Goin' Vegan(ish)...

Confession: I have high cholesterol.

Yes, yes, it's true. I eat healthy, run 30-40 miles a week, am 24 years old, and yet I have the cholesterol of an overweight 50 year old man (he probably dresses bad too, like a black socks and sandals kind-of-guy). I'm not revealing my number because it's embarrassing (everyone has their thing, ya know?). So, when this nice lady at church who works at Whole Foods told me about this book, I figured I could give it a whirl. I can do anything for 28 days, right? Right.
So, I'm about 1 week in. The first week (if you don't do it whole hog from the start) is giving up ALL dairy and processed/refined foods. This means NO: milk, cheese, eggs, butter, ice cream, sour cream, yogurt, white rice/flour/pasta/bread, cakes, cookies, unhealthy chips, sodas, etc etc.

The first couple of days were a struggle, but I actually am enjoying not eating dairy! And I never realized how much of it I was eating before. I switched to soy milk a couple of months ago and thought I was "off dairy"... Oh, no no. It is EVERYWHERE! I had a lady lunch date with lovely Ali at bb's on Friday and had to ask them to (gasp!) take the brie out of the wrap!! Let's take a moment of silence for that delicious, melty, creamy brie...... Le sigh.....

So, for Mother's Day I decided to make a dessert the whole family could enjoy (or just me... whatever). It's called Blueberry Dumpcake and is SO easy.

2/3 c whole wheat pastry flour

1 ½ tsp baking powder

1 tbsp vanilla extract

2/3 c milk substitute

3 tbsp agave nectar

2 c blueberries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine the flour and baking powder in a small bowl. Combine vanilla, milk substitute, and nectar in a separate bowl. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until smooth. The batter will be runny. Pour the batter into a nonstick 8” square pan. Sprinkle blueberries over the batter. Bake for 45 minutes or until golden brown. Serve with lemon sorbet.

I used a frozen, organic, berry mix with raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries. Yum!
This is the before baking shot. Ain't she purty?
And after... It smelled so good!
And with the lemon sorbet, which was a little overpowering, a little too zesty. Next time I'd want vanilla soy ice cream. But then I'd eat the whole container. Ice cream... it's like my kryptonite.

Overall? It was okay. I'd rather have it all regular normal style with lots of fat and dairy, but for the time being it was a good substitute. Sorry mom for making you eat this on YOUR day.