earth day & blondies.

Happy Earth Week!

I definitely try my hardest to be more conscious in my day to day routine than I was before becoming a vegan. This evolved as I read more books about the benefits of the vegetarian diet, as well as the detrimental affects of the livestock industry. The books that have meant the most to me so far are The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone and Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. Both of these have included a great amount of research that make me feel confident in my choice to reduce my impact on this earth by eating a plant based diet. Here are two prime reasons I choose not to eat meat:

“According to a report published by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalent—18 percent—than transport. It is also a major source of land and water degradation.”

“According to a new report from World Watch, animal byproducts are responsible for 32.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, or 51 percent of annual worldwide human caused greenhouse gas.”

–planetgreen.discovery.com

Another environmental event I am very excited about is the recent Meat-Free Monday Movement in San Francisco that promotes a plant based diet, encouraged by restaurants, grocery stores, and schools throughout the city. The other city that has put this notion into action is Baltimore, and I hope that this can also be enforced in other cities such as my birthplace, New York City.

Cooking wise, I decided to try a recipe that has been bookmarked for far too long. The famous VeggieGirl blondies were more delicious than I could have imagined. She has baked many different interpretations on her blog I felt that I should stick with the classic chocolate chip blondie (found on the Kitchen of a Runner blog) for my first attempt. I will not even try to describe to you how tasty these were, my family and I were in heaven eating these for dessert with coconut milk ice cream.

My adaption of  Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Blondies

Ingredients

• 6 oz (1 single-serving sized container) plain or vanilla vegan “yogurt”
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons molasses
• 1.25 cups flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup almond butter
• Nondairy milk of choice, added to the batter as needed
• 1.5 cups of organic chocolate chips

some of my favorite ingredients that I used in the recipe:

So Delicious Coconut Milk Yogurt

Navitas Naturals Palm Sugar

Nutiva Coconut Oil

Hodgson Mill Organic Whole Wheat Pastry Flour

Trader Joe’s Raw Creamy Almond Butter

Pacific Unsweetned Almond Milk

Whole Foods Vegan Chocolate Chips

Spectrum Organics Coconut Spray Oil

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Lightly coat an 8″x8″ baking pan with nonstick cooking spray.

In a large bowl, add in the “yogurt,” oil, sugar, vanilla extract, almond butter, and molasses. Mix well.

In the same bowl, add in the flour and baking soda. As the mixture starts to thicken up/combine, add as much nondairy milk as you need (but not too much) so that the batter is mixable.

Stir in chocolate chips.

Pour mixture into the prepared baking pan.

Bake for about 32-35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the blondies comes out clean.

Makes 16 blondies (or one giant blondie).

I encourage you to try this recipe, I guarantee you won’t be disappointed. VeggieGirl can do no wrong in my vegan eyes (and stomach).

How are you embracing Earth Day (week) this year?