Ethan and I are big fans of giving homemade gifts to our friends and family. Homemade food gifts a great way to do some vegan advocacy while sharing our love of cooking with the people we love. Thanks to Joni Marie Newman’s book Vegan Food Gifts: More Than 100 Inspired Recipes for Homemade Baked Goods, Preserves, and Other Edible Gifts Everyone Will Love, you can join in the fun of homemade gifting. Your family, friends, neighbors, guests—anyone!—will be love these homemade gifts that you can feel good about. From mouthwatering vegan baking mixes you can create, package, and label yourself, to  gift baskets, preserves, liquors, and more, you’ll find that perfect something for everyone, no matter what their views or inclinations.  Remember the joy of coming home from school with the beautiful gifts you made in arts & crafts? Now that we’re adults and we see those same treasures now being made by our friends’ kids, we understand the strength it took for our parents to look on them so loving and proclaim them the most beautiful things ever seen. That is not the expression that will be worn by the recipients of these homemade food gifts. The people who get these gifts will be genuinely thrilled.

Vegan Food Gifts has a section on easy packaging ideas including templates for making boxes, gift bags, labels and recipe cards. All the recipes in the book are clearly labeled to indicate the level of difficulty, cost and speed/quantity. You can choose from gifts that are ready for immediate enjoyment to ones that require some assembly. When we do homemade gift baskets, we like to include a mix of both ready to use and ones that need some assembly.

This book is one you will go back to all year round, not just at the holidays. Take a look at the recipe below and you will see a sample of what is inside this wonderful book. We are giving away an autographed copy of Vegan Food Gifts to one lucky winner. Directions for entering follow the recipe below.