It’s so great when everyone eats the same way. I still have to deal with meat eaters. They’re very considerate, but I’d cook more of my veggie-centric meals if everyone would eat the same way. Looks like you had a wonderful time…Merry Christmas!! I like celebrating Christmas Eve Eve. What culture does that come from??

What amazing vegan holidays! Can your family adopt me!?

I love all of this. So much love and food!

Please do post the cashew cheese recipe (in time for NY’s eve, or am I being pushy:))! Also, just curious–do you actually travel with your juicer?

Awesome post! The food looks fabulous. I’m especially drooling over the chai cheesecake. Is the recipe in Natalia’s book Pure Pleasures?

It looks like you guys had a great time! I love the Waits pictures.

Aw, sounds like a wonderful (and delicious!) Christmas!

Brussels are delish! They taste like mini cabbages, but a bit sweeter. They are Damian’s favorite veggie! I think most people make the mistake of boiling them though, which is blah. Roasting them is super easy and soooo good – just toss with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and roast at 400º until slightly singed, haha.

I’ll work on getting that recipe up since it’s D’s favorite!

Ha! I do wish everyone could have an awesome vegan holiday though. =)

Ooh thanks, I’m so paranoid about taking proper care of it. It’s my kitchen baby!

Thanks!

Aw, thanks Laura! Welcome. =)

:) This was my first round of holidays as a vegan. My family is really sweet but it was tough. Lessons learned for next year!

I love the little devils! you have to try them… and about the stigma… its just bad cooking. I refer to one of my heroes for words of wisdom:

“…when purchasing, look for firm, compact heads with bright dark green leaves, as you would with any cabbage. Avoid soft or pudgy sprouts or anything with yellow leaves. Yellow is a sure sign of age, because it means that the more time-sensitive green chlorophyll has given up the ghost, leaving the long-lasting yellow behind. It’s like a marker for old sprouts. That’s bad.
Now if and when you find good-looking sprouts still on the stalk, you definitely want to buy them. Not only are the stalks, well, really cool-looking, they are what they seem – life-support units. That’s good.

Cooking Brussels sprouts, like cooking any cabbage, is a balancing act. You’re hoping to maximize three primary characteristics all at the same time: flavor, texture and aroma. Okay, now texture is, of course, a matter of doneness, and doneness is all about breaking down cell walls. Now when you get it just right, they’re not hard, they’re not mushy, they’re just slightly chewy. The problem is that the breaking down of the cell walls releases some, well, unfriendly chemical compounds. You see, sprouts contain sinigrin, which is a type of glucose cyanate [sic, glucosinolate]. Now glucose cyanates are a class of organic compounds, which also contain sulfur and nitrogen. Now as the sprouts cook, the sinigrin begins to degrade into allyl-isothiocyanate, or mustard oil, which explains the nasty-tasting compounds and the less than appealing aroma. Somewhere between rotten eggs and, well, sweaty Army socks, I would say.
Now we could dilute these by cooking the sprouts in a large amount of water. But here’s the thing: a lot of the nasty-tasting compounds are powerful nutrients. Cancer-fighters, in fact. And they’re mostly water-soluble. So the more water you use, the more you wash away. So reaching optimum conditions on all of these fronts at one time is pretty much impossible. Sorry. But your best bet is to cook sprouts as quickly as possible in as little water as possible.

Begin with one pound of rinsed sprouts. If you notice that any of the outer leaves are beginning to wilt or yellow, go ahead and remove those before proceeding. Now you may have seen some recipes that call for cutting an “x” into the bottom of the stem, as if that’s going to speed up the cooking. I certainly don’t believe it. We do want to speed cooking. So do this: just trim off the bottom of the stem and then split in half, longitudinally. This will also keep them from rolling off the plate when they’re done. A lot easier to eat that way.
Now into a three to four quart saucier, add a mere half cup of water, and a quarter teaspoon of kosher salt. Cover, crank the heat to high, and cook for exactly five minutes. About halfway through, give them a little bit of a shake just to move that water around. There.”

Extra points for anyone who knew who I was talking about.

Anyways, go watch episode 12 of season 12 of good eats for more ways of consuming this delicacy. Even if you were vegan, I bet you can learn a lot from this show.

happy eating.

WOW! your holiday sounds fantastic! Green smoothies started off my christmas holiday off right, too. Your salad looks super fresh and yummy. Do you have a recipe for the nooch dressing you used?

Well, my favorite one was my great-grandmother’s, so I’m just as paranoid and researched for weeks before I even cooked with it, and I take care of it as in my blog post and have no problems! ^.^

Everything looks tasty, especially the homemade bread!

Looks like an awesome Christmas! :) Love the Christmas tree!

No problem, I look forward to trying it whenever you get around to it!

I loooooove roasted Brussels sprouts! (and roasted broccoli, kale, collards, cauliflower… anything in that family!) My husband likes them raw (???) but I could eat roasted brussels sprouts every day!

I love Waits’ moose PJs! epic post indeed! So awesome your family is so vegan friendly. Would love all the recipes in due time of course if you so choose to share.

Merry Christmas and Solstice and Happy New Year as well!

That apple pie looks sooooo good. What a wonderful holiday post!

Brussels sprouts for life! Happy holidays (all of them!!)