I hope your Christmas sparkles with happiness and joy! With the true meaning of Christmas be sure to fill your heart with generosity to others and appreciate your blessings. Here’s to a loving family, laughter, and sweet treats during this Christmas season! Merry Christmas! Here are my favorite Christmas songs and Winter Bucket List.

I just got back from a fun weekend adventure in San Francisco! I'm no stranger to the city though, this was my third trip there. The last time I went it was rainy and foggy so I couldn't see the Golden Gate Bridge. This time the sun was shining and skies blue! The weather was perfect during the day, but you need to wear layers because it gets chilly at night.

Goodreads was doing their annual Choice Awards for best books of 2015. In the final round of the category cookbooks the nominees included these 3 books which I'd never heard of so I checked them out of the library. All the books have a ton of color photographs which is really important to me. The first two books are vegan and while I'm not looking to become a vegan, I am always looking to reducing the amount of dairy in my meals as cheese in my weakness. I enjoyed these books because they offer clean, plant-based  recipes for preparing new exciting, flavorful meals.


Deliciously Ella : 100+ easy, healthy, and delicious plant-based, gluten-free recipes by Ella Woodward 

Ella is a food blogger who suffered from a rare disease that left her bed ridden and when medicine didn't help she changed her diet. She said, "I made a rule when I first started eating this way that I’d never serve a salad as my main dish to non-heathy eaters, as no matter how delicious and beautiful the salad is it's still salad so it may still play into their stereotype that veggie food is only about salads!" Her cookbook is filled with delicious recipes including a Coconut Thai Curry with Chickpeas, Black and Kidney Bean Chili, Lentil Bolognese, and smoothies.








But I Could Never Go Vegan!: 125 Recipes That Prove You Can Live Without Cheese, It's Not All Rabbit Food, and Your Friends Will Still Come Over for Dinner by Kristy Turner

Kristy, another food blogger, was a former "die-hard cheese nerd" turned vegan. I love how she says,"No one cares about your protein intake until you become vegan." Her book includes delicious recipes such as Lentil-Mushroom meatloaf, Tempeh bacon, Mediterranean tofu scramble, Samosa cakes, Corn fritters, Lentil Curry, Cauliflower bisque, dairy free gnocchi alla vodka, and Pea Guacamole.








The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook by America's Test Kitchen 

This book is full of rich dishes and is the bible of all cookbooks at 400+ pages. You'll understand why being a vegetarian does not automatically mean you will be skinny. The recipes are American classics and from all around the world. It shows pictures of how to cut different vegetables.There's tons of delicious soup recipes and 5 different chili recipes! It has 4 different veggie burger recipes. There's a chapter on tofu, which you won't see much of in the other chapters. There's another chapter on salads and one on just eggs. I think this book would really appeal to meat eaters wanting to add more meatless dishes to their menu.

I'm sure you've heard of Blue Apron, Hello Fresh and Plated, of which I've tried them all. But I always thought the vegetarian options were limited so I was thrilled to learn of some vegan meal delivery services! As someone who enjoys cooking gourmet meals from scratch already, I've found these services a bit pricey. But I think it's a great way to find new recipes to try or to order when you have company visiting so everything is all set and ready to go. Some of these are subscription based services where you sign up to be billed every week for delivery. I'd prefer to check the menu each week then decide if I want it or not. Here's my experience with each company.

Purple Carrot This was my favorite until they decided to go to the weekly delivery pricing system.
They deliver vegan, plant-based meals with no heavily processed ingredients. The recipes are submitted by author and chef Mark Bittman and reviewed by nutritionists. Meals change weekly, and each week there are four dinner options from which you pick and also get a dessert. You are sent via FedEx pre-measured food that you just chop and cook. I enjoyed the meals but found the desserts to be a bit weird and just missing the mark.The cost is $68 for 3 meals a week each serving 2 people.


Lighter
Lighter is a bit different in that they employ someone local to you to go to Whole Foods and bring you grocery bags full of the non-portioned ingredients. They ask you during the check out which staples you already have at home, and since I already have a full pantry I practically had almost every ingredient! I thought if I'm paying them for food, why un-check items to help them save money because they're not deducting it from my payment? So I ended up with a bottle of olive oil which all other meal delivery services I've used already assumed you have.  They ask your cooking skill, preferred cooking time, and if you have a blender. I picked advanced and 45 min cooking time, yet I thought the recipes were quite basic. You can also choose how many breakfasts, lunches or dinners you want to receive in your package, but don't get to pick your recipes. For snacks I got a large bag of popcorn and nuts, but I'd rather not get snacks. You sign up for an on-going weekly subscription program and the weekly cost is $65.

Vegan Cuts
Is a monthly subscription to a vegan snack box for $20. You can read my review here. I loved discovering new products that I had just never noticed at Whole Foods before. The problem was I usually ate the whole box the day it arrived! lol

ScratchDC
While not a vegan service, it is a DC based daily meal delivery service. So unlike the others where you are picking your meals 2 weeks in advance, here you pick the day of if you want their meal of the day which sometimes are vegetarian or have a vegetarian option. Cost is $31.50 plus tax and makes 3 servings.

Sakara
I personally haven't tried this because of the price point but I'm dying to do so. For $99 per day you get 3 vegan and or raw meals. For $125 it will also include their special waters. I don't know but I think $30+ seems pretty pricey for a salad.