Some of my more hair-brained ideas come as a result of a link to a link to a link.

Earlier this month, I was on the Web looking for a recipe that I heard mentioned on the radio. I think it was for brownies, or fudge, or biscotti, or something like that. In the process, I found a link to a recipe for no-bake vegan brownies.

No-bake vegan brownies, eh? The recipe looked too good and too easy to be true. I had all the ingredients already in my larder. So I decided to try it, for giggles. I think it had 5 ingredients. It was super easy to make in my food processor, and it turned out delightfully yummy!

I was so intrigued that I went back to the website to find more recipes. (I love to experiment in the kitchen. I've been known to make mock mashed potatoes out of cauliflower, and chocolate cake with mayonnaise.) The recipes on this site seemed amazingly easy. I bought a few staples at my local health-food store and went raw vegan for a week.

After just a week of the raw vegan diet, my skin had cleared up a great deal. (I suffer from a chronic skin condition that I will explain in a later post.) After the week was over and I returned to my normal diet, my skin condition worsened almost immediately. The fact that Christmas was coming up and I was constantly noshing on fattening goodies in the office probably didn't help. I reckoned, if a week on a raw vegan diet was so easy and made such a difference with my skin, why not try a 30-day raw vegan challenge?

My challenge commences on Monday, January 2. The countdown starts.