all I want for christmas is a kick ass cookbook. and perhaps some cannoli.

I may have mentioned a time or two how I don't exactly draw a paycheck for my job. We basically run our vegan business as a labor of love that happens to just barely pay the bills. So I like to say that I get paid completely in cookbooks. Though cookbooks and candy bars is probably more accurate. Good thing I absolutely love cookbooks and candy bars! My christmas present to myself this year was the latest title from the dynamic vegan duo Celine Steen and Joni Marie Newman called The Complete Guide to Vegan Food Substitutions. Boy howdy, do I love this little book. It's chock full of handy information and tips for veganizing just about any food you could imagine. Celine's lovely food photography fills the pages too, which makes me want to make everything I see.

I've had a chance to make a few things so far, with Baked Macadamia Nut Brie being the first. Such a rich, luscious (and easy) cheese to make! we tried it first with berry preserves, then later had it stuffed into crescent rolls. I've never had animal-derived brie before, so this was exciting for me.



The next recipe we tried was the Spicy Red Buffalo Macaroni Salad, which was super mega awesome x 3000. We first ate this salad hot, but found we liked it even better the next few days cold from the fridge. This is a deli-type of macaroni salad with spinach, onion, roasted red peppers, and a creamy, spicy buffalo sauce. So good! We will repeat this again and again.



For christmas eve, we made the Linguine with Green Beans & Spinach Walnut Pesto. This was very tasty, and filled my "I need to eat more walnuts" quota I've been trying to meet. Ken loves this pasta more than he loves me, I think.



We stuffed ourselves on christmas day with lots of good food that Ken's mom made, including Tofurky, Celebration Roast, kale, and more. We brought a few things to share, including a batch of Scalloped Potatoes from the cookbook Go Dairy Free. While not a completely vegan cookbook, it still has many really great vegan recipes, and others that are easily made vegan. I really love these potatoes, and was really bummed that we accidentally left our leftovers at Ken's parent's house.



For dessert, we brought a trifle made out of a delicious marble bundt cake I baked and couldn't get out of the damn pan without crumbling. So it's a layer of marble bundt chunks, a layer of berry compote, a layer of vegan whipped cream, then repeat. We also left this at the in-laws by mistake. Sad face.



Our friends Laura and Kevin surprised us with a gift of vegan cannoli from a new place in Atlanta that isn't vegan, but happens to make vegan cannoli and a few other vegan things. Go figure! Such a sweet gesture, as Ken really misses cannoli from his childhood.



I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday! Happy New Year, and all of that.

oh, oven woes.

As of now, our oven is working just fine. But the night before Thanksgiving, the bastard decided to ruin two layers of cake, two dozen cookies, then shoot fire at me before dying. I was knee deep in Thanksgiving baking! So much wasted flour! It turns out the heating element in the oven had cracked, which caused it to arc (hence the shooting of fire). We put in an online order for a new heating element, but Thanksgiving consisted of me taking my acorn squash & kale pot pie fixin's to Ken's parent's house and assembling and baking it there. At least that part worked out, even though dessert was ruined.

This was filled with a savory squash puree, kale, onions, green beans, and yum. The pie crust made it even better!



We managed to get the heating element fixed within a week, so we didn't have to go too long without. A few days after we replaced that part, we had the bright idea to change out the burned out light bulb in the oven. It's just a light bulb, so no big deal, right? Well! Ken unscrews the old light bulb, and we hear a *pop* noise. The entire range shorts out! No power at all. Ken heads down to the basement, assuming the circuit breaker had tripped. But instead of it just tripping, the circuit breaker had blown out completely. Luckily, after a $20 trip to Home Depot, we had a new breaker that Ken successfully installed. And it worked! The range was back to normal, and with a new bulb. We were so worried that we were going to have to shell out for a new range. Not the right time for that at all. Everything's been great with the oven since then... but now somehow we have two more blown circuit breakers that need replacing, one for each bathroom. Ah, one thing at a time.

Once the oven was back up to speed, it was time to bake for a holiday cookie swap! After much debate, I finally decided on what kind of cookies to bring.

The always perfect Chewy Chocolate Raspberry Cookies from Veganomicon:



Lemon Cornmeal Cookies from The Vegan Cookie Connoisseur:



Shortbread (both naked and chocolate drizzled) from 100 Best Vegan Baking Recipes:



And some weird looking oatmeal, walnut chocolate chip cookies that I just threw together. They look like I did, for sure.



Hooray for finally getting some holiday baking done! I have some brand new cookbooks in my possession, so I anticipate more cooking and baking coming up this week.