Julie can't eat cheese

I am at a weird point in recovery, where I am too tired to do much but I am also tired of laying around. I haven’t gotten any pathology reports or calls yet, so I expect I’ll get updates on 12/27 at my post op appt. I still have my drain in and could probably call to get it removed, but will wait until my appt. I am scared of getting lymphedema, so as much as I hate the drain, I am not in a rush to get it out.

When I am tired, I usually crave sugar. So there has been a lot of baking this week! We have already been using different egg and butter alternatives. Egg alternatives for baking: we’ve used apple sauce and flax eggs so far and both seem to work well. We bought Just Eggs, but haven’t tried it yet for baking.

We have also tried a few vegan butters. We like the Trader Joe’s vegan butter the best so far. They were out the last time Dan went, so we’ve been baking with Earth Balance sticks.

For my book club cookie exchange earlier this month, P picked out lemon cookies from Nora Cooks, a webpage with lots of vegan recipes I found on Pinterest. I wasn’t sure about lemon cookies, but she really wanted to make these. They were actually really good, a nice contrast to chocolate/sugary sweet cookies, and stayed soft! So sharing in case there are any lemon dessert lovers.

Russian Tea Cookies are my absolute favorite holiday cookie and really the only cookie I care about making in December. They are often my breakfast in the days leading up to Christmas. My mom and P made them this week, the vegan butter being the only replacement needed in the recipe. They typically are ball shaped, but they melted while baking and ended up flat. They still tasted the same, although were much more crumbly than normal (with dairy butter).

I wanted to try these 7 layer bars, also from Nora Cooks. My first real job was at Bruegger’s Bagels when I was in high school and they had dessert bars like these that were really good. These also turned out really good! One of the layers is marshmallows – we happened to have vegan marshmallows and put some on a quarter of the bars (for P), the rest of us had 6 layer bars, not wanting the marshmallows. We also used walnuts instead of pecans.

I found a vegan recipe for a poppyseed roll, a family tradition (called makowiec in Polish) to have at the holidays, although we have never made it – it’s always been bought/shipped from somewhere. My mom and I made the dough yesterday and waited for it to rise… and waited… and waited… and waited… and it didn’t rise. We think the instant yeast lost it’s punch (early pandemic purchase). We’ll get more and will try again! Instead, I looked up muffin recipes for zucchini – we somehow have a ton in the fridge and while we could make something healthy with them, why bother?! We are baking this week! Plus we have a bunch, we can make something healthy tomorrow. I found 2 recipes that sounded good: banana zucchini muffins or chocolate zucchini muffins. We went with chocolate. Also from Nora Cooks and also delicious! We can’t tell P they have zucchini though because anything with zucchini she says tastes weird. She hasn’t noticed so far…

Last up this week will be chocolate chip cookies, because the Santa we saw told P they are his favorite. The Trader Joe’s recipe is my favorite – they stay soft (I am a soft cookie fan!). So we’ll see how they turn out with an egg and butter substitute. Recipe below – TJ’s no longer prints the recipe on their chocolate chips, but they are vegan!

Trader Joe’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 2 1/4 c all purpose flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 c brown sugar, firmly packed
• 1/2 c granulated sugar
• 1 c softened butter or margarine
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 1 package semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 c chopped nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees fahrenheit. Combine flour, salt, and baking soda in bowl and set aside. Combine brown sugar, granulated sugar, and butter (or margarine), and vanilla and beat until creamy. Add eggs and beat. Add dry ingredients and mix well. Stir in chips and nuts. Drop mixture by rounded teaspoonfuls onto non greased cookie sheets. Bake 8-10 minutes. Recipe yields approx 2 dozen cookies.

Hope everyone is having a safe and healthy holiday! I have not been taking as many pain pills, but I did wash my hair (alone!) today, so now I need a nap! Or maybe a cookie.