Vegan Zucchini Bread

It's the season for gardens full of ripe zucchini.  This bread is relatively low in fat and has no animal products, no white flour, no white sugar.

1/2 cup oil.  I use grapeseed for it's light taste.  I would not recommend Canola because the rapeseed that it comes from is a very genetically mutated plant. I'm not a fan of oil in my food but I haven't experimented with applesauce as a substitute on this yet.

1 cup natural unprocessed sugar.  You can find this in any good grocery store as "sugar in the raw" or "turbinado sugar".

2 cups grated zucchini.  Get the excess water out of it by squeezing it on paper towels.  It should be 2 cups after reducing the liquid in it, but don't take every molecule of moisture out of it, you want nice moist bread.

1/4 c soy or almond milk.  You can use any variety of plant milk you want, either unflavored or vanilla.

1 tsp pure vanilla extract.  The artificial works, too...but I like the taste of the pure.

2 cups Whole wheat flour, all purpose

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup chopped nuts.  I like walnuts so I used them (store nuts in the freezer so they don't get rancid so fast.)

You can also add raisins, some ground cloves, or other kinds of nuts.

Mix everything together.  Bake about 55 minutes in a 350 degree F oven.  Cool on a rack 30 minutes, and enjoy.

Good news for my waistline

I'd been slowly gaining weight, especially since my sister passed away at the end of June last year.  It was just a little bit here and there, but it was getting difficult to button my pants and my knees, back, feet, and ankles were screaming at me!  I just got off the scale, I have now lost about 8 pounds in 15 days.  It's no gimmick, here's how I did it.

You know I'm very committed to the vegan lifestyle, but I was using too much of the meat substitutes that were mostly made up from oil.  I was also eating a lot (A LOT!) of carbs, and not being careful about things that had egg or milk in them like I should.  I kept getting vertigo and would be able to look back and see why (maybe butter on the veggies or something like that).  Hubby said he wanted to look over the Engine 2 diet (http://www.engine2diet.com/) so I bought the book one day at whole foods.  It gave me a very easy to do and consise clean up of my diet.

So far it's been great.  I have lost a little bit daily, and my mood swings are gone, I feel good, and the only issue that I have is if I don't drink enough water while I'm flying to keep me hydrated which is certainly not the fault of the diet.  This is basically an easy one, it's just vegan, but tells you how to get the amount of fat (oil) and salt and sugar out of your diet...very well put especially for the men in the audience.  Their website (link above) is fantastic and you can food journal there and ask for help from the community if you'd like.  The science and studies behind their diet are included, so you can do more research if you'd like.  Best of all, I am NEVER hungry!  Enjoy!