the last (vegan) hurrah.

As promised I tried my hand at a vegan dessert. I've seen recipes all over for black bean brownies and decided that these sounded the most interesting. I got this particular recipe from No Meat Athlete.

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 1/4 cups sugar
• 1 1/4 cup cocoa
• 4 tsp instant coffee powder (I used regular coffee - grounded down into a powder)
• 1 15 oz can black beans, rinsed and filled with new water
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup of water (eyeball it by filling up half the empty can)

Mix all the dry ingredients together:

Rinse black beans and put them back in the can and fill it up with water. Either puree beans and water in a food processor or mash them with a fork. Since I don't have a food processor (*hint*christmas*hint*), I used the fork method:

Add the remaining ingredients, mix:

Pour into a greased 9 x 13 pan:

Bake at 350 for 25 - 30 minutes:

I really wish I could say they were good and prove most of you wrong, but they were just too rich for me. After one bite, I was done with chocolate for the rest of my life. I had 3 (male) testers who all really liked them. As you can see from the above photograph, they are extremely dense and fudgey. All comments went as followed:

"They could really use an egg."
"I want milk."
"These would be sooo good with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream."

All of which are the exact opposite of why the brownies exist. Go fig.


in other news...

I've successfully completed my vegan challenge! Three weeks without meat, eggs, milk, cheese or honey. It really wasn't difficult. My outlook on food has completely changed. My mind and stomach are now programed into a vegan/vegetarian lifestyle. With lunch approaching quickly, I am terrified. I have no idea what to eat. I can now eat anything I wish, but I don't want to. I'm scared of falling back into the routine of being selfish and eating whatever, not caring about my body or the animals or the earth.

I guess the biggest thing I've learned through all of this is being conscious about what goes in my body. We put the correct oil and gasoline into our cars, why don't we treat our bodies with the same care? Just something to think about.

Hope everyone has a good week!