Obama Berry Coconut Crisp

I spent election day being a jittery mess. I was so anxious all day long--I couldn't sit still and I just wanted to roll around in the streets screaming praise for Barack Obama, in case I might inspire some otherwise Republicans to switch their votes at the last second. Instead I sat at my computer, constantly refreshing CNN.com in the hopes that maybe some state decided to start counting their votes early. But of course, that didn't happen so I just kept seeing the two candidates with zero electoral votes. It became clear that I needed a project to keep me busy. So naturally, I started making a Barack Obama outfit for my lovely daughter/dog.

Hayley was the life of the party as we walked to the nearby fire station to cast my vote. (Sadly. pups are not allowed to vote yet in the state of California, so the pup came just to keep me company. Let's hope there is a prop on the next election granting pups the right to vote!!!) The strong support for Obama was clear on our short walk, but we are in Los Angeles after all. I was still really worried about how the rest of the country would be voting.

When we got home, my nervous energy had only increased. So it was time to get elbow deep in baking. I wanted to do a red-white-and-blue themed dish for our election night festivities to be hosted by Kirby Von Scrumptious. I found some blueberries and strawberries still frozen from the summer and decided to make Veganomicon's Berry Coconut Crisp.
This dish was incredibly easy to make--just throw a few ingredients in a pan and cover with this delicious mix of unsweetened coconut, sugar, and flour and bake for about 40 minutes. In the end, the colors ended up being purple and off-white, buttttttt whatever. My only disappointment was that the flavor of the blueberries was so strong, it really covered how amazing the coconut crisp was. The raw dough was so good I'm planning on experimenting to make a coconut sugar cookie based off of this recipe. In the meantime, this is a great dessert that will get gobbled up quickly.

In the end my anxiety subsided as we watched Barack Obama elected the new president. What a happy, proud moment. Viva Los Estados Unidos!!!!!