“Are you sure these are vegan?”

Have you seen “Sh*t blah blah blahs say!?!?” I know, I know you are all super sick of hearing about it! BUT, a friend of mine (who knows that I am venturing into veganism) recently sent me a link to “Sh*t Vegans Say” and the title of this post made me laugh because anyone I know who is vegan or pretending to be vegan (like myself) asks this question all the time. That and “Did you use Earth Balance in this?” or better yet “Are you sure this wasn’t processed by, around, near, in the same zip code as any meat products?” Because I am trying to go vegan I can make fun of it…right!?!

I have been a vegetarian for almost 14 years. I don’t eat any meat or fish and limit the animal products, although I still eat eggs and dairy. Recently I began considering giving up dairy—I will spare you the gruesome details—and realized that this threw a wrench in a lot of my baking plans. Those peppermint bark dark chocolate brownies I made for my work holiday party were off limits and my favorite thing to bake thus far—cupcakes –were more difficult to get right, since the one time I tried to make vegan cupcakes they turned out like raspberry flavored bricks! Now I will not completely stop making stuff with eggs and dairy because 1) it’s delicious and 2) some things are just better with butter.*

Now here is a twist, I have lost 40 pounds since last January by following Weight Watchers (WW) online (no this is not WW endorsed). I am sharing this not to brag, but because combining partial veganism with WW has been a little tricky, so I was very excited to find many vegan recipes on the site. My lovely Aunt from Texas is visiting this weekend and she joined WW too (look for us as the next family endorsing WW on TV Jennifer Hudson style!) and decided to make me dinner using one of their vegetarian recipes. So I decided to contribute dessert and found a yummy WW approved vegan chocolate cookie recipe.

The only thing I didn’t have for these cookies was the unsweetened coconut, which was very easy to find. Fun fact, cocoa does not have milk (you probably already knew this but I didn’t when I first went dairy-free). The recipe was fairly easy to make minus the almost boiling water part, which always makes me nervous. I am also lucky enough to have a beautiful, bright orange, Kitchen Aid mixer (thanks mom!) so it was easy to combine all the ingredients. The recipe does not make 50 cookies, which was a total relief to me since I didn’t know who I was going to give them to! It made about 36 cookies following the serving guidelines of a scant tablespoon full.

Taste review: these cookies are VERY chocolatey! I love it! You don’t taste the coconut at all, although it does give them a nice texture. I might try and use coconut oil next time instead of plain vegetable oil. Overall, they turned out pretty yummy (and only 2 WW points!) and I am hoping my Aunt and Grandma Min enjoy them (when I baked vegan milanos, Grandma Min told me she needed “a wrench” to bite through it…hmm probably not a compliment, huh?).

*In light of the recent Paula Deen controversy, I hereby promise that now that I have endorsed butter I will not once I get rich and famous endorse some kind of diabetes drug.