Pumpkin Spice Brownies || vegan | gluten-free | oil-free

PumpkinSwirlBrownies2

November 4, 2015

CHOCOLATE!

People are coo coo for cocoa.

Me? I like it.  Sure.

But I wouldn’t consider selling my offspring for the last bar on earth as some people I know might.  It’s good.  I enjoy a quality piece of dark chocolate or a chocolatey dessert as much as the next girl, but when I like chocolate best is when it’s paired with something else, for example, peanut butter, raspberry, or in this case PUMPKIN!

If you’ve never had chocolate and pumpkin together, you’ve been missing out! The warm spices we associate with pumpkin taste great with the rich chocolate.  This recipe calls for healthy whole foods like black beans and pumpkin, uses very little flour, and no refined sugar or oil, and no eggs or dairy of course.  The only not-so-healthy part is the chocolate chips but we only use 1/4 cup.  I really like to use the Wonderslim cocoa powder as it’s lower in fat and caffeine than typical cocoa powder.PumpkinSwirlBrownies3

Go ahead, make these.

And try not to eat the whole pan.

I dare ya.

Whole Grain Bread! Bread Maker Recipe

Several years ago, I asked hubby for a bread maker.  My big plan was to make lots of fresh-baked loaves of bread and never have to buy another loaf again.  Ah, to be young with such lofty goals.  I baked one loaf, it wasn’t great, and the unit was stored in the garage for several years.  My older, and much wiser self decided to dust that bad boy off and give the whole bread-making thing another shot.  SO glad I did!  My amazingly wonderful friend Donna makes bread all the time and is always telling me how fun and easy it is – and how great it makes the house smell.  She was so right!

I did some research and played around a bit with ingredients and ultimately came up with this whole grain treat.   If you don’t have a bread maker, ask Santa or whomever to bring you one.  You literally dump the ingredients in the metal “bowl”, and walk away.  Definitely the lazy man’s way to make bread (though not as lazy as buying a loaf at the store!).