Christmas Treats

I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas! I know I did. As I mentioned a couple weeks earlier, I have been very busy with lots of Christmas treat making. This year I decided to do homemade gifts for my extended family. After many hours in the kitchen, I put together some tasty gift bags with a mix of goodies, and I even had enough extras to bring to Christmas festivities for sharing.
I started out with a delicious sugar cookie recipe from You Won't Believe It's Vegan. These were simple to make, and tasted surprisingly similar to a classic sugar cookie. I rolled them out, used some festive cookie cutters, and decorated them with assorted colored sugars.I also made 3 big batches of my granola. I used raisins and dried cranberries for a Christmas-y touch, and I packaged it up in mason jars for gifting.Finally, I made hand-dipped chocolate pretzels. For some reason, there is just no better combination that salty pretzels and sweet chocolate. I melted a bag of vegan chocolate chips using a double boiler, dipped the pretzels, and then topped them with sprinkles and peppermint pieces. I put a handful of pretzels in little bags and included them in the gift bag with tins of my sugar cookies and the jars of granola.Much to my very happy surprise, I got a wonderful chocolate treat in my Christmas stocking from my husband. He got me three Sweetriot treats. They are cacao nibs dipped in three different kinds of dark chocolate. I broke into these today, and they are HEAVENLY. I'm kind of concerned they might become an obsession.A sweet and delicious Christmas indeed! I hope you all had a wonderful day, and have a happy and healthy new year. I'm off to Vermont on new year's eve, but hopefully I'll be back here before then. If not, get ready for some reviews and pictures of my favorite places to eat in Vermont!

Hearty Soup and a Christmas Cookie Preview

I know what you're thinking - another soup? Does she eat anything else? Well yes, of course I do, but in the wintertime by favorite dinner food is a big bowl of hot soup. Luckily for me, the options for tasty soup recipes are pretty much endless. Tonight I made a recipe out of The Candle Cafe Cookbook, Wild Rice and Mushroom Soup.
I had half a package of wild rice leftover from Thanksgiving that I'd been meaning to use, and the rest of the ingredients are pretty standard items on my grocery list. And who doesn't love a dish where mushroom and thyme are the main flavor profile? A match made in heaven, in my opinion. This soup was just what I wanted this evening, and it was complemented by some toasted bread and a salad of romaine, arugula, carrot, and green apple with some basil vinaigrette.

Another wonderful thing about this season is the prospect of delicious holiday treats. I will preface this with the fact that I am a far more confident cook than I am baker. That said, I don't shy away from baking, and I really want to get better at it. Tonight I tried out a cookie recipe to see if it was up to snuff for holiday sharing. Sure enough, these cookies turned out to be just divine. I'll save the recipe and pictures for closer to when I make a bigger batch for gifting and sharing, but I'll leave you with the main flavors: banana, oat, nut, chocolate. All in one place!