Black Bean Brownies

Black Bean Brownies 

My youngest signed up for kindergarten on Friday. He was excited for weeks leading up to the day, went into the school and then panicked. My normally talkative and outgoing child turned mute. He did write his letters and play with blocks while I filled out the paper work, but refused to actually talk. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal, but since I home school him for pre-k I am always very self conscious. It doesn't help that when you walk in the door they ask you if they are in pre-k and I was the only mommy that said he was learning at home. Now I have a master's degree, in our state I am allowed to home school through high-school. However, everyone else sends their kid to pre-k. It hasn't held my kids back in school. My oldest went into kindergarten and was already a grade ahead in reading and is now two years ahead in math. I believe strongly in teaching at home and having school being a reinforcement of things already taught through workbooks and everyday life lessons. However, I still feel judged since everyone else makes different decisions. I have had to defend my decisions so many times to other women that have made different choices and feel the need to explain to me why their decisions were better. Luckily since he starts kindergarten next year I won't have to explain my home-school pre-k choices any longer which will be a nice change. 

I have been experimenting with dessert recipes using beans in the last couple of weeks. Last week I tried a new recipe for Black Bean Brownies from the Taste of Home website. 

Black Bean Brownies 

This recipe has 9 ingredients. It takes 35 minutes of total time, 15 minutes of which is active and makes 12 servings. I followed the original recipe with only a few changes. I did not have chocolate chips in the house and I didn't want to run to the store so I made the recipe without the chocolate chips. It made the brownies less sweet, but my kids ate them happily with the reduced sugar. I found that my total cooking time was a little longer than the recipe, my total baking time was approximately 30 minutes. 

Black Bean Brownies 

Without the chocolate chips added these black bean brownies are rich, but not overly sweet. My two boys prefer chocolate that isn't overly sweet, so they loved them. I have tried the recipe with the chocolate chips added and it's also good, just sweeter. Either way works depending on what you have in your cupboard. I love that the brownies have black beans instead of butter, it really cuts down on the fat. The total recipe only has 3 tablespoons of canola oil, which could also be substituted for virgin coconut oil or even applesauce depending on your dietary needs. 

For the recipe go to Black Bean Brownies. 

Need a Chocolate Fix? Try Homemade Cocoa Brownies

Gluten Free Cocoa Brownies

I have never met a piece of dark chocolate that I didn't like. Until tonight. My family and I went to the store and I was happy to find a dark chocolate bar on clearance. It had flax seed in it, which I assumed would be ground up into the bar. Nope. The bar was full of toasted whole flax seed. The combination of bitter dark chocolate and nutty flax seed was not delicious. My oldest took one bit and told me that he was done. You know there is something wrong when your kids refuses candy. Needless to say the majority of the bar is in my freezer for when I have a chocolate craving that has to be satisfied regardless of the taste of the chocolate in question. Lucky for me I had made brownies yesterday, so as soon as I got home I ate one. So much better than the chocolate bar. When I made the brownies yesterday I tried a new recipe for Cocoa Brownies from the Food Network.

This recipe has 8 ingredients. It takes 1 hour of total time, 15 minutes of which is active and makes 16 brownies. Due to a lack of eggs I made a number of major changes to the original recipe. First I only had 3 eggs, not 4 so I modified the recipe. Since I reduced the amount of eggs I also reduced the butter to 10 tablespoons. I am a big fan of dutch cocoa, the flavor is intense and delicious and it's what I used in this recipe. Finally, since I can't eat gluten I substituted brown rice flour for the all-purpose flour used in the original ingredient list. My baking time was exactly 45 minutes plus cooling. With gluten free baking you really do have to allow things to cool or they will fall apart.

These brownies turned out very rich and chocolatey. My boys and I were big fans of the intense flavor and they didn't even notice they were made with brown rice flour. The brownies turned out fudge like, which I like. I'm not as big of a fan of cake brownies, I would rather eat a great chocolate cake with frosting. Overall, a great new brownie recipe that I will definitely add to my recipe list.

For the recipe go to Cocoa Brownies.

Recipe for Cocoa Brownies

Gluten Free Cocoa Brownies

I have a slight chocolate addiction. While other people grab for salty snacks I am the one eating a dark chocolate bar. I seem to have passed on the tradition to my two boys who make a bee line to the chocolate bars at whatever store we go to. Since chocolate is my vice I try to limit my chocolate intake to dark chocolate bars and the occasional homemade treat. I love baking at home since I can control the ingredients and I know exactly what goes into every recipe. My kids have been so spoiled that my oldest runs in the door most days asking what I made for his after school snack. One of my favorite chocolate desserts is brownies. Last week I tried a new recipe for Gluten Free Cocoa Brownies from the Food Network.

This recipe has 10 ingredients. It takes one hour of total time, 15 minutes of which is active and makes 16 servings. I did make a number of changes to the original recipe. First I used a combination of regular and dark cocoa. I love using dark cocoa in baking it gives recipes a nice slightly less sweet flavor. Since I eat gluten free I used brown rice flour in place of the all-purpose flour. Any type of gluten free flour would probably work, so if you prefer sorghum, white rice flour etc. it should come out similarly. Instead of baking the brownies in a 8 inch pan I used a 13 x 9 inch glass baking dish. There was way too much batter for a smaller pan and using the larger size was perfect. Since my pan was larger my baking time was increased by approximately 5-10 minutes.

My family doesn't love most gluten free treats. Oftentimes they turn out dry or too moist. These brownies turned out great and my whole family loved them. I like that the recipe would work well with or without gluten which is nice. The actual texture of the brownies is a nice cross between a fudgy and cake brownie, not overly moist, but not too flaky. I would definitely make this recipe again.

For the recipe go to Cocoa Brownies.

Yellow Squash Brownies

I absolutely love brownies. On more occasions than I would like to admit I have eaten an entire batch all by myself. There is something so perfect about chocolatey brownies right out of the oven. Since my oldest son is home from school for the summer I have been baking up a storm. Both of my boys are in major growth spurts and have been eating everything in sight. So I was very grateful when friend gave my 15 pounds of yellow squash a couple of weeks back. After canning, making cake and yellow squash chocolate chip cookies I was still left with pounds of yellow squash. So I thought long and hard about what to bake and came up with the notion of baking brownies. I browsed around the internet until I found a recipe for Squash Brownies, which looked easy and a perfect solution for my squash abundance.

This recipe has 16 ingredients. It takes 30 minutes of total time and makes 20 servings. I made a few modifications to this recipe. Most importantly instead of using oil or butter I substituted unsweetened applesauce. I substitute exact amounts when using applesauce. This recipe would also work and have a richer flavor if you substituted 1/2 cup of applesauce and still used the 1/2 cup of butter. When using applesauce the baking time is always increased. On average my baking times increases 5-15 minutes. I normally check my baked goods frequently to make sure that they are baking correctly and pull them out as soon as they are done. I chose to leave out the nuts, my two boys are not fan of brownies with nuts and will normally turn up their noses. Most importantly with this recipe make sure to adequately get all the liquid out of the squash. I place the shredded squash in-between a layer of paper towels and squeeze it over my sink. There will be a very large amount of water, keep squeezing until no additional water comes out.

My two boys loved this recipe and had no idea that they were eating brownies made with squash. I loved how the brownies were still very cake like even though I substituted applesauce. Spreading the top with chocolate after they were baked made for a delicious and easy frosting. This recipe was a great way to use my overabundance of squash and would also work very well with zucchini or pattypan squash.

For the recipe go to Squash Brownies.

Fudgey Brownies

Every couple of weeks I get a giant chocolate craving. When I say a giant craving, I mean a giant craving, if I don't get something chocolate I get cranky. The men in my house aren't much better than me and have their own version of a chocolate craving about once a month. Therefore, about once or twice a month I make some sort of chocolate dessert. Last month I decided that I was bored of my usual brownie recipes and searched the Internet for new options. I stumbled upon a recipe for what claimed to be the Best Brownie recipe ever, so I decided to try it out for myself.

This recipe has 8 ingredients for the brownies and 5 for the frosting. The prep time is 25 minutes and the brownies take approximately 35 minutes to bake. This recipe has over 4,000 reviews, so I was confident that it would produce a decent result. The only modification I made was to bake the brownies for exactly 25 minutes, any time more would have resulted in the brownies being overdone. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

The frosting in this recipe uses honey as ingredient, which initially made me skeptical. However, after tasting these brownies I was totally impressed by how delicious these brownies turned out. If you are a fan of cake like brownies, this isn't the recipe for you. These brownies are incredibly fudgey, which I prefer. I actually had to make this recipe twice because the first time my family ate them all before I was able to get a photo. So this is the second batch I baked and both batches were delicious. If you are a fan of fudgey brownies I highly recommend this recipe, it's delicious.

For the recipe go to All Recipes Best Brownies Ever.

Clementine's Butterscotch Brownies

As my two children grow bigger and bigger, I am finding myself going through larger and larger amounts of snacks. I am diligently trying to cook from scratch as much as I can, both for health and my checkbook. Snacks are a recipe category that I am always trying to find new options that taste good and can be an occasional treat for my family.  My local newspaper, the Charleston Sunday Gazette-Mail, had a re-printed recipe for Clementine's Butterscotch Brownies that looked perfect for family snack.

This is a truly easy brownie recipe. The brownies only require two bowls for preparation and the ingredients I already had in my pantry cupboard. I recently bought an oven thermometer to accurately gauge my disco-era oven's temperature more effectively. My brownies for this recipe took 5 minutes less than the suggested 25-30 minutes of baking time. Other than the temp difference I made no other substitutions or adjustments to the original recipe.

These brownies are a great combination of sweet and salty. I find regular chocolate brownies to be overly sweet at times and these ones were just right. I would definitely make these brownies again, they are a quick and easy family friendly snack.

For the recipe you can go to the original link at the Los Angeles Times website: Clementine's Butterscotch Brownies.