and buy fruit in the winter I want Eden to understand the compromises that were made for us to enjoy those fruits.  Knowing the impact of our daily food choices, help children (and us) learn the true value of food.

3. Cook with your child. I am so excited for the time Eden is old enough to cook with me. Cooking and baking has, for a long time, been more than just a creative outlet for me. When children become aware of the cooking process, they understand all the different places that food comes from, beyond the grocery store. Being part of the baking and cooking process gives children pride and creative choice, building a stronger relationship with their food.

4. Read books. My sister, Megan, shared this list of books – to read with your child, making kids more aware of their food. I haven’t read any of them yet,  but will definitely start as Eden grows into them. Food is a HUGE part of life extending beyond the kitchen and table and rightly into the bookshelf, reminding us that food and food choices affect much more than mealtimes.

Taking active steps in Eden’s food education will help develops an honest, compassionate, and creative relationship with food that will guide her as she makes future decisions. Next week I will be starting a 4 part series: Why I Choose Vegan which will allow me to delve deeper into these topics.

And in the meantime, how do you educate/plan on educating your children to be good consumers of food?

 

 

 

Filed Under: vegan baby Tagged With: ,

Raising a Vegan

July 2, 2012 4 Comments
My Little Vegan

Last week I prepared Eden’s first meals. With a couple sweet potatoes that had been waiting in my hanging basket and a summer squash from my farm share, I boiled and baked then pureed what will soon be her first solid foods. With a piping bag I squeezed them into ice cube trays, covered it up with plastic wrap, and froze.

I am waiting for another couple weeks, until her 6 month birthday, to introduce her to solids, both for her sake and mine. Her’s because it’s recommended to exclusively breast feed for the first six months (if you are able) and mine because I have an irrational fear about her growing up too fast. I’m serious, it’s irrational. I remember staring at her in the hospital, hours after she was born, sobbing because I was afraid she’d be leaving for college soon.

Hours after she was born and headed off to college

I’ve mellowed out about the whole “growing old too quickly” thing, but I still find transitions hard. Transitioning to her own room made for some long nights. Not so much because she was having trouble as I found the couch in her bedroom quite uncomfortable to sleep on. When Jason finally convinced me I needed to do some sleep training: training me to sleep in our room, I had the monitor up so loud I was waking up to crickets three yards over.

And before I have fully trained myself back into my bed, I have to deal with yet another transition: solids. Soon I will be making the conscious decision to make Eden a vegan. Up until this point I continued my lifestyle and grew, birthed, and raised a baby out of the choices I had made for myself. Now I will also be making choices specifically for Eden, a choice with which many won’t agree. In this transition I need to be prepared for another round of, “Are you gonna make her a vegan?”.

I came across an article today on VegNews: Three Vegan Parenting Myths, Busted. by Corinne Bowen which I found to be very helpful. She writes,


“After a healthy vegan pregnancy, my daughter entered the world with all 10 fingers and all 10 toes. Despite my smooth and uncomplicated journey to motherhood, I was still peppered with questions and skepticism concerning my diet along the way. It was all well and good to be vegan before, but now that a child was involved, I was going to drop this whole plant-based nonsense … right?


Questions and criticism have continued during the first year of my child’s life and I’m sure I’ll continue to encounter the same challenges at schools, doctor’s offices, celebrations, and vacations as the years progress. Most people mean well—they care about my kid and want her to thrive—but they’re speaking from a place of misunderstanding. It’s easy to get tongue-tied and upset in these situations which is why it’s handy to have some ready-made answers in your back pocket.”

The article continues to answer three of the most common questions (and misunderstandings) with well thought out, well articulated responses.Enough from me, though, you should really just read it.

As I begin this new phase, I know I have a lot more than just personal adjusting to do. Here are a few of the conclusions I have reached:

1. It is important to be well-educated on the baby’s nutritional needs and the foods necessary to fulfill them. There are all sorts of books and websites heavy with this information. Corinne Bowen’s article is a great starting point with links to other supportive dietary information.

2. Like I said in my article Pregnant and Vegan, support is key to success. Especially with the consistent, skeptical questions. Friends, family, doctors are all great support system, but for those who lack support in those areas, find online support. The Kind Life, Alicia Silverstone’s website has great forums for vegan pregnancies and parenthood.

3. Have fun with food. I may be scared of Eden growing up, but also I am so excited to introduce her to the world of food! This process can be a lot of fun, and the more fun, I have, the more confident I will feel as I make the choice to raise my child vegan in a non-vegan world.

And because I can’t help myself, let’s just get one more look at her before she wakes up and moves out.

Filed Under: vegan baby Tagged With: , ,

Pregnant and Vegan

May 11, 2012 12 Comments
my extremely healthy, usually happy baby
By the time I got pregnant I had been a vegan for five years. Everyone knew me as vegan and the questions of “why” and “what do you eat” had long since past. So when I got pregnant a year ago I was surprised at the constant question, “Are you going to have a vegan pregnancy?” The question startled me every time because I hadn’t thought about it any other way. In fact I believed (and still do) that the vegan diet was the healthier choice for my fetus. Most questions were just curious, some cautious, but a few down right caustic.
“Do you know what you’re doing to your unborn child?” Their eyes would say. “How can you be so selfish?” And, “what kind of mother are you going to be?”
Was I being selfish? Or perhaps just naive and clueless? I spent a lot of early prenatal appointments talking to my doctor about this, making sure I hadn’t just been reading one-sided literature that would severely harm my child.
My wonderfully open-minded doctor helped me regain my confidence and with a little extra attention on my diet I birthed an extremely healthy, usually happy baby.
This is what I did:
Raspberry Vanilla Protein Shake
1. Protein: A pregnant woman needs 75 grams of protein a day! That is a lot. In order to start off right I made sure to eat at least 30 grams for my morning meal. I did this through soy protein shakes I would make in bulk for the entire week, protein bars (I fell in love with Larabars  and started making my own version), and lots and lots of tofu and beans.
2. Calcium: I made sure to buy calcium-fortified soy milk and orange juice, ate calcium  chews (until I got so sick of them I had to hide the bag), and ate a lot of dark leafy greens. Did you know 3/4 cup collard greens as more calcium than 1 cup cows milk?

3. Supplements: Taking supplements was a new practice, but a very important one. I took (and still take for breast feeding) Rainbow Light Prenatal One, a fantastic vegetarian prenatal that only needs to be taken once a day, B12 (very important pregnant moms!), and Iron. I can proudly say my iron levels stayed great throughout my whole pregnancy).

4. Read. I spent a lot of time on websites and in the backs of cookbooks determining my nutritional needs and planning out how to fulfill them.There are many great resources for vegans during pregnancy. The Vegan Survival Guide by Sayward Rebhal, one of the first books dedicated solely for pregnant vegans, is a great resource I came across after giving birth. I found it important to stay well informed both for myself and my concerned friends and family.

5. Support. I was very fortunate to have a doctor who supported my veganism but I have heard stories of people defending their decision to their health care providers and not receiving their support. It is so important to find a nurse, midwife, or doctor who will work with your lifestyle choices and believe in the inherent health of a vegan diet.

6. Cravings. When the cravings came, I quickly found foods that would satisfy. The grocery store two blocks away carried vegan scones and I spent a lot of my days off stocking up. At home when I craved something sweet and chocolatey I had fast go-to recipes like my no-bake cookies. There was also a time I ate a lot of processed fake meat. Aware of all the foods available to me and with reliable, fast recipes there was never a time I was unable to satisfy a craving.

And in the end…

I had a great, though not without struggles, birth and a beautiful baby girl…wanna take another look?

As my journey continues I learn how to have a vegan baby who will grow into a vegan toddler. I’m sure there will be lots to share. And maybe next time I’ll tell you what I did with my placenta. :)

Do you have any vegan pregnancy thoughts or stories?

Filed Under: vegan baby Tagged With: ,

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