VEGAN ADVENT CALENDAR GUIDE 2019

November 13, 2019November 18, 2019Jade Green VeganLeave a comment

Just a few years ago, I wouldn’t have believed you if you’d told me we’d be overwhelmed by the choice of vegan advent calendars; but here we are in 2019 here and I’ve gotta say it’s a pretty great dilemma to be in. To make your choice a little easier, I’ve rounded up a huge selection of vegan advent calendars to suit all budgets, from traditional chocolate, to sweets, to beauty. Have a little scroll through & see which advent calendar appeals to you.

Holland & Barrett (£2.49)

The Holland & Barrett advent calendar is super affordable so is perfect if you’d like vegan treats on a budget this Christmas season. It’s available to purchase at Holland & Barrett online and in store.

Asda Free From (£2.50)

Asda also offers a very affordable vegan advent calendar in their free from range. It’s available to purchase at Asda online and in store.

Moo Free (£4.99)

The Moo Free advent calendar can be purchased for around £4.99 from Waitrose, Sainsbury’s & Ocado and it is also available alongside the moo free selection box on Amazon* for £9.99.

Nomo (£9.99)

This Nomo Advent Calendar is gluten and nut free as well as vegan. It is available exclusively at Holland & Barrett online and in store.

Candy Kittens (£10)

If you’re more into sweets than chocolate, then the Candy Kitten advent calendar is for you. It’s available to purchase at Amazon*, Waitrose, Boots online and in store.

Hotel Chocolat (£12.50)

This luxury calendar is the perfect seasonal splurge for all of the dark chocolate lovers out there. It is available to purchase at Amazon* and Hotel Chocolat .

Superdrug Studio (£20)

If you’re more into Beauty Advent Calendars than chocolate or sweets, Superdrug has one of the most reasonably priced vegan advent calendars. The Superdrug Studio calendar is currently on sale and is available at Superdrug online and in store. For a more comprehensive list of vegan beauty advent calendars, check out Vegan Beauty Girl’s post.

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I hope you found this list helpful and if there are any calendars I’ve missed that you think should be included, be sure to let me know so I can add them in :).

*Links with a asterisk are affiliate which means I earn a small commission for recommending this product which enables me to continue to produce free content

WHAT TO BUY YOUR VEGAN BOYFRIEND FOR VALENTINE’S DAY

February 13, 2017Jade Green Vegan1 Comment

I don’t know if it’s just me, but I always find guys very hard to buy for, meaning it can be really difficult to come up with a thoughtful and original gift for Valentine’s Day. So, following on from my What to buy your vegan girlfriend for Valentine’s Day post last week, I’ve created a guy version of this post for all of you who, like me, could do with some cool new ideas!

I’ve come up with some cute guy-specific gifts, as well as some similar ideas to those on the girl’s post, as I’m pretty sure they’re things guys would love just as much as girls. I also asked Matt and my friend Tom for their input and all of their answers were food/alcohol based; so, if in doubt, buy all the vegan food and lager you can find ;)!

CHOCOLATE & SWEETS

One of Matt’s favourite gifts I’ve ever got him was a box filled up with vegan crisps, popcorn, sweets and chocolate. Some of my favourite chocolates are: Choices Dairy Free Caramel Chocolates, Vego Bars, iChoc Bars and Booja-Booja truffles. There are also loads of great gelatine-free vegan sweets you can buy; Matt’s favourites are definitely the Biona Organic jelly sweets.

ACCESSORIES

If you want to really spoil him, Will’s Vegan Shoes & Accessories Co. has an awesome range of high-quality vegan wallets, card holders and belts. Matt is absolutely obsessed with his Will’s card holder and belt and uses them all the time. Minimo also creates really cool minimalist wallets that are super practical and look great too.

CLOTHING

If your partner is the kind of guy who likes to share his veganism with everyone, then a slogan vegan tee, jumper or hoodie would make a great gift. There’s a whole range of awesome vegan guys clothing out there to choose from; some of the most popular items with guys from my clothing line are the Fuelled By Veg t-shirts and the Vegan sweaters. You can check out my full mens range at: jadegreenvegan.com/mensunisex-tees/ & jadegreenvegan.com/unisex-jumpershoodies/.

BOOKS

There are so many great vegan books out there, some of my favourites are The Lucky Ones: My Passionate Fight For Farm Animals and The China Study. The Lucky Ones is a beautiful book written by the founder of Woodstock Farm Sanctuary about her journey to veganism and ultimately founding an animal sanctuary. The China Study is an informational scientific exploration of the health benefits of a plant-based diet.

THOUGHTFUL EXTRAS

This section is pretty much the same as for the girl version of this post as I’m pretty sure all vegan animal lovers would love one of these thoughtful gifts:

a donation to your partner’s favourite animal charity and a cute little printed card explaining what you’ve done (if you’d like any recommendations, a couple of my favourites are Buttercups Sanctuary For Goats and Animal Free Research UK)
a pair of tickets to a vegan festival (you can find a comprehensive listing of festivals across the UK on the Vegfest website)

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I hope this post gave you some great gift ideas to help you spoil your vegan partner on Valentine’s Day. And as always, I’d love to hear from you, so if you have any other ideas then I’d love to hear them in the comments section below this post!

*Some links in this post are affiliate meaning if you purchase the product using my link it will not cost you any extra but I may earn a small commission from the sale which helps me to continue to produce free content for you all :).

WHAT TO BUY YOUR VEGAN GIRLFRIEND FOR VALENTINE’S DAY

February 8, 2017Jade Green Vegan1 Comment

At the Greater London Vegan Fair, I got chatting to a lovely customer about ideas of what to buy a vegan girl for Valentine’s Day and I came up with what I’m pretty sure is the perfect present for a vegan girl (hint hint Matt ;)). It’s a creative, vegan twist on traditional Valentine’s gifts; so, if you have a vegan partner and you’re looking to get her something super thoughtful this Valentine’s Day, then this post is for you!

STEP 1: BUY A VEGAN SLOGAN BAG

A vegan slogan bag makes the perfect wrapping for your Valentine’s Day gift, as it is also a great present in itself. There’s a whole range of awesome vegan totes and other bags out there to choose from, including my vegan bag collection which is available at: jadegreenvegan.com/tote-bags/

friends-in-my-heart-fruit-in-my-cart-bag

the-prettiest-thing-you-can-be-is-cruelty-free-makeup-bag

STEP 2: FILL IT WITH AWESOME VEGAN GOODIES

Once you’ve got your vegan bag, get ready to fill it with a whole range of vegan goodies, from food to fashion to thoughtful little extras!

CHOCOLATE & SWEETS

Everyone loves chocolate, and luckily there are now SO many amazing vegan chocolate brands out there, from the simple and sweet bars to extravagant gourmet boxes. In case you’re too spoilt for choice, some of my favourites are: Choices Dairy Free Caramel Chocolates, Vego Bars and iChoc Bars! And, if you’re feeling super fancy, you can always treat her to a box of Booja-Booja truffles. There are also loads of great vegan sweets you can buy; my favourites are definitely the Biona Organic jelly sweets.

JEWELLERY

Etsy has a whole range of awesome vegan jewellery so you’ll be sure to find something to suit every style and price range. I have two beautiful vegan necklaces which would make great gifts, one by Skedaddle Ceramics (on the left) and the other by Love Libby X (on the right).

COSMETICS

Lush have a huge, clearly labelled vegan range so a fragrant Lush bath bomb would make an amazing addition to the goody bag. Or, if you know your girlfriends’ favourite cosmetics brands & products / are feeling very brave, then you could buy her some toiletries or makeup from companies she loves. Two of my favourite vegan cosmetics brands are ELF Cosmetics (which is super inexpensive) and Arbonne.

BOOKS

THOUGHTFUL EXTRAS

Some of my favourite gifts Matt has ever got me are donations to animal charities and animal sanctuary sponsorships. So, if you feel like giving an extra special gift this Valentine’s Day, make a donation to your partner’s favourite animal charity and print out a cute little card explaining what you’ve done to put in the bag (if you’d like any recommendations, a couple of my favourites are Buttercups Sanctuary For Goats and Animal Free Research UK).

Another great little present you could include is a pair of tickets to a vegan festival! There are vegan festivals across the entire UK now so it should be easy to find one near you; check out a comprehensive listing on the Vegfest website.

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I hope this post gave you lots of gift ideas on how to spoil your vegan partner on Valentine’s Day. I know I would absolutely love any of these gifts, especially the animal sanctuary donation, so if she’s anything like me I’m sure your partner will love them too!

And, if your partner’s a guy, don’t worry – I’ve got you covered too! I enlisted Matt’s help to create a guy version of this post, so you can find the perfect gift for the guy in your life.

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Vegan San Diego | Kindred

September 21, 2016Jade Green Vegan1 Comment

Today I’m back to tell you guys about another awesome restaurant that we found in San Diego:

Kindred ▷▷▷

Kindred is an cool and edgy bar/restaurant that serves unique cocktails and inventive vegan food, all whilst playing death-metal tunes (not in a super intense way but in a this place has majorly cool vibes way). The staff are all super friendly and helpful and the decor is on point – hello white marble tables!

Drinks ▷▷▷

Before we get into the food, let’s talk about the cocktails, as 2 pages of the 4 page menu are made up of Kindred’s huge variety of creative drinks, so it’s only fair that they get a special mention. Now, I don’t really drink that often and when I do I usually stick to the same cocktails (pina colada & porn star martini) so it was exciting to mix it up and try the Depth Dweller which is made up of Strawberry Infused Rum, Campari and Lime. It was super fruity and delicious and had just the right amount of kick.

Starters ▷▷▷

To start off the meal, Matt ordered the Chargrilled Seitan Skewers which looked and tasted insanely like meat (and kinda freaked me out); but if like a lot of people you like the taste/texture of meat but also love animals then this would definitely be the perfect dish for you! Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to get any good pictures of this dish -mood lighting + an iPhone camera doesn’t exactly make for the best photography – but don’t worry there are plenty of mouth-watering food photos coming up.

Mains ▷▷▷

For main I had the Seared Cauliflower Steak. The cauliflower ‘steak’ was served with orange squash puree, tahini beets, little puff pastries and steak sauce. This creative combination made this one of the most gourmet style vegan dishes I’ve ever eaten and it was absolutely delicious.

Matt ordered the Salt & Vinegar Seared Gardein, which was basically a super fancy and delicious vegan ‘fish’ style dish. It was topped with crispy battered onion rings that were absolutely amazing and complemented the ‘fish’ and tartar sauce perfectly!

Even though we were both so full, when we saw the Cookie Dough Truffles on the dessert menu we knew we could make a little more room and it was so worth it as they were my favourite part of the meal!

Kindred is such a fun place with great vibes, so if you’re in the San Diego area and fancy a great drink and/or some delicious vegan food then be sure to check it out!

February Favourites 2016

March 1, 2016Jade Green VeganLeave a comment

Hey guys!

There have been loads of products that I have been loving lately, from chocolate to lipstick to clothing, so I filmed a ‘Febraury Favourites’ video to share them all with you!

Check the video out below, and if you’d like to buy any of the products I featured, I’ve included a list of what they are and where you can buy them below the video ▽▼▽▼▽

Products ♥

Willow Lipstick by Arbonne – arbonne.com
168 and 170 lipsticks by Barry M – barrym.com
DIY makeup holder using Yankee Candle Jar – yankeecandle.co.uk
Washing Line Candle by Harper’s Bizarre – harperscandles.com
Choco cookie bar by iChoc – ichoc.de/en/
‘The Girl on the Train’ Book – amazon.co.uk
‘Daddy’s Home’ Film – any cinema near you!
‘Namaste In With My Dog Jumper’ – jadegreenvegan.com/shop
GoPro Hero 4 – gopro.com

xoxo Jade

Vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe

February 28, 2015Jade Green Vegan6 Comments

Hey everyone! Sorry it’s been a while, I have been insanely busy at work these past few weeks so haven’t had much time to do anything other than work, sleep or eat – oh what an envious life I lead! However, to make up for my lack of posting, I am coming at you with a delicious chocolate chip cookie recipe today. These little bites of yumminess have kept me going over the past couple of weeks – I ate seven on Friday, yes you read that right, seven – I know, I know I’m an animal, but they’re seriously that good, plus I’m a major comfort eater! TMI? ANYWAY, everyone who has tried them, vegan or not, have loved them so I thought it was only fair that I shared the recipe with you guys.

Ingredients

1 cup molasses sugar
1 cup vegan margarine
1 cup almond milk
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3 cups oatmeal
2 tablespoons raw cacao powder
1 bar of dark vegan chocolate
icing sugar and a love heart stencil to decorate the cookies (optional)

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 250°c
Mix together the sugar and margarine until smooth
Add in the almond milk and stir until the milk has combined with the mixture
Add in the flour and baking soda and stir until well mixed
Chop the chocolate into small chunks
Add in the oatmeal, chocolate chunks and cacao and stir
Spoon small balls of the mixture onto a baking tray covered in baking paper and flatten
Bake in the oven for around 15 minutes or until done
Place the love heart stencil on top of each cookie and sprinkle icing sugar on top
Finally, leave them to cool for 10 minutes, then enjoy your yummy cookies!

Vegusto

November 6, 2014Jade Green Vegan8 Comments

One of the main things a lot of new vegans struggle with is missing cheese; as a life long vegetarian, cheese was a staple ingredient in most of my meals so cutting it out required a big adjustment in my diet, one I was more than happy to make, but a big one nonetheless. In my first few months of being vegan, I tried a couple of cheese alternatives but none came close to the real thing so I decided to give up looking. However, when I visited the USA this summer I tried Daiya cheese and have been majorly craving it ever since. In a moment of desperation I even emailed Daiya to see if they would send some to the UK; shockingly, they politely declined. I therefore decided to restart my quest for a good non-dairy cheese and stumbled upon the Vegusto website. I could not be happier about finding this little gem, as their cheese is amazing and I have now become a regular customer!

Aside from their award winning cheese, Vegusto stocks a range of vegan products that use 100% natural, sustainable and healthy ingredients. The first thing I tried from Vegusto was the No-Moo Melty cheese. I am absolutely in love with it, as not only does it make a great bagel filler, it is also the perfect pizza topping. Check out my Superfood tortilla base pizza recipe for a healthy and fun idea of how to make use of this yummy cheese ▼▽▼▽▼

After falling in love with Vegusto cheese, my boyfriend ordered me a few surprises from their website including the delicious biona organic chocolate spread and a dairy-free advent calendar. I am a huge fan of the chocolate spread as it is the perfect topper for pretty much anything: wholegrain toast, biscuits, sliced banana. You name it, I’ll smother it in chocolate spread and eat it.

As far as the vegan advent calendar goes, I am SO excited to get started on this bad boy. Bring on December ▼▽▼▽▼

If you’re looking for a cruelty-free alternative to some of your favourite meals without compromising on taste, I’d highly recommend you head on over to the Vegusto website. They have so many more foods I am looking forward to trying, so I will definitely keep you all posted. I’d love to hear if you’ve tried any of their products and if so which is your favourite?

My first vegan dinner party!

July 16, 2014Jade Green Vegan6 Comments

Last weekend, we hosted our first dinner party since I became vegan and it was a-maz-ing!

Our friends that we invited have recently decided to go vegetarian, so it was cool to be able to share all of the vegan dishes with them.

I got waaaay too excited about making the table look pretty and may have gone a little overboard with decorating name cards!

Now, onto the delicious food…

In some families you have to say grace before everyone can eat; in my house, it’s becoming pretty standard that everyone has to wait until I’ve taken pictures of the food before we can start eating , ah the life of a food blogger!!

Now really, onto the food! My mum is an amazing cook and has been adapting her previously meat dishes into vegetarian dishes for me for years. Now she has the even bigger challenge of adapting them into vegan-friendly meals, and she is doing a great job!

Her veggie Lasagne is one of my all time favourites, and she made it vegan by substituting the white sauce with an almond milk and corn flour mixture, and to add crunchiness – a bread crumb and vegan butter topping. YUM. Everyone LOVED this dish; and even my cheese loving, vegetarian boyfriend said this was the best lasagne yet – go mama!

We also had a fresh vegetable paella which was scrummy, and also really good for left-overs the next day too.

vegan lasagna and vegan paella

My mum’s vegetarian chilli is THE BOMB. Like seriously, party in your mouth. It’s my all time favourite dinner, as you can do so much with it: eat it with home-made garlic batons, in a jacket potato, with rice, with nachos, with salad, with home-made coleslaw – the possibilities are endless! So as always, this was a big hit!

We also had a mixed leaf salad with cherry tomatoes which is such a simple, healthy side and goes well with most things – a dinner party must.

For desert, we had some awesome home-made melted vegan chocolate…

vegan chocolate

…And to dip in the chocolate we had delicious strawberries and banana slices. Heaven.

It was such a lovely evening, and the food went down amazingly! I’ll be sharing some of the recipes on the blog soon, so watch this space!

Confessions of a vegan chocoholic

July 9, 2014Jade Green Vegan1 Comment

Since deciding to eat a vegan diet, I have had lots of people ask me the same question (usually with a horrified look on their face), ‘so wait, you can’t eat chocolate anymore?!’ In response to this, I thought I’d write a post about the wide range of vegan chocolate available, to quash the myth that vegans can’t eat chocolate.

Confession: this has been by far my favourite post on the blog to research so far!

In case you hadn’t guessed already, I’m a bit of a chocoholic; so I will admit, missing chocolate was one of the things that I was a little worried about when I decided to become vegan. The first vegan chocolate I ate was Asda own brand. As a plain chocolate bar it’s not the best chocolate I’ve ever eaten; but when melted to make chocolate covered strawberries, it is absolutely awesome! This is the desert I had on my first fully vegan day, and it was an absolute blessing!

After eating an almost entirely vegan diet for around 1 month, I was sitting in work one day when I was hit with a major chocolate craving! Just when I was about to give in to guiltily considering getting a boost bar from the vending machine, I googled vegan chocolate on whim to see if anywhere nearby could satisfy my craving. The first thing that came up was… HOTEL CHOCOLAT! Excited does not even begin to describe how this made me feel, as not only do they make incredible chocolate, but there is also an outlet less 5 minutes from my office. I practically ran downstairs and bought an unhealthy amount of vegan chocolate. I may have also sent a slightly embarrassing tweet to Hotel Chocolat about how they had ‘Made. My. Day’ whilst I scoffed down my chocolate on the way back to work! Totally worth the embarrassment to express my gratitude for this amazing afternoon snack.

I didn’t realise how hooked I’d become until one Friday on my way to work, the girl working in Hotel Chocolat recognised me as ‘the girl who comes in to buy a Hazlenut Buche every morning’. Oh dear. When she asked if the 4 bars I had picked up this morning were all for me, instead of admitting that I was stocking up on chocolate for the weekend like a squirrel does for winter, I of course lied to save the last shred of my dignity and said they were for presents. It’s kinda true, they were presents, from me… to me. I’m sure I should feel more embarrassed to go back there but I don’t. The chocolate is just too good! Check out the Hotel Chocolat website here to see their award winning vegan chocolate selection.

Holland & Barrett also have lots of yummy vegan chocolate snacks that are well worth checking out; these dairy-free chocolate coated raisins are my personal fave!

holland and barret vegan chocolate covered raisins

If you’re a bit more creative in the kitchen and would like some more vegan chocolate inspiration, check out the awesome Chocolate Covered Katie’s blog which has tons of amazing and quirky recipes!