Holiday Vacation 2011 Recap-Part One-Christmas and Christmas-ish activities

Wow, so I think this is the longest blog vacation I've ever taken.  It just sort of happened.  Around mid December I was struck with an intense cold that lasted until past Christmas.  Then I was off work for a week and a half so I just decided to let the blog rest for awhile.  But I'm back.  My vacation was officially over at 6AM today when I woke up for work.  But my vacation was awesome so I'd like to hand out some awards to my friends and family for making it so good.

Today we will discuss Fristmas, Christmas and the 1st Annual (yeah I'm going there-it should definitely be yearly) Post-Christmas Extravaganza....

Later I will recap New Years and my husband's birthday.

Best Baking-I'm going to go ahead and call this a tie between B and I.  I was too ill to prepare the Gingerbread dough the night before we made the cookies so B followed my recipe and I coached him through it.  There was a slight mix up between baking soda and baking powder but we worked through it.  Then I used my new cake ball maker to whip up these brownie peppermint cake balls.  They might have been slightly hard but look how cute they are.

Best Holiday Decor in my House-Another tie between B and I.  B for single-handedly bringing in the tree by himself and setting it up on the tree stand.  Me, for acquiring Christmas decor over the years and sitting it around the house.

Best attempt to open/eat his own Christmas presents-Hobie!  Christmas is really about the kids, right.  Hobie really enjoyed opening his presents on Fristmas*.  He wasn't bad at gift giving either.  He managed to get B and I some much needed new salt and pepper shakers.

Most Photogenic-My brother and sister.  My brother gets it for actually agreeing to be in a photo and look at the camera and L-Fab is always great in photos!

 Best Couple-Obviously B and sleeping Hobie win best couple.  Always.

Best Inter-family Mingling-This goes to B's family below and my family (in the next pic).  It was the first time we had members of both our families hang out together on Christmas.  Plus B's family forced me to watch A Christmas Story which is good since I've never actually seen that movie all the way through (Crazy, I know).

Best Feast-My mom wins the Best Feast award for preparing billions of dishes for Christmas eve dinner as well as multiple meats.  She even made a few vegan dishes for my mother-in-law.  My Aunt gets runner up for the December 23rd holiday meal she made us.  Delightful.

Best Post Christmas Gathering goes to me and all my homies who met up on December 27th for some good times.  Special Shout out to the Young's for their guest appearance all the way from Vegas.

I was so excited to fit everyone in our freshly
painted basement!

Special shoutout to me for deciding not to cook a bunch of food and instead just get 3 Stouffers Lasagnas and some wine and beer.

Special shoutout award to Curly J aka the Brayer for suggesting we play Dirty Santa (aka White Elephant) and for bringing this awesome Sweet Talking Ken Doll as one of the prizes.  It was hysterical and fun playing with my closest friends.  (Curly T, you better be able to describe the whole second season of Parks and Rec to me next time I see you).

No special shoutout to Shanzles for bringing this wreath made of plastic bags (although it did come with a Starbucks gift card so not the worst gift ever.)

Best Holiday Craft-Shanzles.  Shannon previously failed at beach craft hour but came back strong with these cute book themed Christmas ornament.  You are officially redeemed!

Overall, it was an amazing break but I'm so happy to be back at work today.  FALSE.  I am not happy to be back at work today (but I am grateful that my University totally shuts down between Christmas and New Year's so I don't have to work).

I will return later this week with part deux of my holiday recap.  You can't wait!

*Fristmas is the made up holiday B and I share where we open up our Christmas presents to each other a few days before real Christmas and then eat some sort of delightful breakfast or dinner together.

Making Stuff is Hard-Vegan Cupcakes

And for another installment of how baking is hard.....

This weekend my mother-in-law and sister in-law were in town and staying with us.  Well my MIL is a vegan and her birthday was a couple weeks ago so I decided to make her some vegan cupcakes.  My mom recently bought me the Southern Living Big Book of Cupcakes and there was a vegan recipe in there so I decided to give it a try.
The cupcake part turned out well, actually much better than I expected.
Then we got to the icing.  That is when the above mishap occurred.  This icing involved something called vegan shortening.  Vegan shortening looks kind of gross and does not blend at all.  I paused the mixer for a few minutes and left the bowl on the counter and as you can see, it fell on the floor and on me.  Good times.

So then I pulled out the big guns for my second attempt..........
Mr. Green Kitchenaid Mixer.

I was finally able to get something that resembled icing.

I think my finished product ended up looking pretty good.  I added some blackberries.

They tasted decent.  I could tell the difference from normal cupcakes but B's mom seemed to really enjoy them.  And they are all gone now so I think that's a good sign.

Here is the recipe if you are interested....

1 tbsp cider vinegar

1 1/2 cups vanilla soymilk
2 cups all purpose soft wheat flour
1 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup canola oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
paper baking cups
vegetable cooking spray

Vegan frosting
8 tbsp vegan butter or shortening
1 tsp salt
1/3 cup vanilla soymilk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 16oz package powdered sugar

For the cakes....mix the vinegar and soymilk together and let it sit for five minutes.  Then mix the flour and next four (all the dry) ingredients in a separate bowl.  Add the oil and extracts to the soymilk mixture and then mix that into the flour mixture.  Bake in a mini cupcake pan at 350 for about 12 minutes.

For the icing....mix the first four ingredients until combined (the hardest part) and then add in the sugar until you get icing. 

Best daughter-in-law ever?

Have you ever done any vegan baking?

Or attempted to make your mother-in-law like you by making her cupcakes?

Gwyneth Teaches me to Make Salsa and Other Beach Things....

It's been 90 degrees all week and I feel as though it's officially summer so let's talk about my last beach trip.

Last weekend I went to the beach with my parents and I coerced my mom into attempting a recipe from Bon Appetit.   I bought a year long subscription to Bon Appetit for $4 a few months ago that I learned about from Hip2Save, a cool couponing/saving website.  My first issue arrived last week and it had Gwyneth Paltrow on the cover.  Apparently she has written a new cookbook.  She is taking multi-tasking to a new level. 

We decided to make Grilled Halibut with Mango Avocado Salsa.  We pretty much dropped the ball on the fish as we decided to bake it instead of grill it and also to get some cod instead of all halibut.  So the fish was not my fave.  But the salsa was awesome.  I loved it.  I was a little worried about the mango but apparently we ended up getting one that was perfectly ripe and sweet.  The sweetness of the mango was good mixed with the other veggies and such.  Seriously, it was good.  I ate a bunch of the leftover salsa the next day on some chips.  I think the fish would have been much better if we grilled it.  I also added a few onions to the salsa the next day when I used it on chips.  It was delightful and a great summer dish.

So in conclusion, I trust Gwyneth with my food needs. 

Now here are some pictures.....

Hobie, I'm sorry for showing you in all your glory.

Good Salsa!

Hobie's favorite beach activity=staring out the window
in the car.