let the post holiday dieting begin....

After gorging ourselves on lots of tasty vegan holiday food, Mark and I are settling back into eating simple food. For example: a quaint dish of homemade Mexican rice and beans garnished with green onions, cilantro, black olives, and avocado. So delicious and filling.



We'll be eating raw, for one week, starting in January. It's part of our New Year's resolutions......

Success: vegan cinnamon rolls!

One day, while browsing various sites, I came across a recipe for vegan bread. Apparently, you could easily adapt it to a cinnamon roll recipe, as well.

On Christmas Eve, Mark thought it would be a good idea to try the cinnamon rolls as it has always been a Christmas tradition in his family. Unfortunately, the recipe was written confusingly so Mark tweaked it and the results are shown below. The unfrosted cinnamon roll was from his first batch. The one sprinkled with walnuts and pecans was from the second batch. Which, by the way, was much better than the first :)

The frosting was made of powdered sugar and Tofutti cream cheese.


sans nuts


with nuts

Christmas cupcakes

I've made these cupcakes before, using the cupcake recipe from Vegweb and the buttercream frosting from VCTOTW (Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World). However, I decked them out in festive Christmas nonpareils and candy canes. Yum :)

chocolate chip cookies and veggie burgers

Mark had been pestering me to find a vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe and I kept putting it off, thinking that any recipe I would find might taste heinous. Finally, I caved and was searching online late one night and stumbled upon this site

There was a video that accompanied the chocolate chip cookie recipe and it was very helpful. I especially love the fact that the recipe is simple and free of the artsy-esoteric ingredients that are usually found in vegan cooking. I used the suggested products, as well, such as Earth Balance margarine (which we always use) and Ghiradelli semi-sweet chocolate chips. I also used an equal combination of nuts: 1/2 cup of toasted pecans and 1/2 cup of walnuts. Since I used a 1/4 cup to form the cookies, they only made 24 cookies as opposed to the 40 the recipes says it should make. These cookies were definitely delicious. I'm always pleased whenever I find a tasty vegan alternative to the usual animal by-product laden original. A success! My compliments to the creator of this recipe. It's a keeper ;)

After eating salad for a couple of days, Mark and I felt like eating some veggie burgers. We prefer Amy's brand over any other as it has less sodium than the rest. Our particular favorite is the Texas flavor. Mark basted the patties in barbecue sauce and cooked them in the oven. He normally grills them, propane-style, but it's been too cold. Then he baked the fries in the oven and made a tangy dipping sauce of veganaise, dijon mustard, and agave nectar. The burger and fries were accompanied by veggie chile and our favorite condiments. It hit the spot but I think I'm ready for salads again, lol.

all ready for the oven (measured at 1/4 cup)