My Vegan Mondays

Morning

Coffee with almond milk

Oatmeal

Some almonds

Afternoon

Veggie burger and a side of greens

A few dark chocolate squares

Red grapes

Evening

I tried my hand at Egyptian red lentil soup - not bad

This all sounds lovely and vegan, and it was. Except I also made chocolate chip cookies. The non-vegan kind. What can I say? I needed comfort and craved warm cookies.

But what’s interesting is that I improvised on a few of the ingredients—used spelt flour instead of all-purpose flour, and threw in some oats for kicks—and then had to improvise on a couple others. I discovered my lovely fiancé used up all the vanilla extract so I busted out some almond extract that I had bought in Paris. And during my increasingly frantic search for the vanilla, I knocked over an entire jar of dried oregano and some spilled into the batter. So as I gobbled up about a dozen of the cookies, both warm and comforting, occasionally I came across one with a savory, herbal flavor. It wasn’t bad. And the almond added an interesting dimension. And the different flour and oats made the consistency unlike any other time I’ve baked Nestle Tollhouse cookies. It was fun. A good experiment. Enjoyed while reading a few pages of The Yonahlossee Riding Campfor Girls. It wasn’t as good as the classic recipe, but I’m inspired to start deviating from recipes a little more often. We all should.