I’m the chief cook in our house, but not
because I’m trying to uphold a gender stereotype. My husband is actually a
fantastic cook, but nutrition/health is not something that really factors into
his decision making process. While I love creamy risottos, rich sauces and
cheesy polenta (oh, how I love it) it’s not something that I feel I should be
eating all the time.
So, in order to keep us healthy, I do the
majority of the cooking. However, there was a slight hiccup in that plan…my
intense LOVE for sweet treats.
I’m a total sweet tooth at heart and that
means we’ve had to find sweet recipes that have been ‘healthified’ so I don’t
go absolutely crazy. The upside is, over time my sugar cravings have lessened
and I still feel like I’m indulging in yummy desserts without having all the
excess sugar that comes in conventional dessert recipes.
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| Bean brownies with choc chips and pecans - yum! |
On that note, I recently made a funny
discovery. It is possible to turn beans into brownies.
Yes, beans. Like the kind you would normally
find in savory dishes.
This is the recipe that I used with a few,
small tweaks.
How are they healthier than regular
brownies?
Well, for starters there’s no flour. Which
makes it an excellent option for those with gluten intolerance, but also I feel
like the brownies themselves aren’t as processed because there’s no flour or
refined sugar. I’ve made the recipe using black beans and red kidney beans.
I also use coconut sugar (which is an
unrefined sugar) and there’s only 1/3 cup in the whole recipe. I do add a few
semi-sweet dark choc chips to my version and so I sometimes use less than the
1/3 cup sugar to balance it out.
And, instead of regular cocoa, I use a raw
cacao which is really rich in taste but is a processed without roasting the
cocoa beans first. This means it retains the nutrients that are lost during the
roasting process.
Try adding walnuts, pecans or cacao nibs
for extra crunch.
Trust me, they super tasty. They even got
the thumbs up from J who is probably the biggest critic of ‘healthy food’. That’s
saying something.
Have you ever tried a healthified version
of your favourite dessert? How did it turn out?
