Christmas with a Vengeance

Hello everyone! Regardless to what you all did last weekend, I hope you enjoyed the long weekend and ate lots of goodies! Now that things are going to be slowing down a bit, I'll be back to blogging more regularly.

I haven't been cooking or baking much lately due to being low on time and the homeowner's curse- my oven is dying! I doubt it ever had quite the workout it's had since it started living with me, but it's getting progressively worse, so we're going to have to face the inevitable and look into getting a new one soon. While we're at it, we're going to get a new fridge because our current one is on the fritz as well. It's a domino effect, I tell you! Our dishwasher hasn't worked worth anything, either, but that's not necessary so it's going to wait. We haven't had a decent dishwasher in years, so I'm used to doing it by hand anyway. At least it functions as a huge drying rack! Anyway, while I'm not looking forward to the cost, the idea of having some shiny new appliances that are energy efficient and will be vegan from "birth" is exciting.

Christmas Eve breakfast, crepes with an apple and pear compote and an almond version of Dreena's Creamy Cashew Dip on top.

Very beige, but full of flavor!

We had a lovely Christmas Eve. In keeping with making our own traditions, we decided to do Christmas on Christmas Eve. Why not?! It was just us, but we've been so busy lately it was exactly what we needed. We hung out in our pj's and ate food and watched movies and just plain relaxed. While Santa was good to both of us (check out this cute shirt Jim got me!) I think Bindhi had the best day. Her Aunt Leslie made Bindhi and her brothers some organic catnip toys that she dug out of the bag while I was at work. They are all well-slobbered on and have dozens of teeth holes in them. And we got them a set of these cubes. We used to have a set, but gave them to my sister-in-law. The ones we got have a leopard print on them, very sassy! They are great because when you need to tidy up, they fold up like those wire sun visors you have in your car and they take up no space. Bindhi's favorite activity is to get in one and push against the sides until it rolls over. She just rolls them all over the place. It's so cute to watch. The boys just like to sleep in them.

For dinner on the Eve we went to a local vegetarian Vietnamese restaurant called Van Hanh. It was our first time there and I'm not sure if we'll be back. The great thing about the place is that it's volunteer run by Buddhist nuns and the proceeds benefit the local Buddhist temple. But the food was had was all rather... greasy. Jim and I both left feeling slightly ill.


But not too ill, apparently, because we decided to make peanut butter chocolate chip cookies later that night! We munched on them while watching one of my holiday favorites, Elf.

Christmas day we slept in and had a lazy breakfast of toast and fruit smoothies. Our big dinner got simplified making the Stewed Tofu and Potatoes from VwaV.

I'd somehow never noticed this recipe before, but someone mentioned it to me recently and when I looked at it, wow, I knew I had to make it and soon! Of course, like always, I added carrots and I made 1 1/2 times the gravy amount so there would be extra (can you ever have too much gravy?). The only other change was that I only used 1 cup wine total, because that's all I had, and subbed the rest with water and I only used one medium onion and the garlic, no shallots. Served with some organic ciabatta. It made hearty portions with plenty of leftovers. Yum!

Dessert was a parfait of puddings, the orange pudding from VCTOTW and the chocolate pudding from VWAV.

I layered the puddings while warm and put a layer of chocolate chips in the middle, which melted into a creamy filling. I also sprinkled a few on top along with some fresh orange segments. Creamy and filling, but not too sweet. A nice change of pace for dessert for 2 sugar addicts.

I hope you are all doing well and I look forward to blog hopping soon to see what everyone's been up to!