Black Bean Vegan Brownies

"I'd give up chocolate but I'm no quitter!"  Anon

For some reason a group of us were talking about brownies made with black beans.  I guess we'd run out of gossip or even enough imagination to make up some stuff about people that we barely know.  What is this world coming to!

At any rate, I perused the Internet and sorted through a number of such recipes and finally tweaked one that produced a rather tasty product.  One of the sweeteners in this recipe is bananas, so make sure you use RIPE bananas.  A good time to stock up on ripe bananas is when the store is selling out the overly ripe bananas.  Grab a bunch or two and store them in the freezer until you're ready to whip up a batch of these brownies.

The other sweetener is agave nectar and we've already sung its praises in other recipes - low glycemic index, etc. 

Ingredients:
  15 ounce can of black beans, drained and rinsed
  2 bananas
  1/3 cup agave nectar
  1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  2 t cinnamon
  1/2 cup oat flour*
  1/4 cup quick cooking oatmeal

Distructions:
  Preheat oven to 375 degrees and grease an 8x8 pan.  I did not have an 8x8 pan so I used a pie plate.  The world continued to spin on its axis.

*Oat flour - quick cooking oats whipped up in a blender or food processor until they turn into a flour-like substance.  Don't agonize over this.

Place all of the ingredients, except the oat flour and oatmeal, into a food processor or blender.  Whip until smooth.  Stir in the oats and oat flour and place into the prepared pan.  Bake for 30 to 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean or until you are just too hungry for chocolate to wait another minute.  The batch I made never got to the clean toothpick stage.  They were a fudgy brownie. 

I served these brownies to my husband and told him they were a banana cinnamon brownie.  I did not mention the black beans because his food attitude is, "Don't tell me what's in it because then I might not like it."   Black beans, for all their nutritional value, are not something that most chocolate eating beings want to find in their brownies. 

An additional note - because these brownies were so moist I guessed that they were capable of growing hair so I stored them in the fridge.  They stayed moist for about a week.  I'm going to whip up another batch this weekend.  Life is good!

Loveya
The Mom