In case you didn’t know – Veganuary is just around the corner! We’re all vegan already but it’s always a good time of year for vegans and veggies as there are lots of great recipes and special offers to be found, as well as some great advice for people just starting their vegan journey. This year, I’m planning on making more food from scratch (I say that every year but as I’m “kept woman” nowadays, I have no excuse this year!) but that’s not always possible so I’m going to share our Xmas menu and hopefully show that you can be vegan AND lazy!
First thing to think about ( for me, anyway) is nibbles! There are some ready made mince pies available but as I had my little one at home because of the school holidays we decided to make our own – the easy way – using ready rolled pastry (I actually didn’t even know that was a thing!) and a jar of ready made mincemeat. MiniMe loved it as she got to play with the pastry cutters and icing sugar and I got to control the amount of mincemeat (not a huge fan) so it was a win-win!
Next up were the gingerbread men. Now, we did make them from scratch but the recipe is very easy (and can be found in this book). We did cheat a little with the icing as we bought a tube, but I have no idea how to make vegan icing that’s suitable for decorating gingerbread men, so any tips would be most welcome!
Christmas isn’t complete without a bit of chocolate and what better form than a yule log? I wasn’t sure that my usual vegan sponge recipe would be flexible enough to make into a swiss roll so we haven’t had one since MiniMe’s allergies were diagnosed. Luckily I stumbled upon (i.e, stole!) a genius idea and manged to cobble this together.
It’s made by sticking eight chocolate cupcakes together with chocolate frosting (with a ninth stuck onto the side) then covering the whole thing with what’s left of the frosting. A sprinkle of icing sugar (I actually used this) and a plastic robin and you’re done!
For our Christmas dinner, I handed the kitchen over to my husband, and he did a fabulous job! We started with some cheezly and cranberry bites, then we had a Vbites Celebration Roast with lots of veggies (including scrummy roast parsnips) and roast potatoes.
We were all a bit full by this point but after a little break we managed a bit of vegan trifle for pudding (recipe can be found on a previous post).
We could barely eating another thing after that so we had slice of yule log for afternoon tea and then gave our tummies a rest! Only until Boxing Day, obviously, when we had more delicious food, but I’ll save that for my next post! For now, I’ll just wish you a Happy and Healthy 2018 and hope that you give Veganuary a try – you won’t regret it!
Live Well with Lisa Proctor 