Vegan Holiday Cookie Swap (yep; even MORE cookies)

This past weekend I attended a glorious event: a vegan, holiday cookie swap!  Generously hosted by the W family in their beautiful home, everyone brought a couple dozen of their own cookies to share, along with an empty container in which to accumulate what everyone else had created.  I made kitchen sink biscotti from VCIYCJ (p. 218) with chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, and macadamia nuts.

Of course I forgot to bring the ingredient list I'd carefully prepared the day before and had to just scrawl a new one on site.

It was the first time I'd ever made biscotti, and it didn't start out well: the plant suffered a cocoa powder mishap early on.

But then everything came together.

I doubled the recipe because that's what I do.

Cut and ready for the second baking.

Packed and ready to go:

Snazzified:

89 obliterating her Hanukkah toy of the day occupied while I baked and baked and baked.

(Her bed isn't normally in the kitchen; it was relocated for the evening.)

When I arrived at the swap, I'd come from a celebratory feast at Gobo (where the food was served and enjoyed in entirely too fast a manner for me to have even attempted documentation).  I was too full to partake in more than a couple of cookies at the scene so, as a result, I managed to return home with an impressive haul that I'm still making my way through.

Scene from a party dedicated almost entirely to cookies:


a blurry glimpse of the goodies

After a cookie-filled week, even I had to take a break.  This was my breakfast the following morning: broccoli sautéed with garlic and red pepper flakes in toasted sesame oil tossed with whole wheat pasta, raw carrots, sun-dried tomatoes, kalamata olives, black pepper and chipotle olive oil.

This holiday has been a treat marathon; got to remember to get the veggies in.

Vegan MoFo 2012, VM's Pasta Salad- Slightly Enhanced

VM makes this really delicious pasta salad with corn, onions, carrots, string beans, tomatoes, and pimentos in a vidalia onion dressing.  This time she used one of my favorite pastas, gemelli, but it was very heavy in the salad.
 

Even though it was already loaded with veggies, this is where my giant head of kale came in to save the day.  By mixing it in, I not only lightened (and stretched) the salad, but we were able to get our greens on!

89 is not this well behaved; she is only resisting because I am teaching her to ignore people with food and the torture training device (a coffee can filled with rocks*) is- where else, on the coffee table in front of me. 

* for sound, not to beat her with.