WIAW 44 & 45 Holiday Edition

 

Hi everyone! I apologize, with our bakery orders so busy on Christmas Eve plus entertaining on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, I did not get my WIAW #44 Christmas post done.  This post is going to be a summary of Last week and this week.

Christmas was fantastic.  Christmas Eve I spent most of the day in the kitchen making Stromboli and pies. I made spinach and mushroom, vegan ham, pepperoni and cheese, and cheese steak varieties.  {click here for recipe link}

I made the pies for Christmas Day, tofu Coconut Cream Pie and Vegan Nut based Cheesecake, I used the extra bits of filling to make mini versions for Christmas Eve,.  The cheesecake was my favorite, it was mostly made from soaked cashews and macadamia nuts. Classically flavored with lemon zest and topped with cherries, everyone loved it and had no idea it was not dairy!

Me and Mya also tried to make almond meal thumb print cookies.  They looked really nice and tasted awful!  Epic failure!  It was a recipe from Vegan Family Meals, awful.  I gave them to the birds.

Although we had fun making them! And, made quite a mess.

Mya’s creativity was a good distraction while waiting for guests, , she spent all day Christmas Eve making accessories for her Monster High Dolls. She allowed a Disney Prince to stand in for Claude Wolf in case she did not get any boys from Santa. She is becoming quite the photographer!

We spent Christmas Eve with my dad, my brother, and Andy’s parents. We feasted and opened some presents.

I tried an iPhone self portrait…how do people do this?

I served (all vegan) Stromboli, onion rings, mini hoagies and cheesesteaks, waffle fries and some mini desserts that were a preview of our Christmas Pies.

 

After eating all that good food, and a few glasses of wine, we were exhausted. Mya was thrilled her mom-mom Iva gave her the Monster High School Christmas Eve.

We watched the Polar Express, all squished together, like we do every Christmas Eve and then went to bed by ten.

 

It was the best Christmas ever.  Mya was beyond thrilled, it was a Monster High Christmas.  She got all the dolls she asked Santa for and a few extra Monster surprises.  I could not stop smiling all day.

Mya played all day with her new monsters.  She loved the boys so much, she did not put them down.  She had a late afternoon nap with Prince, and the boys!

Christmas day was spent feasting again, this time with mom!

We had my famous loaded lasagna stuffed full of veggies, Field Roast Italian sausage, and my tofu cashew ricotta.  No one could believe it was vegan.  I will admit, it was probably one of my best ever.  I made some snacks, including my left over Stromboli, and a huge Italian salad to go along.  I was so happy to have lasagna as a meal for the next two days.  So sad when it was all gone. {click here for lasagna recipe}

 

During the week, Mya played with her monsters non stop.  And then we were lucky enough to enjoy a few inches of beautiful snowfall. 

It was Prince’s first snow. He loved it.

We went sledding that afternoon. I love going down on the tube.  It was a perfect hill for me. Not too much to walk back up!

 

We had a lot of tofu Florentine breakfasts this week.  Shitake mushrooms and onions sautéed in Braggs with kale and spinach atop my tofu eggs and spice Daiya cheese. I ate this at least 4x this week. So good! {click here tofu Florentine recipe}

Salads and leftovers were consumed a lot this week. Even a pot of chicken-less pastina soup after Christmas, we all had the sniffles.

All in all, I could not have had a happier 10 days!  I will be super sad when Mya goes back to school today.  She is really excited for after school, her snow boarding after school program stats today, I will post the pics.!

There was lots of coffee drank, and snacks eaten through the week.

We ordered Chinese for New Years Eve.  It was delicious.  I have not had Chinese take out in about 5 years.  I just usually cook everything myself.  But the kitchen was clean and I was tired, braving the grocery store for something special on New Year’s Eve was just not going to happen.  A treat was in order.  It was really good, but I don’t think I will be having any again anytime soon.  Kung Pao tofu is my favorite.

We hung at home, ate our dinner and curled up to take in the Avengers.  We saw it at the movies, but we were looking forward to watching again at home to catch all the little things you miss the first time.  I just adore super hero movies, especially Marvel!

I took a short nap between the Avengers and midnight, got up just in time to watch the ball drop with Andy and Mya.  It could not have been better! 

I hope you all had a great holiday week as well.  I promise next week will be filled with healthy meals and recipes.  The photos of meals kind of got away from me this week, the dark coming so early doesn’t help either.

Have a great Wednesday.