Holiday Foodz

I think I speak for both Kev and myself when I say: we love being vegan. Love it. We love it so much that we're willing to both (a) bring our own food to the myriad holiday family events, and (b), "inconvenience" our families into cooking vegan dishes for us. Our families have taken some time to catch on and learn some vegan cooking techniques, but now that years have passed and they realize this veganism thing isn't going away, they've been wonderfully accommodating. I'm grateful for their kindness and support of our choices. I'm also grateful for my mama, my fellow family vegan!

Holiday dining highlights include:

Pumpkin French Toast Casserole on Xmas morning, a hybrid of this recipe and the recipe from Vegan Brunch. Kevin recently replaced my broken breadmaker with a Goodwill score, so I made two homemade loaves of French bread, cubed it, and allowed it to go stale on the counter. It broke my heart to let all that wonderful, fresh, crusty bread go dry, but the results were worth it. Even the picky teenage boys liked it. I baked it with pecan pralines on top and served with maple syrup.

Christmas dinner was at Kev's aunt ML and uncle Jim's gorgeous waterfront home on the Eastern Shore. ML made all vegan sides: mashed sweet/russet potatoes, braised shredded brussel sprouts, and a huge salad. We wanted to bring an entrée to contribute, so we made the Cauliflower and Mushroom Pot Pie from V-con in pie shells instead of the black olive biscuit dough. Kev has also become quite the little seitan-maker, so he made and dry fried some to go in the pie too. Here's a photo before we topped it:

We brought coconut milk vanilla bean ice cream and made floats with a Belgium lambic as dessert for everyone. Idea stolen from the Kitchn

photo from the Kitchn.

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