No Eggs? No Problem.

In theory, I had a pretty good idea you could find a substitute for most ingredients. I've had to look up many of these myself as I generally have lots of things on hand I don't need while missing other crucial ingredients.

With that said, I was still extremely surprised to learn you could actually bake cookies without eggs. I found this out on Saturday night when our friends Jean and Andy came over bearing chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies.

Jean didn't have any eggs. She substituted 2 tbsp. flour, 1/2 tbsp. butter, 1/2 tsp. baking powder and 2 tsp. water. The cookies tasted great. They were flat, but delicious just the same. I had never heard of this. Jean had.

She'd also heard of substituting applesauce for an egg. I hadn't. One source I found suggested 1/3 cup of applesauce for each egg; others 1 or 2 tbsp.

Tonight, I was using ground flax seed as part of a coating for tuna (I bought it when I was pregnant and never used it 'til tonight; my son is almost 7 months old) and noticed on the package you can combine 1 tbsp. of it with 3 tbsp. of water to replace an egg (3 tbsp. of it replaces 1 tbsp. of oil - who knew?).

Apparently, you can also use banana, pumpkin, mashed potatoes, tofu and many other crazy items you vegans out there will have heard of. What a wacky world we live in.

So next time you're out of eggs, don't let it stop you from baking something. Jean didn't – and I'm glad.