Red, Brown and Blue! How... American...?

Ever since I was young, my dad would go on the ocassional trip into the Canada. Each time he would bring home Canadian candy. Sometimes it was good, sometimes it was chocolate covered Smarties. (YUCK!) My favorites are these malted candy bars I can never remember the name of. But they're in French and they're in a big pale yellow package! This time he brought me some Canadian Raisinettes! YUM! =)

On a semi-unrelated topic, I just recently started following Peas and Thank You, a really awesome vegan blog! Now, I'm not a vegan but somehow stumbled across her blog while perusing one day and couldn't stop laughing at her stories about her adorable girls. She had hooked me! I signed up to recieve updates.

Yesterday morning at 4:30, nature woke me up in that unpleasant way it has gotten into the habit of doing. As I stumbled back to my room and flopped back onto my bed, I checked my email. Hooray, an update from P&TY! It was for vegan brownies. "Mmm... brownies..." I muttered into the pillow. Crap, I don't have applesauce. It's ok, I'll use tomato sauce I thought as I drifted back to sleep.

Fast forward 3 hours. Now fully awake, I still want to make these brownies with tomato sauce. So I did! And with honey instead of sugar, cornmeal for some of the flour, I was a substituting maniac!! And you know what?



They were pretty delicious in my opinion. Addictive even. I ate a whole row out of the pan before lunch. An acquired taste, definitely, but so am I.

Tomato Laden Brownies
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup blue cornmeal
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup canned tomato puree (for more concentrated flavor you could use tomato paste)
1/4 cup honey
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 cup raisinettes (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8x8 pan and set aside. In a large bowl, combine flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, mix together tomato, honey and extract. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, stirring until just combined, then fold in raisinettes. Pour batter into prepared pan, then bake for 20 minutes or until the sides start the pull away from the pan. Cool and enjoy! Or.. eat hot and enjoy!

Who Wants a Special Homemade Brownie??

Nutcrackers, giant rats, dancing sugar plum fairies...



It's Christmas in May! I have discovered a new (to me anyway) blog that has tickled my fancy like it’s never been tickled before. Normally I will not openly drool all over my keyboard at work, but that is exactly what the recipe for Mayan Mudslide Brownies over at Sugar Plum had me doing. Chocolate... mmm… avocado… mmmmmmm… more chocolate…Yep. Big ole’ puddles of drool shorting out the keyboard.



I made a few smallish adjustments to the recipe, so I’ll reprint it here, but I cannot take any of the credit for this idea! It was all Miss Sugar Plum. Her website is truly amazing. I spent hours reading through her recipes and laughing aloud at her fun-loving rambling wit. In one post she even remarks that she has an ice cream truck that drives down her street playing Christmas melodies… that’s quite a distance for that guy to travel in a few months just to sell ice cream, let me tell you.

Anyway, for months I’ve been looking for a brownie recipe I can be satisfied with. I usually end up with something too sweet, too fluffily cakey, too ordinary. I like my brownies uniquely dark tasting and dense. I believe I’m nearing the end of my search for Brownie Perfection with help from the SP Fairy!

Have a chocolate filled day!



Mayan Mudslide Brownies (the reproduction)
1/4 cup unsalted butter
4 ounces semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped (I’d say unsweetened baking chocolate would work here too)
3/4 teaspoon coffee grounds
1 cup all purpose flour
2 tablespoons dark cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt, finely ground up plus 1/8 teaspoon
1 large avocado, peeled and pitted
1 cup granulated sugar plus 1 tablespoon molasses
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 large egg
1/4 cup chocolate chips, give or take depending on taste
1/3 cup chopped peanuts
1/3 cup sweetened coconut flakes
1/4 cup dulce de leche, canned

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line 8x8-inch baking dish with foil and coat with canola oil.

Melt butter in a small saucepan over low to medium heat. Turn heat off and stir in chopped chocolate and coffee until melted and smooth. Remove from heat and set aside.

In a medium bowl, stir together flour, cocoa, baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon salt until well combined. In Kitchen Aid mixing bowl, beat avocado on medium speed until it starts to get creamy. Beat in sugar and molasses until well incorporated, then add in vanilla and egg until combined thoroughly. Beat in melted chocolate mixture, then reduce mixer speed to low and beat in flour mixture until combined.

Spread batter evenly into prepared dish. It helps to oil the spatula you’re spreading the mixture with so it doesn’t stick. Sprinkle chocolate chips over the surface of the batter, followed by the peanuts, coconut and the remaining salt; bake 15 minutes. Remove dish from oven and heat dulce de leche in microwave until its liquid-ish then drizzle over brownies. Return the dish to the oven and bake an additional 10-15 minutes or until well risen and set. I stuck a toothpick in the center and when it came out mostly clean along with the other signs I decided it was done. Cool completely on a wire rack (or upside-down pizza pan if you’re ghetto-ing it up like me) and refrigerate for easier slicing.

To slice, lift out foil and slice brownies into bars. Supposed to make 16 brownies.

Update: These brownies were a HUGE hit both with my mom and at the bank. One of the loan officers even asked for the recipe. I happily passed it on! =)

Lavender Butterscotch Blondies

Definitely not the prettiest thing I've ever made.. but a superbly sweet treat for that sweet tooth! This is another recipe I whipped up to add Kyle's monthly care package! I got this recipe from another gluten free blogger who adapted the recipe from the Joy of Cooking. As you know, I can't leave any recipe well enough alone so I added some lavender to the mix. I chose lavender because I wanted Kyle to try something truly unique. This recipe is very gooey and at first I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to send my creation in the mail. I threw the pan in the refrigerator overnight to firm the blondies up. This worked like a charm and I was able to add them to the box!

Lavender Butterscotch Blondies
3 tablespoons butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup rice flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon lavender

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Melt butter in microwave and stir in brown sugar until completely moistened. Let cool slightly, then stir in remaining ingredients. Pour into a well greased 8x8 pan and bake 15 to 20 minutes. Cool and cut into squares.

(She suggests adding 1/2 teaspoon xantham gum if you want to double the recipe, but I refuse to cook with the stuff, as I don't like the sound of it. I know, strange, but that's me!)

Gluten-Free Banana Brownies

So the last time I experimented with making these brownies, my hand slipped with the nutmeg and it was a disaster. Round 2 with the recipe led me to the ripe bananas sitting on my counter. I altered the recipe a tad.. omitted the salt since I used salted butter, added whole flax seeds, and some mashed bananas.

I can't wait for them to be cooked!

Here is the recipe adapted from a recipe I picked up a few months ago from a fellow gluten-free blogger:

3/4 cup white rice flour
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt (omitted because of the salted butter)
5 tablespoons cocoa
1/2 cup butter, melted
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons whole flax seeds
2 ripe bananas mashed

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix all ingredients (I added some chocolate chips) and spread into a greased 8x8 pan (or likeness) and bake for 30 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool, cut, wrap, and freeze.