I’m finally getting around to posting about all the wonderful food we had at Christmas. Let’s start with dessert, my favorite part of any meal!

I’m really into baking at the moment and for Christmas, I made chocolate cupcakes topped with snowmen and some Lemon Bars.  I used the Lemon Bar and Chocolate Cake recipes The Joy of Vegan Baking. The Lemon Bar recipe was surprising because it calls for silken tofu. I was a little nervous about how it would turn out, but since I know that silken tofu is perfect in my Pumpkin French Toast, I thought I’d give it a try.  They turned out delicious, except I think I’ll add more lemon next time than the recipe calls for, as I thought they could be a litlte more lemony.  Other than that, perfection!  I don’t think people would have been able to tell the difference between this vegan version and any non-vegan ones.

Which brings me to an interesting point– why do people freak out over the word “vegan”?  You tell someone that something is vegan and they automatically think it’s weird or tastes bad.  I’ll admit that I’ve probably had the same reaction to vegan cuisine at some point in my life, but where does it come from?  Why is vegan food somehow scarier than non-vegan food?

Anyway, back to dessert.  The Chocolate Cake recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking is the easiest cake recipe on the planet.  With recipes as easy as this one, I can’t imagine why people would resort to a boxed cake mix.  It’s foolproof.  I won’t use any other chocolate cake recipe.  I iced mine with some vanilla buttercream (I wanted it to look like a mound of snow) and put my snowmen up on top.  Yes, these guys were a bit labor intensive, but I really had a fun time making them.  I used white fondant for the bodies and colored fondant for the details.  Although technically edible, I wouldn’t suggest chowing down on them.  Fondant looks cute, but I don’t think it’s the most appetizing thing in the world.

For our main course, I made the Spinach, White Bean and Walnut Filo rolls from ED&BV. This is also an extremely easy thing to make, but is yummy and makes a nice presentation.  The best part about this recipe is that the filling can be made way in advance and refrigerated for a couple of days or frozen for a couple of months.  You don’t need to worry about the spinach turning brown.  To top our rolls, I made a cranberry sauce (recipe also from ED&BV).  Delicious!

And, finally, to go with our meal, I made the Veggie Guy’s Spinach Pomegrante Salad.  It was SOOOOOOOOOOOO good.  So good.  Yum!!  And the red and green is just so festive.  You have to try this salad.  I’ve made it a few times since because I’m now addicted to pomegranates. The one thing I changed is that I used spicy candied pecans in place of the walnuts. Walnuts are not one of my favorite nuts to eat plain and I thought the sweet and spicy would be tasty in the salad. One thing I changed in that recipe is that I used brown rice syrup in place of corn syrup. They are super addictive– even Emma loved them!

What did you enjoy for your Christmas feast?