Merry Christmas!

We had our traditional Christmas morning breakfast of pancakes. Well it might not have always been a tradition but it will be from now on. I love traditions...they always make me feel like I have something to look forward to. Last night, after midnight mass, we watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. We did the same thing last year and I am sure we will continue this tradition for years to come.

I tried a new pancake recipe today. I tried the Vegan with a Vengeance one. I subbed Silk nog for soymilk and made plain, chocolate chip and blueberry varieties. I really like this recipe and the pancakes turned out perfect. I served them with Tofurky breakfast links and handmade hashbrown potatoes. This breakfast really hit the spot. Who needs a greasy diner after this....:)

Vegan Christmas #4...2008

Vegan Christmas...2008. I thought this year's Christmas on my side of the family went well this year. I was called away to a birth(I am a doula!) on Sunday and ended up being there for 23 hours which through a little kink into my plans. Good thing I had a little notice on Saturday so I made the seitan "turkey" roast then and pre-cut all of my veggies (chopped onions and celery, cleaned green beans, minced garlic etc.). So when it came to putting the dinner together Monday afternoon everything went smoothly because of all the prep I had done. Even though 8 people were suppose to come to this dinner it only ended up being my parents, my husband and I which was nice.

I had planned on making more but since it only ended up being the 4 of us I cut it back a bit. The main course was the seitan "turkey" roast (recipe by Bryanna Clark Grogan) and the Cashew Nut Roast (from Veg Times), on the side we had homemade cranberry sauce and gravy with chestnut stuffing, Green Bean Casserole (Fat Free Vegan Blog) and roasted potatoes and onions in a maple syrup/dijon glaze (Vegan with a Vengeance). Everything tasted amazing and it tasted like the holidays :)

Everything on my plate.

Close up of the roast, stuffing and cranberry sauce.

Close up of the Cashew Nut roast, green bean casserole and potatoes.

Mmmmm....dessert. I had planned on making a caramel cake but due to a change in events I did not have enough time. Lucky me though because I had premade these Nanaimo Bars(see previous post for pictures of these) and my mom brought a sugar pie!

Christmas was a success and it was so nice spending time with my parents and family. I love them all!

Nanaimo Bars

I premade some Nanaimo Squares today using John and Hilana's Recipe. I love these little squares and they freeze so nicely. Just pop them out of the freezer and thaw a little and they are ready for your guests.

Week 1...Day 1...

So everyone know that the first day of a new regime is always the easiest. You are motivated and pumped and ready to go. Well that is pretty much how today went. No cheats no snacking...

Breakfast: Tea and Quinoa Porridge
Lunch: Chickpea and Mint Soup and Grated Carrot Salad
Snacks: Pineapple and Almonds
Dinner: Chestnut Roast with sweet potato and steamed broccoli

The soup was amazing and so simple to make. Sounds odd but chickpeas and mint make a good combo. Dinner was pretty good as well. The chestnut loaf reminded me of stuffing because it had many of the same spices and ingredients in it. All of the recipes can be found here...You are What You Eat

Lesson of the day: Be careful when roasting chestnuts, especially if you do not score them because they can explode when they are under pressure.

You are what you eat

Okay so after a weekend of feeling sad we are ready to great the world again. Starting tomorrow we will begin our 8 week You are What you Eat cleanse. If you have not seen this show on television look for it. I found it to be quite fascinating. In reality we already eat many of these things but for the next 2 months we will cut wheat and a few other things out of our meals. I will post what we eat each day on the blog and keep track of our progress as well. We are of course leaving room for a few cheats for Christmas dinner. I am looking forward to beginning the new year as a healthier vegan...

Trying to face reality...

The past few weeks have been filled with hopes, desires, stress and in the end disappointment. Today has been one of the worst days in my entire life. Thank goodness I have a supportive and loving husband. In turn...this will be supper for the weekend.

Christmas Baking....Fudge

I discovered Kittee's Peanut Butter Fudge recipe on the Just the Food blog Of course Kittee is the amazing person who wrote Papa Tofu and has the Cake Maker to the Stars blog. All of her recipes are simply amazing! This recipe is so simple to make...sugar, peanut butter, soy cream and vanilla. It takes under 15 minutes to make and I calculated costs under $5.00 for the entire batch. The result is a sickly-sweet peanut butter fudge which is perfect for sharing for during the holidays. Hopefully this batch makes it through to Christmas (yeah right!). Slowly but surely I will get my baking done...Nanaimo bars are next on the list.

Spaghetti and Salad

Shopper's Drugmart had whole wheat pasta on sale for 3 for $4.00 so I ended up stocking up on a bit of it since that is an amazing price. All of the meals this week will be simple since I predict not feeling well. Tonight we had whole wheat pasta with sauce and a simple salad with dressing.

Pizza

We had homemade pizza tonight made two ways. Hubby helped me make these beautiful babies and they turned out amazing. I used Frank's Red Hot sauce as a base for mine and he used tomato sauce. We garnished them with fresh asparagus, Tofurky sausages, pineapple, green and black olives and artichoke hearts. So much simpler than trying to find a vegan pizza and at a great cost as well.

Boca Chick'n patties, fries and asparagus

Cheated again tonight and had a quick dinner of Boca Chick'n patties (that we picked up on our last visit to Grand Forks), crinkly fries and baked asparagus. I did not have any buns so we had our patties on rye bread. Not the best meal but at least there was some green on the plate and our bellies are full :)

Curry chickpeas

The spices and sauce for this came from a box which I was pretty impressed with. #1 the entire meal which feeds 4 cost under $6.00 and the ingredients in this dish were all natural with no artificial, hard to pronounce ingredients. The problem...it was way too spicy! I tasted it half way through and added a can of coconut milk to it but it was a little too late. I cut up some potatoes which absorbed some of the spice. In the end the heat of it was okay for me but way too spicy for DH. I would buy it again for the convenience and price of it but would try adding just half of the spices next time. Live and learn..

Tacos

We have been eating a lot of leftovers this week but tonight I got lazy and this is what we had for supper. I heated up some Yves mexican style ground round and served it on soft and hard taco shells with baby arugula, salsa and cheeze. I really wanted to top these with fresh tomatoes but they were all crap in the market and came from Mexico which was too far away for produce for me. I have to admit for a quick meal these were good. DH preferred the soft tacos while I enjoyed the hard ones...we make a good combo :)