Foodie Friday: I'm still talking about Christmas

It's Foodie Friday! Foodie Friday is my weekly feature that gives you a window into my kitchen. I love to cook, I love to eat, I love to read cookbooks, and I love to inspire people to give vegan food a chance. Thus, Foodie Friday was whipped up and baked to perfection.

I realized the other day that I never mentioned what I had for Christmas dinner. Well, fear not, because I didn't let the occasion pass undocumented. Since I spent Christmas at my friend's house, I took a couple of omni-friendly dishes to share: artichoke puffs and winter squash risotto.


I also made some gingerbread cookies for us to decorate together. I used this recipe, which turned out delicious--I recommend rounding up a tad with the spices if you like your gingerpeople to slap your mouth around a little bit. Also, remind me never to use gel frosting ever again. It's disgusting and turns perfectly good cookies into gooey messes. Perhaps you can tell which masterpieces the three-year-old worked on. We ended up throwing the decorated cookies away because of the gel, but there were still plenty of pristine little gingerfriends left to go around.

Since Christmas, which frankly seems like forever ago, I've only made a few things worth mentioning. One is the fabulous roasted brussels sprouts from 1,000 Vegan Recipes. They're so simple, but completely delicious--something that every home cook should have in his or her repertoire. They're also really cute, because don't they look just like tiny cabbages? If I had a rabbit friend in my life these days, there would definitely be some shared nibbles.

Next up I decided to tackle that great vegan staple, hummus. I had never attempted hummus before because I never had a food processor. Now I do, and lo! Hummus was delivered unto us! Or, it was after it took me two days to figure out how to put the darn thing together.

I started out with the most basic of hummus recipes, the appropriately titled "back-to-basics" hummus using the traditional combination of chickpeas and tahini (from ye olde 1,000 Vegan Recipes, of course). It turned out thicker than the store-bought hummus I'm used to, but it was still everything that I had hoped for. I'll tinker with my next batch to address the consistency issues. No more grocery store hummus for this lady! I even baked my own tortilla chips to go with it, using the 1KVR recipe that is conveniently located on a nearby page.


I'm already scheming about what tasty tidbits I'll put in the next batch of hummus. THINK OF THE POSSIBILITIES! And yes, I really am that excited about hummus.