A Vegan's Wedding

So even though my wedding was almost 3 months ago (wow..where did the past 3 months go?!) I'm finally finding some free time to blog!
I've definitely been cooking and eating at some amazing places lately, so I'll have much to catch up on writing about.
I'll share my wedding moments with you first though! :)

The day before my wedding was spent running around with my maid of honor doing a couple of last minute things. Nothing stressful - getting mani & pedi's and prepping myself!
We had our rehearsal at the country club at 4:30, which went fine!


My something blue's! :)

Followed by our rehearsal dinner at the Dueling Kurtz House in Exton. I had eaten there twice before and although their menu doesn't have anything really vegan on it, they made me a delicious butternut squash risotto both times and it's been great! They made it for all the vegetarians that were at the dinner as well.



Jason's mom made the cute table names and place cards for all of the guests. It was a great idea and was really cute on the tables! she had named each of the tables after places we had been together, of course Jamaica hadn't happend yet but it was where our honeymoon was going to be!



^Us at the rehearsal dinner.

The rest of the evening we went out to a local bar with our bridal party and other people who were in the area to celebrate our last night before being married! It was great spending time with everyone but I was ready for the next day!!
That night I did manage to get a couple of hours of sleep, and my sister Emily, maid of honor Emily, and bridesmaid Kate all stayed with me that night which was great!

The morning we woke up pretty early, and ventured out to Target to get some coffee and last minute things for our "brunch" at the salon!

We were to be at the salon by 9:00 so I had made muffins and gotten some fruit to munch on while we were getting our hair & make up done.




The bridesmaids all dolled up! :)

After getting to the country club, they were nice enough to supply some wraps for the bridal party and make me a special veggie wrap!



My bridal party helped me get dressed and prepped for the ceremony!



We then had photo shoots around the country club with our fabulous photographer, Tiffany Atlas.



My wonderful bridesmaids :)



We had our pictures done before the ceremony, so yes we saw eachother before we walked down the aisle, but it was very romantic and special to have our own moment seeing eachother in private before the ceremony :) Made me so much less nervous as well seeing him beforehand!



The ceremony went wonderfully. My aunt and Jason's friend Tim both had readings in the ceremony that we chose, as well as a song that we had the audience sing a verse from. We also had a sand ceremony instead of the traditional unity candle. The sand worked out great and now we have the pieces of it to decorate our home.

I'll post about the rest of the wedding in my next post! The cocktail hour, dinner, and of course the CAKE! :)

The knot will be tied :)

This vegan is getting married this saturday...9/10/11



Thus the blog & blogworld will be neglected for a bit! I have much to think about/get married/go on honeymoon to Jamaica!

See you in a few weeks!!



^^What we based our cake off of, will be much different though! :)
And of course, vegan. Vegan chocolate cake with peanut butter mousse and vegan white cake with raspberry mousse. Yum! :)

Vegan 23rd Birthday!

I had my 23rd birthday last thursday (August 25th) and it was a wonderful day from the night before to the end of the evening.

The night before my birthday, Jason & I met with our DJ to finalize all the music details, which was very successful and I'm really excited for the music that will accompany our wedding reception!

Also Wednesday night, I made the Tofu Saag Paneer from Skinny Bitch, although it was AWESOME (even Jason thought so!) I did not take a picture. The blended spinach with coconut milk made it look very unappetizing(think baby food), so we just ate with our eyes closed and it was delicious anyway :)

That night Jason wanted to give me my birthday presents early (even though I said I should wait!!) and they were all wonderful! The Adele CD, Just Dance 2 on Wii (SOO much fun!), the dkny golden delicious perfume and lotion, a bottle of grey goose (classssy alcohol haha), an H&M giftcard, and a car charger for my phone!! All awesome gifts. He's pretty amazing. Oh, and one more thing which i'll get to in a minute..

Thursday, my actual birthday, was spent at work doing medication training. Not the most exciting thing, but when I went upstairs to see my clients and grab a bottle of water, they all sang to me and I had a TON of birthday cards they all hand made me throughout the day sitting on my desk. They really do make you feel like Miss America..I love it. :)

When I went home for my lunch break I got a knock on the door from the florist that is doing our wedding, with a beautiful sunflower bouquet from my parents!



Thursday after I got home, I met Jason in Wayne to go to White Dog Cafe for dinner. I've been wanting to try this place for a while and they recently opened a location in Wayne. They also have one in center city, Philadelphia.



Despite having a 6:30 reservation on a thursday, it was pretty empty! It did have a few tables in the first room filled up as well as on the other wall from where we were sitting. It did get much busier around 7:30 or so.

We of course started with some delicious birthday wine - a Reisling, which is my favorite kind of wine!



We started with the Vegetable Antipasto.
The site states it as "local seasonal vegetables, herb infused oil, saba, true leaf microgreens."



It was really delicious and had golden beets, regular beets, tomatoes, a puree of vegetables..

Compliments of the chef, we received glasses of gazpacho which was delicious and I've love to order this next time as a starter!



For my entree, I chose the Cashew Crusted Tofu, which the site lists as it comes with "buckwheat noodles, red chile aoili, asian vegetable slaw, and ginger soy sauce." Our server informed us that the red chile aoili was not vegan, so that was left off.



The tofu was really good and the vegetable slaw was perfectly seasoned. I thought the entire dish was wonderful, and I know that they change up their menu according to the seasons, so I'd be excited to go back and try some of their other vegan offerings in the fall!

Jason also got me a vegan birthday cake from Whole Foods!!



This was AMAZING!!
The chocolate mouse icing was phenomenal and the cake was moist and still very moist and decadent days after for leftovers!

My birthday was definitely a fabulous one and my last one as a single lady ;)

stay young, go dancing

Thanks to my fiance's family having an amazing garden and an abundance of fresh summer vegetables, it's been quite easy to have delicious produce with our meals lately!
When we left from NJ the other weekend, we left with a ton of zucchini, yellow squash, the sweetest cherry tomatoes ever, eggplant, and a few regular tomatoes.
I was hesitant at first to take the eggplant.. a) i've never cooked with eggplant and b) i'm not sure i really like eggplant.
I love baba ganoush, definitely, but grilled or on a plate I've usually never really been a fan. although i always try to be!

I tried to think up something to make that would utilize a bit of all the vegetables into one dish, I definitely don't want them going bad! I did freeze some of the squash which will be great for quick meals, but the zucchini & tomatoes I didn't want to freeze.

I figured a ratatouille would be perfect! I love using Whole Food's website to find inspiration for recipes, and their summer harvest ratatouille sounded perfect!



Summer Harvest Ratatouille:
1 bell pepper, seeded cored, cut into thick wedges
1 eggplant, cut into 3'4" slices
1 yellow squash, cut into 3/4"slices
1 zucchini, cut into 3/4" slices
1/2 c water
1 large tomato, seeded and chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic
1/6 t red pepper flakes'
1 T oregano
1/4 c fresh chopped basil
1 T dried parsley
1/2 T red wine vinegar

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Have a baking sheet ready, place peppers, eggplant, squash, and zucchini on sheet. Bake, turning once halfway through cooking, moving to the bottom shelf if originally on upper, until browned (about 30 minutes.) Cool slightly, then chop.

Meanwhile, pour water in heavy pot, add tomatoes, onion, garlic, and pepper flakes. Bring to a boil, lower heat, cover and simmer until tomatoes are soft, about 20 minutes. Add chopped roasted veggies to pot, cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir in basil, parsley and vinegar and cook for 5 more minutes.

This dish was divine! We both enjoyed it and the fresh vegetables made it even better.
I definitely love the summer vegetables out now and see zucchini pasta in the near future ! :)

Showers!..vegan style ;)

Over the past month or so I was lucky enough to have two awesome bridal showers for my upcoming wedding! (44 days and counting!!)

My first was in June in long island, NY with a lot of my family from that area.
I know firsthand that Long Island is hard to find vegan-friendly establishments, so I was excited to see what my mom had planned and come up with!
Where she picked definitely did not dissapoint..

I knew the shower was that day, so I got ready with my mom & sis in the morning and Jason drove me over to the place in the afternoon.
It was at New Grand Buffet in Islandia, and it was a really great time.

The theme was cherry blossom



It all looked so beautiful and the decorations and favors were wonderful!

The buffet didnt offer toooo many vegan options, but the staff brought our a personal plate of veggie sushi rolls and they also had a teriyaki station where you could choose just about any vegetable and they stir fried it in this amazing sauce! It was definitely easy to find something vegan friendly here, I loved the idea of a buffet so everyone can get what they really want!

My mom also went to the trouble to order a vegan cake for the shower! She got chocolate with a Delicious peanut butter frosting. it was realllly good!



Also - the favors were cherry blossom candles as well as vegan chocolate wedding rings!



The shower was great and it was so wonderful to see family and have everyone there!

My 2nd shower was this past weekend -- and not only was it awesome, but it was a COMPLETE surprise!! I thought I was going to Jason's family's place for the weekend and stopping by a pampered chef party on saturday at his sister's..little did I know it was actually a bridal shower for me! I'm not the biggest fan of surprises (that whole having to be in control thing...) but this was definitely a great one!!


Me with some of the ladies from the shower..sorority friends, girlfriends, my mom! I was so surprised to see everybody!

The food was AWESOME! Emily ( my maid of honor aka my bff!) had catering done from Miss Rachel's Pantry which I have heard about numerous times on blogs and everywhere saying how GREAT it is.. it did NOT dissapoint!



These were the vegan BLT bites - toasted bread with smokey coconut "bacon" tomato and lettuce..
And the Pizettes with roasted tomato, olive tapenade and arugula...



These were the amazing vegan quesadillas with mango salsa!

She also made vegan seitan skewers with pineapple and grape tomatoes, I didn't get a pic of those though!

Uhh, can you say YUM?! I wish I worked in center city to get in on her lunch club!

The desserts definitely did not dissapoint either!

My friend Kate, who is one of my bridesmaids(!!) made the delicious vegan cupcakes! It was her first vegan baking adventure, and she did an amazing job! I was lucky enough to try both flavors ;)

Emily's mom went to vegan baking as well -- and made delicious lemon cookies and heart shaped sugar cookies, which were both SO delicious!



All of the fabulous vegan candy didn't heart either ;)

Both of my showers were definitely wonderful and will be things I will remember forever as great moments with such supportive friends && family. I'm truly a lucky gal to have such great people in my life!