Christmas Day!

The Navy made my brother Pat work on Christmas this year, so instead of traditional Christmas dinner food, we had chili, cornbread, and margaritas! We'll be having the traditional food tomorrow night, when he comes home.

As usual, my family was very cool and let me veganize everything! So the chili recipe was from a little book Farm Sanctuary sent me, the cornbread was from a box (not Jiffy, they have lard in their mix!) but I made it with Ener-G Egg Replacer and soy milk. I can't remember the brand of the cornbread mix, but it was whole grain and organic. My brother Mike and I made salsa from a recipe my family has used for many years, and we had Full Circle organic chips. For dessert my mom and I made a really simple apple tart.

For breakfast I made my parents tofu scramble and they loved it! I knew my mom would, she's trying to go vegan, but I was happy my dad liked it so much. The recipe is from "Vegan with a Vengeance." Tofu scramble makes me sad that I ate scrambled eggs for so many years when I could have been eating this! It's so much more flavorful and healthy!

Here's the salsa me and Mike made. It's tomato, onion, cilantro, chile pepper, lime juce, sea salt, and a little bit of avocado. We chopped all the vegetables with this awesome "Vidalia Chop Wizard" my dad got me for christmas. I love it, you can chop and onion in less than a minute!

Next is the cornbread and chilli. I actually don't really like chili but it was very good. It's just basic chili but it has brown sugar, bulgar wheat, and cinnamon in it. The cornbread was amazing. It's a little different than normal cornbread because it's whole grain corn meal and it has whole wheat flour in it. It was the only vegan mix I could find at the grocery store!

The apple tart is a recipe my high school french teacher gave me years ago. I don't have the recipe anymore but it's really easy to remember. Store bought pie crust (make sure there's no lard! yuck!) with sliced granny smith apples and sugar. It takes about 4 apples, and for each layer of apple, put a layer of sugar on top, about 1/3 cup sugar for the whole tart. Bake at 425 for about 40 minutes. On top is peach preserves melted in a saucepan over medium heat.

Tomorrow we will be having our traditional Christmas dinner, veganized! Green bean casserole, stuffing, mashed potatos, cranberries, and succotash, and another tart for dessert because I made 2. The only non-vegan thing will be a small peice of turkey that my dad bought for himself and my brothers. Me and mom don't get a tofurkey because it's so expensive and the side dishes are so filling anyway.