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.

Christmas with kittens

Means no tree. Well not our usual tree. Instead, I put this little tree on our dining room table with a tree skirt. This tree has a story that goes back to 2009. 

We'd flooded (for the first of three times) and were displaced, living in temporary housing while our place was made livable again. So we didn't have a Christmas tree, we barely had clothes to be honest because we lost a lot of stuff in that flood. And Kent had been notified he would be getting laid off and I hadn't been able to find work in Boston.

We were in Target to get construction paper to make a Christmas tree. I saw this tree and really wanted to get it only you know it was $20 and for where we were (no jobs, our apartment flooded and uninhabitable) that was money we didn't have. Kent insisted we get it so we could have a little Christmas decoration, and all of Target in the South End got to see me cry. 

Flash forward 11 years and the reason for no Christmas tree is positive this time. Our two little kittens would absolutely destroy any tree so I'm resigned to no tree until probably 2022. Not even kidding. That's ok, I would rather have the kittens anyway.

Here's our fireplace. My mother made that wall hanging decades ago and it's one of my favorite things she's made. Hanging that is part of our Christmas decorating ritual every year. We have five hooks for stockings, and until last year would hang all five: two for the humans and three for the cats. Then Chloe died and I was gone a lot last December and all of January. Now of course we have four cats but still only five hooks. So yes, the stockings are for the cats.