TaraTaryn and more!

When Tara and I get together good food is usually involved. We love having TaraTarynTamale nights. We usually make about 36 tamales, which is about half a bag of the masa we get. Our favorite tamales thus far include corn, black beans and green chiles. Delicious! Here's what some looked like right before we steamed them. Heads up, the steaming process takes about 2 hours, maybe more.

Last night was ladies board game night. We played some serious yahtzee and good conversations. The food involved included cookies, chips and the best salsa ever, and some tacos. Ana made the salsa, Tara did the cookies, Bri and I ate the cookie dough ;) For the tacos we used Fantastic World Foods brand taco mix. They make mix for tacos, tofu scrambler, hummus, sloppy joes...all kinds of goodness!

Tara has heart shaped measuring cups which helped make these creations:

The cookies were delicious! Tara likes using tofu instead of eggs. 3T of tofu for one egg. These were some fluffy chocolate chip cookies, and everyone loved them.

The salsa that Ana made was outstanding. Here's some of what she used: cilantro, jalapenos, avocados, tomato, red onion, lemon juice, corn and beans. There may be a couple things I missed. Everyone loved it! We all put it in our tacos and took some home too :)

Christmas Treats

So everyone knows that with the holidays come lots of treats. Growing up I had two favorites for Christmas, homemade decorated sugar cookies and Candy Cane pie from Village Inn. The Candy Cane pie is actually a richer version of the French Silk pie, which I also craved every year. I haven't had either pies in over 8 years or so, so this year I decided to change that. Vegan Candy Cane Pie!!!!

I actually found this pretty easy to make. I hadn't thought to buy the ingredients till the day before Christmas Eve though, and if you were out and about you would know that the grocery stores were packed!! So I didn't get one ingredient that I wanted but it actually turned out just how I wanted. My family loved it too, agreeing that it tasted like the beloved Village Inn pie. Beware, it's quite rich.

I also made the PB Chocolate pie. I made it for Thanksgiving, see Thanksgiving blog below, and my Grandpa has been looking forward to it ever since. So I gave him some extra to take home.

I used soyatoo! soy whip, which though expensive proves to be yummy.

On to the cookies! I'm down to keep my cookies looking the same every year. I have the same cookie cutters that we used when I was growing up, so I'm going to keep this tradition going. This year I had Eddy help me decorate them. I think we did a pretty good job :)