pile it on

Lots of merry making has been going on around here, holiday postcards are whizzing their way across the globe, gifts are getting wrapped, lists are being checked, the house atmosphere is set. The Vince Guaraldi Trio plays in the background & most importantly scrumptious sweets were made, eaten & shared.

When it comes to decorating, well, we just pile it on.

Christmas Tree complete with holiday hamburger, Kermit & somewhere in there is the Christmas Pickle.

I love to decorate the piano top. None of us can play, wait, we CAN play, but Jason (my husband) is the only one who has ever actually taken formal lessons & that was when he was a little guy, so we all TRY to play! Notice Evel Knievel peering out from behind all the Christmas business.

When it comes to food, again, we just pile it on.

I really wanted to only make sweets & treats that we could all enjoy, so that meant converting all of my classic cookies & candies to vegan versions. Here are some of the treats we made.

Homemade butterfingers, wow these were a pain in the butt, but tasted amazing. My “dipping” chocolate was not cooperating, it was a tad on the fudgy side so I decided to dip the bottoms, let it set, then dip the tops, notice the candy bar swirl!

Chocolate pecan rum balls, made with myers dark rum, so spicy, warms you right up. These are Jason’s favorite, I can maybe eat half of one before I want to barf.

I am a macaroon connoisseur, not so much on the egg white kind, but the sweet milk kind .mmm.

 My requirements for a top shelf macaroon/bon bon:
1: The middles needs to be pink.
2: Almond flavored.
3: They need to be super moist.
4: Dipped in chocolate (white or dark doesn’t matter).
5: If I am craving almond joys, I’ll stab an almond in the top.

For these yummies I ended up having to make a homemade sweetened condensed milk so it could be soy based. Best of all, they tasted just like always.

Ginger molasses cookies, so soft & chewy. We knew these would be somewhat flat with no eggs added, but they are really flat! So for a interesting top texture we took our “not getting much use these days” meat tenderizing mallet and poked the tops, cute right!?!

(I think I might stack 4 on top of each other and eat it as one thick cookie, my family thinks I am joking. )

Shortbread cookies are one of my all time favorites, they don’t contain eggs, yippy! But they do contain a whole load of butter & a real butter free house means no classic shortbread, so we went with a shortbread like thumbprint cookie made with vegan buttery sticks and filled the dimples with our homemade blueberry rhubarb jam. While not anything like my beloved shortbread, these were still very tasty. We scribbled icing over the tops & lovingly called them poptart cookies, because that’s what they tasted like!