As a practicing vegan/vegetarian for the the past 11 years, I forget sometimes that not everyone eats the way I do!

However, at Christmas time, I often get asked the question – so what do you eat on Christmas day? And the answer is, plenty – like everyone, I enjoy connecting with my family, having a laugh, a lovely glass of champagne and beautiful food, so I have been asked to give you a taste of what will be on the menu at my house.

As you can see, the menu is quick and easy, as I want to enjoy the day and a lot of things can be prepared the day before with a little planning – the day will sail through.

Once the morning arrives, I love to celebrate the whole day, so music is put on and the kitchen opens, for all the fun to begin.

Breakfast, which normally is my berry and banana smoothie that I have shared, or we can pull together homemade baked beans, mushrooms, hash browns, spinach and roasted tomato, always lovely with toasted sourdough bread.

Once breakfast is finished, presents are unwrapped and we all have our morning showers, its time to get ready for our guests or to pack up the car to be with my parents. To kick off the festivities:

Nibbles, start with a beautiful home made hummus (although you can get some great ones in delis or places like Thomas Dux, I treat myself to something a little special on Christmas), this with fresh pita bread, nuts, olives, fresh celery/carrots/cucumber sticks, and marinated mushrooms – is a great platter to share on the table.

I also am known for my Bruschetta. The key is great ingredients, so a beautiful olive oil, fresh vine-ripen tomatoes, chopped with spanish onions and a lovely sourdough bread. Fresh basil and a hint of garlic, and drizzle them once assembled with a balsamic glaze.

Then, for Lunch we have our version of a baked dinner (yes, I am traditional even in my times living in the outback we had a traditional Christmas lunch):

Baked Vegetables of roast potatoes with rosemary, sweet potato sprinkled with cinnamon, fresh beans with garlic oil, roasted shallot onions and wonderful home-made gravy.

With our Stuffed Mushroom, recipe below:

• Pick some good sized Portbello or flat mushrooms, normally it is one mushroom per person
• Take out the stalk, and chop up with some onion, herbs, garlic , breadcrumbs and a Yummi’s Eggplant Dip. Put into fridge if you are not using straight away, on the tray you will be baking them on.
• Once you are ready, place into oven at 180 degrees (Celsius) for approximately 20 minutes. Ready to serve.

If you wanted a Salad, and we have several from roasted vegetables/cous cous, greek salad, coleslaw, potato salad, here is a special one

Sweet Potato with Rocket Salad.

• Peel and cut up the Sweet Potato into sizeable chunks, and bake in the oven 180 degree (Celcius) until roasted, approximately 1/2 hour.
• Once cooked, put in a dish with fresh rocket, pine nuts, shallots and balsamic glaze. For the non-Vegans, you can may want to add some feta cheese.

Once you are ready for a Dessert , grab a pot of So Good Vanilla Ice-cream from the freezer which is perfect with an apple pie or if you are non-vegan, you may have your own ice-cream.

And if you want to do something special, here is a mixture which is great to layer with the ice-cream, i.e. a spoonful of the mixture and a spoon of ice-cream, and then repeat until your glass is full.

Strawberry and Cointreau mixture

(Hint: Best to create the night before, so the sugar has time to do its magic)

Chop up the strawberries into halves or thirds, depending on size. Soak with a good dose of Cointreau and sugar (enough to coat the strawberries).

If left to marinate, what happens is you get a wonderful liquid forming, that you can use the strawberries and liquid as a mixture as above, and create a decadent sundae.

So there it is, a Merry Vegan Christmas!