August 2012 – Vegan Food Swap! From Sarina at Earthgiven

The Lovely Sarina at Earthgiven sent me my swap last month and it was full of lovely awesomeness. Oddly enough I haven’t had absolutely everything (since the keto thing has made that difficult, but the stuff I did have, I ate within two days of receipt. In that small world Ontario vegan kind of way, I almost had the opportunity to meet her on a recently trip to Kitchener-Waterloo, but unfortunately our availabilities just didn’t mesh well! Maybe next time!

I have found her blog really interesting to read ever since she started it just a few months ago. It’s such a great balance food related information, recipes, and food reviews, and just generally has a super nice writing style. I love the idea of “Vegan City Homesteading” and her exploration of vegan self sufficiency and self/community reliance. Check it out!

Also, please look at this card. See those initials SJW? Sarina seems to have painted this, and made a print out of it (maybe?) And she totally didn’t even mention it. So pretty right?

So what was in her package to me?

Light Sea Salt Plentils from Enjoy Life Foods – these things are delicious. Would eat again, over and over again. Looking at their website, they also have three other varieties, some of which, on first glance look obviously not vegan (a dill and sour cream, and a garlic parmesan), but depending on their source of lactic acid, they might be okay too! Enjoy Life Foods makes a bunch of allergy-friendly products (like dairy free chocolate chips and chunks.) so while I haven’t asked, I imagine they’re pretty receptive to answering ingredient sourcing information.

King Soba Organic Black Rice Noodles: I haven’t tried these yet, because by the time I got around to wanting pasta… I was keto experimenting. But if Sarina uses them all the time, then I’m going to guess they’re pretty good!I’ll be sure to take a picture of whatever I end up making with them!

Smooze: A perfect frozen summer treat. Sarina thoughtfully included one for my dear JC (and I guess I will share, since I’ve now admitted to this publicly.) It’s fruit ice, but it also includes coconut milk.

An assortment of teas: It’s getting around to that time of year where all I will want to do is drink tea and eat soup so I’ve been stockpiling my tea for that time. I did however immediately drink the earl grey (since that has, and probably always will be my favourite tea.)

Another delicious new-to-me discovery from Sarina was Quin’Bites. They’re sweet, crunchy bites of quinoa based cracker-like things sweetened with agave nectar.

She also sent over a homemade granola, which I had a few bites of, but JC ended up eating for breakfast (or snacking on, whichever came first). It was this very interesting, tasty blend of nuts, fruits, seeds, oats, maple syrup, and some cinnamon salt.  I think JC liked it (a direct quote “I liked it a lot” -JC) !

Thank you very much to Sarina for her thoughtful package and for her lovely card (which looks like a print of a painting she did herself) and recipe!

Do you want to join in on the fun? Sign up for September before the 6th and take part!

Sign up here.

How It Works:
1. Sign up by completing the form at the bottom of this page. This swap is for Canadian Residents only, solely to limit the amount of customs issues you might experience with cross boarder shipping. It might be fun to do an international swap in the future, stay tuned.
2. On/around the 7th of the month, you’ll receive an e-mail from me containing the name and e-mail address of your Vegan Food Swap match. You’ll need to contact them to get their mailing address and any food specifics (allergies, gluten-free, etc.)
3. Collect items that you’ve purchased or made and box them up. Let’s keep the spending limit under $15 Canadian. This does not include shipping. Look into flat rate shipping options or let me know if you want someone closer to your area and I will try to accommodate.
4. Please include a written or typed note in your package.
5. By the 15th of the month, ship your package to your Vegan Food Swap match.
6. Please let your partner know you received the package.
7. Around the end of the month, post an entry on your blog about what you received, and be sure to include a shout-out (or a link back) to the person who sent you the box!
8. This is a vegan food swap. Please read labels, please be considerate – do not send milk, meat, eggs, honey, wool, silk, leather, or other animal ingredients to your swap buddy. There are lots of other food swaps out there (for example, The Lean Green Bean does a Foodie Penpals one), this is meant as a vegan scavenger hunt. Find cool vegan things and share them with someone else (and all of us!)

9. Get creative. Cliff bars, fruit bars, and the like are cool and all, but no matter where you live there are lots of accidentally vegan, secretly vegan, homemade, and other interesting local things you can send to your partner. Let me know if you need ideas.

Opting Out:
Please send me a message if you don’t want to participate. You will also get several emails from me (okay, around three) to see how the swap is going, to confirm your participation for next time, or if you need a break. Please reply to these emails.

Participate!
Each participant is responsible for actually participating, unless you’ve opted out. If you fail to receive a box, please don’t be mad, but please let me know and email your partner.