Pomegranate Chia Seed Pudding and Our New Vegan Diet

A couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, DJ and I watched the movie Forks Over Knives.  I felt so inspired by what I learned that we decided to go Vegan for the 2 weeks before Thanksgiving.  It was rough the first couple of days but we felt so good once our bodies started to flush out all of the gross stuff.  Then...Thanksgiving hit.  It is SO difficult to eat healthy during the holidays and I have a really hard time with self control on what I eat and put into my body so we decided to take a break until January 1st.

So here we are 5 days into our whole food, plant based diet.  I love it.  It's difficult and sometimes I just want to eat some cheese or stuff my face with brownies but overall we are feeling better and better each day.  One of the most fun things about eating whole foods is that you get to make everything you eat from scratch (because it's "whole foods" nothing processed.)

Tonight we had a delicious dinner of veggie stew made by DJ and for dessert (because you can't go without anything sweet) a pomegranate chia seed pudding made by me.  I absolutely LOVE making foods with ingredients that I have never used before like kale, millet, quinoa, chia seeds, wheat germ, and the list goes on.  Since I love sweet things so much I am determined to find some fun Vegan dessert recipes.  I have been able to find some great resources online like Carrie at Carrie on Vegan. She has great recipes which is where I found this one.  I modified it a bit and liked the way it turned out.

Since this dessert is so beautiful I took some pictures and thought I would post the recipe so here ya go:

 We found Chia Seeds for $7.50/lb

 DJ got me a food processor for Christmas, yea! I'm loving it

Pomegranate Chia Seed Pudding
Serves 2
Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 TB of whole chia seeds (if you want to use ground chia seeds just split it 1/2 and 1/2)
• 1 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
• 1 cup fresh pomegranate arils (about 1 medium sized pomegranate, if you want to use more feel free it will make the pudding have more flavor and will change the color slightly)
• 1/2 tsp pure maple syrup

Directions:

• Combine chia seeds, almond milk, pomegranate arils, and maple syrup in a food processor until smooth.  Pour into bowl and place covered in the fridge overnight or for a couple of hours until it has set up.  Stir before serving and enjoy!

Thanks Carrie for the recipe!