Holy Carob Chip!

It's quite possible that I made the best discovery EVER yesterday when buying trail mix. There was a mix that looked super delish, but it appeared to have chocolate in it which would be a no-go for me. I decided to read the label anyway just to see if maybe I was going to get lucky and the chocolate would be dairy-free. And lucky did I get! It wasn't even chocolate in my trail mix, but carob chips. I'd read about these weird alien things in my hippie vegan cookbooks, but I assumed they would be all vegetable-y. Instead, carob chips are fraternal twins to chocolate chips. Unless you look close, no way can you tell who's who.

Not only that, but carob chips are scrumptious! I think I like it better than chocolate. They have kind of a spicy aftertaste. I can't describe it, so you may as well go buy some and try it. Or wait it the next time I come to visit and bring you a batch of carob chip cookies (made without egg and butter to be vegan-friendly of course).

You do have to be careful though as one of the unfortunately similarities of carob chips to chocolate chips is that they're both bad for the waistline. Boo. However, if you're eating a vegan diet, a few carob chips won't hurt you as almost all of the fat and cholesterol in our diets come from the animal-nasty foods. So, I'm good to have a carob chip cookie, are you?

Being a vegan is actually kind of fun because I keep expecting all this food to taste like crap so when it surprises me and tastes good (and usually it tastes much better than good) it's like I just won the lotto. Too bad it is only the food lottery and not the real money one. But, I take what I can get.

I made fresh salsa for dinner tonight since I had leftover cilantro from our Cinco de Mayo extravaganza. No need to waste food.

I chopped up about half a carton of grape tomatoes, 1/4 an onion and 1/4 cup cilantro and stirred it all together and voilà! (As a side note: it seriously just took me five minutes to get the accent over the a to make that an appropriate French word. Another reason to hate the French in my book.)