Christmas Eve, 2009

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone! We had a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner yesterday, and plenty of leftovers for today! Yum!! We went off the Eat For Health book and cooked a few recipes from the Dr. Fuhrman website (www.drfuhrman.com). I am sooooooooo proud of myself, and so proud of Haze for sticking with this. My Mom and Dad finally watched the movie Julie and Julia yesterday (they loved it) and then they called me to find out what I was cooking! My Mom laughed as she heard my tiny little electric chopper spiinning away in the background while we were talking. I was in the middle of chopping some mushrooms! Anyway, it was great fun cooking yesterday and here is what we had:

Three Greens Salad with Fruit and Nuts with Creamy Pumpkin Salad Dressing

Stuffing Stuffed Pumpkins (I used Acorn Squash)

Thanksgiving Non-Meat Loaf, with Vegan Version Gravy

Mashed Red Potatoes with Wilted Spinach

Delicious Guilt-Free Pumpkin Pie w/Oat & Almond Crust and Cashew Whipped Cream

Wow--what a spread! The salad was spectacular--it had some raisins and pear added. The Pumpkin Salad Dressing was not as weird as it sounds (or as it looks). It has almond butter, soy milk and dates along with the pumpkin (and a few other items), and so it was not as pumpkiny as you would think.

The Stuffing Stuffed Acorn Squash was soooo yummy. It has whole grain bread, cranberries, mushrooms--lots of other tasty ingredients too. I added Poultry Seasoning as the main spice (because that is how Dad makes stuffing). Next year I will add some type of cornbread--I think that would be better--again cause that is how Dad does it!

The Thanksgiving Non-Meatloaf was spec-friggin-tacular!! OMG was it good. It was made with brown rice, tons of mushrooms, walnuts, celery, onions and lots of other things. And the Vegan Version Gravy was perfect on top!! YUM!! We added tons of shitake mushrooms to the gravy and then pureed the whole thing at the end. The Mashed Red Potatoes were wonderful as well--totally guilt-free. They were made creamy and delicious using only soy-milk! Really yummy!

For the grand finale we had Guilt-Free Pumpkin Pie with Cashew Whipped Cream. Sooooo good! I added a whole banana instead of half of the tofu to make it a little sweeter, and it came out just beautiful. I covered the whole thing with foil while I baked--it was really pretty!! It was made with pumpkin, lots of dates, raisins and spices all pureed and poured into a crust made from oats and ground almonds, with tiny amounts of oil, water, and whole wheat flour. What a treat!

We were completely stuffed and totally felt Christmassy and full!! IT CAN BE DONE!! Happy holidays to everyone!!