Okay, I'm beginning to organize my thoughts. I've been working on this reply for three days now, but keep having to leave. This is what I've gleaned as categories for a care package: 1. A family sized bottle of B12 supplements. :) Thanks, Grainlady! For the info as well as the recipes. I will also do one of your chia ones for them for the Omega-3. 2. Seeds and nuts that they can throw into any dish they put together, or just snack on. A friend recommended hemp hearts, but also chia and flaxseed, some pre-cut nuts, etc. 3. Some kind of grab and go bars/logs/balls. I'm still checking recipes for these. I've found a couple of good ones that have cocoa but aren't overly sugary. A lot of the bars are no-bakes that require dates to make them stick together, and that's too sugary for this purpose. It's fine for an energy bar, but the girls get plenty of carbs. If the only nuts I use are a nut-butter for stickiness it wouldn't be too bad, I think, though I was trying to expand them from over-reliance on nuts. 4. Easy prep/grab foods like lentil pasta (high protein), packaged tempeh or tempeh sausage, saitan burgers, organic soy protein, etc. 5. Easy to prep/grab vegetables like TJ's Cruciferous Crunch and Power to the Greens, which look like salad but are more nutritious than lettuce. Also, green beans and/or sugar snap peas, which can be eaten raw or cooked, little tomatoes, which can be eaten like candy, and anything pre-prepped. 6. Something home cooked, such as bean and lentil loaf muffins or vegan chili and beans. Islay Corbel: Your cheese and nut ball sounds good. I'll see if I can find a vegan soft cheese. I haven't seen any artisanal vegan cheeses like on your link, but I may not have looked closely enough, since, when I do look, I'm usually looking for one with a kosher hecksher. One of the girls is Middle Eastern, so I'm not going to bother with a hummus. There are also a plethora of made up ones available at the stores close to them--because hummus is such a good food for vegans and there are many among the young. I just wish they'd mind their nutrition better. Cornflakes and cupcakes is not a nutritious diet! Your links are very promising, and I'm still going through them. DCarch, good idea about the Chinese store. The textured soy proteins are also available in more mainstream stores, here. Localeater, Thanks for the recipe. I've only eaten Muhammara a couple of times and didn't really know what was in it. I don't think they'd bother making it. I wonder if I could substitute seeds or beans for a portion of the nuts? Bean salads are a great idea, too. Very grab and snack. Sleevendog, I keep coming back to your patties. Any recipe or guidelines? I make beef meatballs with a lot of veggies in them (more than half). Maybe I should do the same kind of thing with tempeh or something in place of the meat, and egg replacer for the sticky? Would it be sticky enough? I also have chia and flaxseeds. I just don't have enough experience and understanding of which to use when. What makes a meatless ball stick together in lieu of eggs? To make: Kale Chips and Texas Caviar (though the former don't have enough oomph to carry the latter). I can definitely make the Texas Caviar from fresh/dried, rather than canned. I've never seen a can of Rotel tomatoes, so I looked it up. Mine might not taste exactly the same, but I think I can make it taste good. :) Writersblook, I don't have a dehydrator, and while my oven will do the right temperature, it holds too much moisture. I've looked at Rawmazing, thanks for the reference, and didn't see anything that jumped out at me as tempting the young away from nuts and cornflakes. Is there something there that you particularly like? Ruthanna, your salad sounds really good and different. I will definitely be making this, just in general, besides for the girls. Colleen, I appreciate all of your comments, and agree about the cheeses. Vegen rennet is derived from fungus, but milk is milk in any form. Some rabbis rule that beef rennet and cassein are chemicals that are so far from their original source that they may be considered non-meat and non-dairy for Jewish purposes, but that doesn't count for a vegan who wishes to consume no products that started with an animal. I hope to get to the store tomorrow for some ingredients, and get right onto the vegan health snack experiment.

* Posted by coconut-nj (My Page) on Sat, May 30, 09 at 11:27 Sally, anywhere that has alot of British imports would probably have it. I was checking out who had it online the other day and while you might not want 6 bottles of it.. smiles... Amazon has 6 bottles for $27.05. It's free shipping too. Most places sell it for between five and six or up to eight dollars, so that's a great price. They say they're 15 oz bottles. Maybe somebody else would want to go in on it with you?? I've always heard of it described as a mayo with more vinegar and also with a mustard taste. Sounds good. Smiles. My DW used it when she used to travel to the UK all the time for buisness. Surprised she didn't bring any back. I have a head of savoy cabbage so I'm going to make my easy 'stuffed' cabbage casserole that I described above. It makes it so easy and quick which is just what we want on a Saturday night. Steam the cabbage briefly, layer it with dirty rice, pour some tomato juice mixed with onion and garlic powder between layers and on top and bake for about 40 minutes. I'll see if I can manage to take a picture. I seem to be terrible at that. The camera is always in the other room and it's a kind of big house and by the time I'm done cooking I'm not walking very well. LOL.. We will see. Oh btw, I always make two dishes of this because Christy gets burnt out on "red" since I always have something made with red sauce around I make her a version with just some broth on it. I do stuffed peppers for her the same way. No red. I do love the red on it but prefer tomato juice since it's nice and light although I'll just water down tomato sauce or puree with chicken stock/broth, if I don't have any handy.

Just an FYI, SO and I had what I call "chopped salad" last night with fresh cukes, radishes, scallions, yellow pepper, celery, parsley, oregano and dill, with a red wine, EVOO dressing. It was so delish. Roma tomatoes chopped and added before serving. You could add chickpeas to make it vegen and with protein. Also could add sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds or pine nuts if you wanted to stick with the Greekish theme it has, and toasted pita chips if you wanted to make it more like fataoush. As for another dish, well I'd try and stick with something Mediterranean. One dish I like is roasted butternut squash, Sicillian style, here's one recipe. The nice thing about that is you can serve it warm or room temp. It's a little unusual though, and you have to like mint and sweet and sour tastes.Zucca Agrodolce, (Sweet and Sour Squash) Or any other type of roasted vegetables, and you can add tofu to that, and season with Rosemary and garlic and use red onions for color. Yum!

That's about the most complex bread recipe I've ever seen. Here's the one I've been trying to get correct: Ingredients 2 1/2 cups gluten free all purpose flour without brown rice flour ~ See Recipe 1 cup warm milk (about 110ºF) of choice (nut milk, fresh coconut milk or raw goat or cow’s milk) 1/4 cup organic cane sugar 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast 1 tsp sea salt 1/4 cup butter or ghee melted and cooled 2 large eggs Instructions In a small bowl, combine warm milk, sugar and yeast. Stir and dissolve the yeast and allow the yeast mixture to sit for 10 minutes. In a large mixer bowl that attaches to a stand up mixer, combine the gluten free all purpose flour and salt and turn the mixer on low and for a few seconds to blend. Add the yeast mixture to the flour and blend on low for 30 seconds. Add in butter and eggs and blend on low scraping the sides as needed. Blend until dough is well blended, about 30 seconds. Turn the mixer on high and beat for 3 minutes or until the batter becomes smooth. Cover the bowl with a towel and allow the dough to rise in a warm place for an hour. I heated my oven up to 100ºF and then turned the oven off and placed it in the oven for an hour. Grease a 8×4 or a 9×5″ bread pan with coconut oil or butter. Stir the dough after it has rose for an hour and gently place it into the prepared bread pan. Cover with a piece of greased plastic wrap and loosely lay it on top and allow the bread to rise in a warm place for another 20-30 minutes or until the loaf rises just to the top of the loaf pan. Preheat the oven to 350ºF and bake the bread for 40-50 minutes. The bread will be golden brown on top and have a hard shell. Remove from pan and completely cool before slicing into it. Once cool, slice and enjoy! Notes Please note: this recipe has been tested to work without brown rice flour. It has not been tested any other way and I highly recommend that you follow this recipe exactly as written with no substitutions.