Garbanzo Bean Blondies

I'm sure just after reading the title of this post, you are thinking, "Um, gross." A few years ago, I would have thought the same thing. But I have altered mine and my family's eating habits drastically since Matt and I got married six years ago. We have made small changes over the years (like switching from "white" grains to whole wheat stuff, etc.).

But that's an entirely different blog (or several). This blog is about the Garbanzo Bean Blondies I

made from a recipe I found on fellow blogger Jami's blog. It gluten-free (although she points out that oats, which are one of the ingredients, is currently suspected to contain gluten, though I don't know this has been proven). We have not gone gluten-free, and I don't intend to unless it's medically necessary (I mean, we have enough nutritional challenges around here without hopping on the gluten-free bandwagon for social reasons), but I am all about making sweet treats more nutritious. I don't know the actual numbers, but I know these blondies have fiber and protein and are flour-less. They do, however, have sugar and chocolate, but if they didn't, you'd have blondies that taste like beans. Ick.

I would just say to hop over to Jami's blog for this recipe, but I had to modify a few things (namely, not mixing the ingredients in a blender as she suggests because my blender is apparently not as efficient as hers).

You will need:

• (1) 15-oz can garbanzo beans/chickpeas
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 cup almond butter (or peanut butter)
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup oats
• 1 Tbsp ground flax seed
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/8 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup brown sugar (packed)
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips

Drain and rinse your can of beans. If you have a blender or food processor, I recommend pouring the beans in there and pulsing it to break up the beans. Otherwise, you can do in manually in a bowl. Once your beans are mashed up, place in a bowl and add vanilla and almond butter (or peanut butter) and mix together. Add egg, oats, and flax seed and mix together. Add brown sugar, salt, baking soda, and baking powder and mix again.

Finally, fold in the chocolate chips.

Grease an 8x8 baking dish (mine is glass) with cooking spray (I use canola oil spray, but I also have coconut oil, which would be great to use also). Scrape the batter into the dish and bake at 350 for about 4o minutes, give or take. The outside of mine was done before the middle, which was still pretty gooshy. I just kept checking the middle every few minutes with a toothpick until it was done. Let them cool like you would brownies before cutting into them.

My verdict: These were good with just a hint of the bean taste, but the sugar and chocolate cover it up quite well. If you are new to this (healthifying desserts), I don't know that I would recommend this as your first one to try, only because they taste much different than your traditional blondies/brownies, and you may be turned off by the idea entirely.

I'll update this later to let you know what my husband thought about them and if I was able to get my kids to try them (they are strange in that they have to be talked into trying everything, even desserts, whether it is healthy or not).