Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you're all having a restful day.

It's fairly quiet here in whoville. The cats have finally settled down (I think).

It's clear and cool here. We didn't get any snow for Christmas (I was hoping, but no luck), but it made for an easy run this morning. I couldn't think of a better way to start such a beautiful sunny day than go for a run. The other runners I saw out there wished me a Merry Christmas as they passed. It was nice.

For db and I (and most of us) it's all about the food. So without further delay here's the food.

The Christmas Eve menu started with Hot and Sour Soup, and it lived up to its name. db did a beautiful job on the soup. The wine was a Gewurztraminer by Cono Sur winery, which I couldn't really taste by the time I finished my soup because the spiciness was so strong. So I waited until my mouth cooled down to finish my wine.

Our main dish was a recipe from The Artful Vegan, our favorite special occasion vegan cookbook. We made the Cajun-Crusted Tempeh with Lemon-Caper Dill Cream and Braised Collard Greens served with Pecan Dirty Rice.

The lemon-caper dill cream was a cashew based cream, and I think I could almost eat this daily it was so good!

The Cajun-crusted tempeh was dipped in a vegan aioli sauce that db had made earlier in the day, and then dredged through the cajun spice mix I put together.

The Pecan dirty rice was actually "almond" dirty rice because I realized at the last minute that I didn't have any pecans. Fortunately, almonds subbed quite nicely.

The wine we paired with this dish was Smoking Loon Viognier from California. It was a very nice wine with the spiciness of the cajun tempeh.

At midnight we wished each other a Merry Christmas, kissed the cats (even though Gigi doesn't always appreciate kisses), and exchanged our gifts. It was a wonderful and delicious Christmas Eve.

It looks like Christmas Day's menu will be another feast. I'll post more on that later.

Merry Christmas everyone!