Healthy Comfort Food? Yes Please!

One of the biggest challenges that I've faced with going vegan is substituting things in recipes.

(Spoiler: Scroll down for an awesome recipe!)
First, a little bit of a background on this:

• The last time I gave being a vegetarian a shot, I did manage to discover many ways to alter recipes that had previously contained meat.
• Even though I wasn't vegan, I was still finding ways to cut out eggs and dairy. Mainly because I really can't have (or shouldn't have) dairy products because they make me ill. As for eggs, well as much as I've enjoyed them in the past, I haven't been able to eat and enjoy eggs in a long time...
• My favourite substitutes have been the flax seed meal and water for eggs, and almond milk in the place of cow milk. I LOVE almond milk!

That being said, I've still found a few recipes that I've had issues with when embarking on a lifestyle change from omnivore to herbivore. Meringue puffs are one of my favourite cookies, and it's pretty much just egg white, white sugar, and vanilla. I still can't figure out how to turn that into a vegan dessert, and I'm not sure I ever will. The other one was macaroons. The last time I made macaroons, it was for the base of a mini-lemon meringue pie. Again, this is a whole lot of egg white.

Today, while roaming my apartment in an attempt to procrastinate (work out? Later... Homework? I'll get to it...), I decided to put together a few things and see if I could make some macaroons without using any egg whites. Once they were ready and I ate one three, there was no doubt in my mind that these can be made (AND taste amazing) without egg whites.

So without further delay, here is this tasty little recipe for a 6 serving batch of macaroons!

Lemon Ginger Spice Coconut Macaroons

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup shredded coconut
• 1 tbsp whole wheat flour (sub. with ground almond if you can't have flour)
• 2 tbsp maple flavoured agave nectar (or use plain, but I personally love the maple flavour in these!)
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract (if you follow the "baker's secret", which is to "double the vanilla", feel free to...)
• Pinch of sea salt
• Grated zest of one lemon
• Freshly grated ginger (stick it in the freezer for a little while before grating it, it makes life so much easier! Quantity is to taste/smell, my amount was about 1 tbsp grated...)
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• Freshly grated nutmeg (again, this is to taste/smell, my amount was about 1/8 tsp)

Method:

• Pre heat oven to 350.
• Mix all ingredients in a bowl.
• Scoop about 1 tbsp of the mixture per macaroon, and place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicon baking mat.
• Bake for 15-17 minutes. Once the edges are golden brown, they're good to take out of the oven!
• Allow to cool, and enjoy! :)