Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

I can't tell you how much I love Michael Pollan's books. Last night, after my midnight meeting which ended around 1:00am, I got ready for bed and read a bit of Wicked. After I put that down though, I still wasn't tired. So I decided to start reading Michael Pollan's Food Rules. Well, I ended up reading the whole thing and getting to sleep around 3:30am. I just couldn't put it down. I love the way this author talks about food and the western diet and how WRONG it all is! Don't eat things that make health claims. Anything that's good for us already doesn't have to make those claims, like fruit and veggies. You don't see "fat free!" and "no high-fructose corn syrup!" written all over them. Eat food. Real food. Don't eat things that are trying to be something their not, aka margarine. But this could also go for stuff like "chicken nuggets" and "low-fat cheese." The list of great, common sense rules goes on and on. He's got 67 total. And they are all great! He's just a journalist, but he's done the research, and what he's found is backed up by plenty of scientific studies from all over the world, not just this country that's been obsessed with taking food apart to figure out what about it makes us fat and skinny. It's not about individual nutrients in each food. We don't eat blueberries because they have antioxidants. There's so much more to it! Supplements have never been proven to be effective except in some elderly and others with serious deficiencies or food-absorption problems. Man, I could go on and on...but I'll stop and just HIGHLY recommend you check out his books. I've read In Defense of Food and Food Rules now. I own The Omnivore's Dilemma, but haven't read it yet. It's up next!

Here's a brownie recipe I made up the other day. I set out to make chocolate covered pretzels, but I cooked the chocolate for too long in the microwave and it started cooking. It looked like brownie batter, so I decided to just make up a brownie recipe using it. I still didn't have any eggs, so I decided to use ground flaxseeds as my substitute since I've heard that that's possible. It turned out great! 1 tablespoon ground flaxseed per egg in the recipe. I also used coconut oil instead of butter and coconut milk (not the canned kind, the drinkable, carton kind by So Delicious, and not the unsweetened...just the original) to replace the oil and the moisture lost from the missing eggs. I could have made the recipe completely vegan, but I had started with some Nestle's semi-sweet chocolate chips. I used up the bag and then added vegan semi-sweet chocolate chips for chunks of chocolate! SO GOOD! You'd be surprised at how good the vegan chocolate chips are! They actually have cocoa in them, so it's just like chocolate, just mine the milk fat. Yay! Below is the recipe!



Nearly Vegan Double Chocolate Brownies

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted
1/2 cup coconut oil (unrefined gives it a great coconut taste!)
2 cups white whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
4 T Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa
2 T ground flaxseeds
2 cups So Delicious Coconut Milk
1 cup vegan semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9x9 square metal or glass baking dish with non-stick spray and set aside.

Melt non-vegan semi-sweet chocolate chips in the microwave until just melted. Be sure not to burn or over cook the chocolate. A double boiler may be a better option for some. Add in coconut oil and allow it to melt and blend in with the chocolate. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, cocoa, and ground flaxseeds. Add chocolate/coconut oil mixture. Add coconut milk one cup at a time and mix well. Add more coconut milk if needed. The batter should be just a bit thicker than pancake batter but thinner than muffin batter. Once coconut milk is mixed well, fold in vegan semi-sweet chocolate chips and remaining regular chips.

Pour into greased baking dish and even out batter. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when stuck in the middle of the brownies. Let cool at least 15 minutes before cutting and serving.

Makes about 25 brownies, but they're pretty rich, so half of a 1.5"x1.5" brownie could calm that chocolate craving just fine!

Enjoy!!

Click here for nutrition facts!