Vegan Mofo #11: Planning A Vegan, Eco-Friendly Baby Shower

This weekend I was in San Diego for my best friend’s baby shower. Not only did we decide to make it vegan-friendly, but my friend wanted it to be environmentally-friendly as well (after all, these themes go hand in hand very well). A few ways we did this included:

• No printed invitations, we used Evite instead
• We requested no excess gift wrapping for gifts (I put my gifts to her in a reusable basket)
• We used compostable plates.
• Reusable decorations: I strung a clothesline and pinned onesies and socks on it:

• Lastly, the food. Since I had to travel to the shower, I enlisted help from other guests for the food. We ended up having a vegan mac n’ cheese , a green salad, black bean salad and a fruit salad for the main course. Appetizers and snacks were hummus, carrots, crackers, falafel chips, grapes, vegan queso, salt-free tortilla chips and salsa.

This vendor made me an organic, buckwheat crepe with vegetables and vegan pesto.

She layered carmelized onions, thinly sliced zucchini, tomatos, avocado and spinach on top of the crepe:

 It was huge but I ate it all!

I topped off my vegan foodgasm with a treat from this awesome vendor:

Just look at the selection:

I chose the Plum & Persimmon Bar, it was incredible:

I’m definitely going to have to re-create this at home, the lady at the booth said she made it with unsweetened coconut on a crust and topped with dried fruit. It tasted to me like she also used a glaze on top even though it was labeled sugar-free. I think she may have used a product called erythritol  which is a non-caloric, naturally-derived sugar alcohol.

I’m not a big fan of non-whole food sugar alternatives, I prefer to use dates to sweeten things. What side of the fence are you on for sugar substitutes?

In case you haven’t been keeping up,  so far.

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