Happy Holidays, dear friends!

Whether or not you celebrated Christmas last week, I hope you allowed yourself some precious time of rest and did something that brought you joy.

While we don’t celebrate in the traditional way, I’ve made it a point to do something special on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day for years now, just because I love the tradition of it.

This year, Christmas Eve involved watching Elf and making mulled wine, and Christmas Day involved the best ever cinnamon rolls (more on both below!)

Being Russian, we do our gift exchange on New Year’s Eve in my family, but I have already exchanged gifts with a few friends and my boyfriend, which has been lovely and has definitely contributed to my holiday spirit. That plus Christmas music on repeat and some holiday foods have really helped add some normalcy to a holiday season that’s been anything but. It’s weird not to have seen the city all decked out in lights or walked through the holiday window displays on 5th avenue, but in a way, this cozy low-key holiday season feels just right for this intense year.

On to the joyful eats!

 

Eats

Cinnamon Rolls

Starting with the star of the show of course. This is my second year baking these around this time of year, and I love this decadent Christmas Day tradition. These guys are significantly easier to make than might seem; they just require a bit of time and patience. I really love doing them the overnight way, where I roll the dough and have it ready to go the night before, then refrigerate overnight, and in the morning keep it at room temperature for about an hour before baking for 20 minutes. So all I have to do in the morning is just whip up the easy frosting (and resist the urge to eat it all before I can spread it on the cinnamon rolls), make some French Press coffee (a MUST with fresh baked goods) and enjoy the most joyfully delicious holiday brunch.

The Best Crispy Roasted Potatoes + Duck Confit + Easy Delicious Salad

Such an easy delicious meal that felt restaurant quality honestly. My mom was in charge of the duck confit, which we have made before, but this time she kept it in the oven a little longer than was necessary. To both of our surprise, this created a kind of crust on the duck that looked and tasted exactly like that of fried chicken (without any frying at all!). It was delicious. That potato recipe is absolutely my go-to for the crispiest potato side dish that goes as wonderfully with eggs as it does with any meat dish. The salad I made was just a head of lettuce, sliced red onion, chopped tomatoes, and chopped apples. For the dressing, I used this best ever balsamic vinaigrette recipe and played around a bit with proportions because I like it a little more mustardy.

Sweet Potato Chickpea Coconut Curry

We happily enjoyed this for three whole days over a bed of cilantro cauliflower rice. All I did was grab my frozen riced cauliflower, sauté it on the pan for about 10 minutes with some spices and seasonings, and then add some chopped fresh cilantro at the end. The most warming cozy meal!

Roasted Tomato and Garlic Shrimp Spaghetti

I loosely relied on this recipe, but went rogue and roasted my tomatoes first (I nixed the sun-dried). The shrimp was already pre-cooked so after I sautéed some onion and garlic in some avocado oil, I added the boiled spaghetti and a generous amount of veggie broth. Let that simmer for about 5 minutes, then add in the cooked shrimp, roasted tomatoes with all their juices, and spinach. I topped it off with a generous grating of TJ’s Unexpected Cheddar Cheese (my new fave!) and some spices (just S&P, garlic powder, basil, and oregano). SO GOOD, and so quick to prep!

Chocolate Chip Pancakes w/ Caramelized Bananas

I really love this recipe and for some reason have made it a tradition of making it on Christmas Eve morning for the past few years. I mean, Christmas Day has the cinnamon rolls, but Christmas Eve has to have a special breakfast too, right? For the caramelized bananas, I chop a banana into thick rounds, then cook them low and slow with some coconut oil, and then I add a dash of vanilla, maple syrup, and lots of cinnamon. Should get all gooey and start smelling like pure heaven, and that’s when it’s ready. It makes for the best pancake topper, along with almond butter and some extra maple syrup. 🙂

Healthy Monster Cookies

We both adored these cookies. I actually overbooked them a bit, so they were crispier than I prefer, but I didn’t even mind because the flavor was so spot-on. For recipes requiring M&M candies, I normally use either TJ’s M&M dupes or the Unreal brand. If you love chocolate chip cookies and peanut butter cookies, you’ll love this perfect marriage. 🙂

Taco Night

I’ve been wanting to make tacos FOREVER, partially because I never have before and partially because I impulse-purchased gluten free taco shells months ago from Thrive Market and really needed to clear some pantry space (heh oops). It turned out to be such a delicious meal, and my mom and I both loved the build-your-own aspect of the dinner!

I used this recipe for the meat filling, my go-to guacamole, some quick homemade pico de gallo, and chopped lettuce. Plus some Fage sour cream that really took it over the top. Yum! And yes, that’s some red wine you see there; perfect pairing. 😉

 

Movement

My favorite 49-minute kickboxing & upper body workout

Respect and Replenish Yoga + Head and Heart Reset Yoga (I really needed some gentle replenishing yoga on this day)

This 5 minute warm up + quick 17 minute hiit workout + this 12 minute booty workout (nice and quick; super sweaty)

This 45-minute total body yoga deep stretch (SO YUMMY for the muscles) + this 25-minute Stretch yoga (yep, my muscles really needed a good stretch)

30 min-ish dance party + this 25 minute core-centered yoga + this quick ab song challenge to finish

 

Currently Loving

Playing Guitar – I am currently learning Champagne Problems, which is the song I have decided to tackle first from Taylor’s genius evermore album. But I’ve been loving playing around with whatever songs come to me in the moment. It’s the best feeling when I get all the chords and strums just right, and the song starts to come together, and then something just starts to flow. I’m totally out of my head, just flowing with the music, and having an absolute blast. Love it.

Reading – On the Road. I have decided to tackle Jack Kerouac’s Great American Novel after years of having it on my shelf. It’s quite fun to read now, considering I haven’t traveled for a while and don’t have any plans to in the very near future. So I just live vicariously through this very interesting story that is definitely not my usual cup of tea (the narrator is not someone I can relate with much at all), but is even more fun to read for that! I’m about halfway through, and I’d highly recommend if you love stories of adventure and “finding yourself”… or if you’re a Catcher in the Rye fan haha because it reminds me of it too.

Watching – Elf. Best Christmas movie ever. I had to watch it on Christmas with my mom, and as always, it gave me all the warm fuzzy feelings. There’s just no way not to feel warm inside when watching Elf. My other Christmas faves are Polar Express and Love Actually, but we weren’t feeling those as much this year.

 

And that’s a wrap on this Christmas post! I’ll see you real soon for an end-of-2020 post, but until then, please enjoy something delicious and do something for no other reason than it makes you happy. 🙂

Lots of love. xx