March Vegan Food Swap - What I sent

After a successful vegan food swap box last month I couldn't wait to be part of the March swap. If you've not heard of it before its a scheme run by to happy vegans who organise it. Every month you are assigned a partner to send a parcel of vegan goodies to and in return you receive your own parcel from another. The budget is £10 not including package and postage. Its really good fun and I can't believe how excited I get leading up to it!

This month I was assigned Christine, who unfortunately hasn't got a blog. She advised me that she tends to lean towards healthier food but she was up for trying anything. This box was going to be completely different to my previous box I'd sent.

After scaling local supermarkets and smaller shops I decided what I was going to send. In my parcel to Christine I included:

• Organic Miso Soup by Clearspring
• Sainsburys finely chopped green olives
• Sainsbury's chargrilled red pepper paste
• Tiger Tiger Garlic Mayonnaise
• Mini Moos Easter Bunny
• A parcel of Graze goodies

Organic Miso soup is a wonderfully unique combination of brown rice, sweet white miso, the mineral rich sea vegetables Kombu and Wakame and dried green onions. It makes a great soup by just adding hot water, which is delicious and convenient. 

If you're yet to find a vegan alternative to mayonnaise then this is it! I have tried Plamil mayo and other brands in the free from aisle of my local supermarkets but nothing comes close to Tiger Tiger especially the Garlic one. It really is the best out there by far!

I have yet to try the sainsbury's finely chopped green olives or the chargrilled red pepper paste, but both look delicious and labelled vegan too. I was thinking along the lines that they were a good store cupboard ingredient to have to hand for quick and tasty meals. I'm assuming the chopped green olives is similar to an olive tapenade without the fish sauce, or it could be quite easily turned into it! I'll post a recipe soon for an olive tapenade, but I definitely think its a summer recipe steeped in Greek memories. The chargrilled red pepper paste would be good in a wrap or used as a pizza sauce for a different twist.

As always I added a 'graze' box which consisted of black pepper pistachios, sweet chilli bites, spicy Thai rice crackers and Korean chilli rice crackers. AND of course this vegan swap box wouldn't be quite right without an Easter treat, so to finish it off I included a Mini Moo Bunny bar.

Vegan Swap Box - What I Sent

This month was my first vegan swap box which the to happy vegans organise every month. I was super excited at sending a swap box and even more excited to see what I would receive.
The person I sent to was Bindy, who told me that this was the first and last time she would be able to take part in the vegan swap box, as she was moving away from the UK at the end of the month. So I put my thinking cap on and thought the best thing to send her was snack foods, naughty but nice! Here is what I sent her:

I ordered a graze box to send and this was made up with a sachet of lightly salted popping corn, lightly toasted pistachios, seedsational (roasted sunflower and pumpkin seeds roasted with soy sauce) and lost army (a classic rice and peanut cracker mix). 

When I first went vegan I had a mentor that was set up by the vegan society and she told me that original hobnobs were vegan. I was amazed and I always have a packet at hand for those emergencies! Another good stand by is the packet of savoury snack mix.

I also included two "9bars"; original and flax as well as 3 "nakd" bars; cocoa and orange, pecan pie and cashew cookie. My favourite is the cocoa and orange version which I am going to have a go at making myself sometime soon.

To top off the naughty but nice I included a packet of little love heart sweets and ASDA free from choc and orange bar.

To balance all the naughtiness out, I added a carton of rice dream, a milk alternative that I use quite a bit in my cooking and 2 earl grey and 2 green tea with lemon tea bags. I hope Bindy enjoys the swap box, I enjoyed putting it together.