Monday, December 13, 2010

Mihl's Vegan Macaroons

Yup, I went to WF and bought psyllium husks. They were in the health food section, being a fiber supplement as they are. I made Mihl of Seitan is my Motor's vegan macaroons, and they turned out great, or so said my macaroon loving friend. I was never a macaroon kind of lady. It was actually quite funny. I tried one, Jon tried one and I said "are they like normal macaroons?". We couldn't remember. Then we both admitted to not really ever liking macaroons when we weren't vegan. Oh well! At least the macaroon-loving recipient of the gift love them! They have a chewy texture and very coconutty flavor.

(will put up picture soon!)

Next up in Holiday Baked Good Gifting: Lemon Bars from Joy of Vegan Baking!

In other news, apparently I was anemic during the summer and unaware. I went to the Dr. this past week and she said "Let's test your blood to see if you are still anemic" I said "anemic, I am anemic?!?!". She said, yes, didn't you check the lab results hotline? No, I figured they would call if something was wrong. Anyhow, after the re-check I am actually 100% normal, without having done a single thing to correct my deficiency! I guess I must have eaten enough iron in my diet. I even stopped taking a supplement that contained iron during that time (I switched to Dr. Joel Furman's vitamin with no Iron because the latest research supports not taking iron unless you need it). Here I was for a week eating blackstrap molasses like it was going out of style. I even discovered that 1 TBS of cocoa powder has 10% of your daily iron. That is pretty crazy. Just make some blackstrap molasses cocoa-powder heavy hot cocoa (make sure you do it with non fortified soymilk though b/c otherwise the calcium interferes with your iron absorption), and that is one iron rich, delicous snack (as long as you add plenty of normal sweetener too). During the time I thought I was anemic, I found biking uphill suddenly VERY hard and tiring, and climbing stairs was also exhausting because I was constantly visualizing my deformed red blood cells weakly transporting not enough oxygen to my muscles. Not surprisingly, when I found out my anemia cured itself, I perked RIGHT up! I am so glad everything is fine now, I was sure my Mom was going to be very, very upset with me if I was anemic. Phew! I will make an effort now to get more iron in my diet, because I take Nexium (an acid reducer), and that also reduces your body's ability to absorb certain vitamins, among them: iron, calcium, and B12.