Hello friends!  Let me wish you an early Happy New Year, because when the ball drops, I will be full of wine, bread, vegetarian lasagna, and cheesecake made by my best friend and I hopefully won’t be anywhere near a computer. Go visit my best friend’s blog, The Tasty Nest and see what she is up to. She is an excellent artist, a wonderful cook, and the best friend a girl could have.

I might not have posted as much as I wanted to but let’s do a review of what I did get up to in 2011:

I was able to give some shout outs to some local businesses that I love:
Just Call Me Cupcake
Fashion Exchange
Liquids and Solids at the Handlebar

I mastered a few dishes that I wanted to master:
Spinach Artichoke Dip
Curried coconut tofu
Vegan cream of mushroom soup

This year also saw us growing our first garden, which included the harvesting of the garlic scapes.

2011 wasn’t my favorite year in my almost 35 years on this planet. I wish I would have blogged more, but sometimes having fun and living life gets in the way of blogging. Also, sometimes depression and lack of inspiration gets in the way of blogging, too. Remember though, even if I am not blogging frequently, I try to update the Pugnacious Vegetarian Facebook page and I encourage you to like my page if you are on Facebook. I love the instant interaction the Facebook page produces.

Now here’s where you come in, dear readers. I know this is a vegetarian cooking blog, but I want to include other things such as my thrift shop finds, craft projects, party planning, decorating ideas, outfit posts, and various other bits and bobs which make me a Pugnacious Vegetarian. I know I have brought this idea up before, but I would really like to at least post once a week in 2012 and I think if I expand my topics, I will be able to try to live up to that goal.

Anyway, you feedback as well as topic suggestions are welcome.

Have a happy New Year, friends and as always, keep cooking. See you in 2012!

Merry Christmas, my friends! I am late, but really, what did you expect?

When I was a kid, my family would always have snacks and open gifts on Christmas Eve. Some of my favorite childhood memories originate in these Christmas Eve celebrations. Because Christmas Eve fell on a Saturday this year, I decided to have a little get together of my own.

I was so excited to plan the menu and everyone liked all of the food too. Here’s what was served

-Squash and roasted parsnip soup with crusty bread

-Two savory pies, tomato and onion and leek and mushroom, both using my mom’s pie crust recipe

-Homemade baked mac and cheese

-Kale salad with walnuts, cranberries, and Gorgonzola

-Cranberry, orange, and walnut relish

-Local goat cheese rolled in chopped cranberries and pecans and served with crackers and figs

-Two homemade pizzas

-Wassail with brandy

-Eggnog with brandy

-Apple Cider

-Buche De Noel

Here a photo of the Buche De Noel, made by a local baker, The Skinny Baker at TnT Bakeshop:

I also bought the fixings for hot cocoa to be served with or without Frangelico, but no one wanted any, so I didn’t make it.  My friends Kari and Aubrey brought some homemade goodies over as well.

Here’s what it all looked like on the table, minus the wasail and the soup which were in crock pots in the kitchen and the pizzas, which were in the oven at the time this photo was taken.

Another angle:

Here’s some gratuitous decoration photos:

Pretty psychedelic Christmas tree, no?  You can also see my newest decoration purchase, glittery icicles.  Those will stay up all winter long, along with the white lights and glittery stars.  I mean heck, winter lasts a long time in upstate New York!  Might as well be glittery all winter.

My tiny Christmas tree and a big bowl of fruit.  Oranges and nuts (in a bowl left of this photo) always remind me of Christmases as a kid.  This little tree was my only tree for a long time until my mom gave us the white tree.

My sister bought me these battery powered star lights.  I need to get more rechargeable batteries so I can use these more often, as I plan to keep these up all winter as well.

Here’s our stairway, complete with white fairy lights, glittery silver stars, and a stocking for everyone in the house, including the seven cats:

Now, here’s one of my favorite decorations:

Although it’s kind of hard to see from this photo, this is my bathroom.  I first decorated our bathroom like this for the Christmas in July party we had over the summer.  See, my bathroom are painted a very, very shocking blue.  When you add a string of blue lights and some homemade paper snowflakes strung on fishing line, you get the illusion of snow falling.  Trust me, it’s a lot cooler in person. I plan on keeping this up all winter.  We had someone walk into our house ones and say our house reminded them of an ice castle and I was so struck by that comparison.  I love it!  It’s  true, considering the blue, blue bathroom, the icy blue walls of the living room, and the icy blue furniture.  The perpetually lit white fairy lights and now the addit9on of the new glittery icicles, really add to the ice castle illusion.

Call me crazy, but I love to decorate the bathroom.  The decorating turns out pretty cool for Halloween too.

There you have it, Christmas at our house.  I hope you enjoyed the tour.  Have a safe and happy holiday season, dear readers.  I will be back tomorrow with a 2011 round up and a question about the blog’s direction for 2012.

Have a great day friends and keep cooking!