My Plant-Centered Christmas Menu
The holiday season is here!
When it comes to food-centric holidays... well, now that I really think about it every single holiday is actually food-centric in my world from Easter to Labor Day, Fourth of July, Passover, etc.Christmas and Channukah are my very favorite part of my very least favorite season.
Christmas, Christmas Eve and Channukah rank pretty high for me when it comes to the menu, so it’s no surprise I want to share some of the plant-centered recipes from the blog that would be perfect for your holiday gatherings, especially if you are looking to add more universally loved plant-y dishes to your table.
So here is some inspiration!
Leave comments below and let me know what you think:For starters, we ALWAYS have out a cheese board with homemade roasted red peppers, crackers, bean dips, garlic bread, and vegan stuffed mushrooms. Making the roasted red peppers from scratch is so worth the minimal effort. They taste incredible. We have now been adding some of our favorite vegan nut cheeses to the board and they are a hit! Here is a link to a nut chive cheese and a vegan cheese wheel that we love.
If you want more inspiration for starters, here is a link to my 4 Perfect Christmas Hors D'Oeuvres. Then we serve the Shaved Brussels Sprout Salad for some tasty greens! This can be made days in advance, which is rare for a salad, but great if you have a lot going on and just want to whip this out of the fridge and toss it in a beautiful bowl. Sometimes, we have soup too and that could be either the Kohlrabi Red Lentil or the Pasta e Lenticchie if I am not serving pasta as part of the main course.If we are serving pasta, it is usually a fresh pasta in vodka sauce or a slow-cooked tomato sauce.
Then the main course is eggplant parmesan. My friend Karen has Celiac and she is coming for Christmas Eve, it will be a GF version and I am telling you- no one will know the difference. Accommodating food allergies and auto-immune diseases are so much easier than it was 11 years ago when I was fresh out of culinary school.Karen serves the greatest gluten-rich Christmas cookies and I make this Apple Crumble gluten-free with different kinds of ice cream.
The menu for Channukah is often similar if we are hosting it instead of the Christmas holidays, which happens often. We celebrate both. I plan on making these Pizza Latkes by Molly Yeh as they look tasty and incorporate my Jewish and Italian backgrounds!
Breakfast Christmas morning is always a special treat and has been a tradition at my house for years that started when I was living in Manhattan. My parents and my brother sleepover Christmas Eve, we exercise, we FEAST and then we open presents. Uova al Piatto (Baked Eggs in a Tomato Sauce), roasted broccoli, cheeses, Greek yogurt with fruit, fresh bread, homemade eggnog, and chocolate croissants for breakfast!We all exercise first thing and it feels so good so we can eat all day long without feeling sick afterward!