An update and a vegan Christmas

First things first.

I realized that waiting wasn't going to make that three minute plank feel any easier plus tonight Kent and I are attending a virtual wine tasting. I'm positive that planks are easier when I haven't had alcohol the night before, so I just went ahead and did the three minute plank this morning. My form wasn't the best there at the end but I stayed off my knees and finished.

Now to our vegan holiday meals. 

For our Christmas Eve meal, I made Kung Pao Brussels Sprouts with rice noodles. These were GREAT and definitely something I'll make again. In fact, they are so good I made them again last night.

We finally got around to making vegan eggnog, which my son calls a nut smoothie (he's not wrong). I'm not a fan of real eggnog, even before changing to veganism, but this was really good. 

I made pumpkin scones, which were billed as a dupe for Starbucks pumpkin scones. These were quite good, although next time I’ll boost the spices even more. 

I also made apple strudel waffles for Christmas breakfast. This was super simple—it’s puff pastry with thinly sliced apples in the middle, along with cinnamon and sugar. You basically make a grown-up pop tart and cook it in the waffle iron. I topped them with coconut whipped cream, and they were pretty good. I would make them again for Kent, but I personally prefer the pumpkin scones. They were also very filling so we didn’t even worry about our big meal until later in the day.

I'd promised Kent I would make him a mocha latte, so here's the mocha sauce in progress:

And a beauty shot of my mocha latte from this weekend:

We’d found this recipe for lasagna and wanted to see if it lived up to the reviews. In a word, YES. This was amazing, and we are still enjoying it. As written, she says you get eight large servings and she isn't kidding. We went with 12 and didn't feel deprived at all. 

I also made half a recipe of this festive kale salad and wow it’s so good. I’m now experimenting with the nutritional yeast without all the nuts as the nuts make for a much higher calorie count. But the taste was very similar to Parmesan and we both loved the salad.

I made the same dessert for Christmas as I’d made for Thanksgiving, the veganized NYT Pumpkin Sticky Toffee pudding and wow, yes, that one is a keeper.