In the past, I’ve experimented with all type of healthy brownie recipes, but none have come close to this one. Often when you take eggs out of a brownie recipe, the brownies turn out drier and less fudge-like and dense than they should be. The solution? Avocado. The fatty fruit (yes, it’s a fruit!) brings the bulk to the equation, so your brownies don’t miss eggs, butter or milk.

Fear not! The avocado does not give these brownies an avocado-like taste. The avocado is subtle enough in flavor to be easily masked by the other ingredients, particularly the cocoa powder. Instead of its flavor, the avocado leaves behind a desirable texture.

Vegan and Gluten-Free Avocado Brownies Recipe

Makes 10-15

Ingredients

• 2 ripe avocados, pitted and peeled
• ¾ cup maple syrup
• ¼ cup coconut oil, melted
• ½ cup almond milk
• 2 tablespoons ground flax seeds + 6 tablespoons water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon powder
• ¼ teaspoon cardamom powder
• 1 teaspoon coffee grounds
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ½ cup cocoa powder
• 1 cup coconut flour
• ½ cup dairy-free dark chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a 9×9-inch pan with parchment paper.

In a small bowl, stir two tablespoons of flax seeds into six tablespoons of water. Let set for a few minutes.

In a food processor, add the avocado, maple syrup, coconut oil, almond milk, “flax eggs”, and vanilla. Pulse until just combined.

Transfer the wet mixture to a large bowl. Add in the cinnamon, cardamom, coffee, salt, coconut flour, and cocoa powder and stir until well combined. Fold in the chocolate chips.

Pour the mixture into the pan and use a spatula to spread the mixture across the pan evenly. Place the pan into the oven and bake for 25 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and let the brownies cool before cutting and serving. The brownies will firm up as they cool.

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Here’s the perfect scenario—a dense, moist brownie packed with cocoa polyphenols and bean nutrition—protein, fiber, and even antioxidants! The beans replace the grains and some of the fat in this gluten-free, egg-free black bean brownies recipe. I guarantee that nobody will guess the magic ingredient—black beans—in this delicious treat. What a great way to get kids (and grown- ups!) to eat their beans.

Makes 16 servings (one 2 by 2-inch brownie each)

Black Bean Brownies Recipe

Ingredients

Nonstick cooking spray
One 15-ounce (425 g) can black beans, no salt added, rinsed and drained (or 1¾ cups cooked)
½ cup (170 g) honey or agave nectar
½ cup (43 g) unsweetened cocoa powder
2tablespoons chia seeds (see Notes on page 139) 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3tablespoons canola oil, expeller pressed
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ cup (85 g) dairy-free, dark chocolate chips
½ cup (58 g) chopped walnuts

Directions

1.Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Spray an 8 by 8-inch baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.

2.Place the black beans, honey, cocoa powder, chia seeds, vanilla, canola oil, and baking powder in a blender. Process until smooth. Scrape down the sides halfway through blending if needed.

3.Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish.

4.Sprinkle the chocolate chips and walnuts evenly across the top of the brownies.

5.Bake for 45 to 50 minutes, until the edges pull away from the side of the pan and the brownies are firm.

6.Cool for a few minutes, and then slice into 16 squares.

Note: This makes a chewy, moist brownie.

Per Serving: 149 calories, 3 g protein, 20 g carbohydrate, 8 g fat, 2 g saturated fat, 3 g fiber, 11 g sugar, 99 mg sodium

Star nutrients: magnesium (10% DV), manganese (14% DV)

 Recipe from “Plant-Powered for Life: Eat Your Way to Lasting Health with 52 Simple Steps and 125 Delicious Recipes“, copyright © Sharon Palmer, 2014. Reprinted by permission of the publisher, The Experiment. Available wherever books are sold.

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Photo credit: Heather Poire

The post Black Bean Brownies Recipe: Gluten, Dairy and Egg-Free appeared first on EcoSalon.

Column Until we remove the stigma around feminism and stop creating barriers between each other, we’re not going to achieve equality, no matter how far in we may lean.

The first act of feminism I witnessed was mortifying. I was at my Brownie Fly-Up ceremony, the celebration of our troop graduating from Brownies to Girl Scouts. There we were. On stage. And the leaders of all of the local troops were supposed to sing us a song before we walked the ceremonial bridge over a mirror, which is actually a little creepy when you think about it, to become Girl Scouts. I watched in horror as our leaders—one of whom was my own mother—stood silently staring into the crowd. Not singing.

Suddenly, Troop 310 was walking the plank. I glared at my mom and asked why she had done that to me. She replied, “Did you listen to the words of the song?” I had not.

It was a cheery rhyming number, the gist of which was that while we failed at everything from tent-pitching to sports, they were letting us graduate anyway. I looked for this song in the official Girl Scout songbook and came up empty. It was probably a local specialty.

At the time, I cared very little about the words and just wanted my mom to have sung and shut up about it. On the way home, we had a long talk about what it would have meant. I lived in a house where Ms. Magazine sat comfortably on the table with an assortment of novels, the New Yorker and newspapers. I distinctly remember an intimidatingly heavy-looking book called Backlash on the table for a while. When my mom explained why the song was wrong, I got it. I was still pissed because, at eight, being embarrassed is about the worst thing possible. But I got it: As a feminist, you don’t belittle yourself and your friends. This is a lesson I have had to relearn many, many times.

And it’s a lesson that seems to be getting lost with this new generation of feminism. This wave (I forget how many waves we’ve had at this point) started last year with Anne-Marie Slaughter’s article in The Atlantic: Why Women Still Can’t Have It All. Talk about backlash.

Cut to today. Marissa Mayer doesn’t identify as a feminist and is, I think, just trying to do her job. But she has been repeatedly criticized for not being a role model for real women, especially the working kind. Then we have Sheryl Sandberg a self-defined feminist starting a deliberate movement.

The criticism of Sandberg has been severe. She doesn’t understand real women. She’s judging us for not working hard enough. She doesn’t get what it takes to make it when you’re not the COO of Facebook (though I would argue that getting to that point in her own career means that she most certainly does get it). We’re picking her apart.

These new voices in mainstream conversations about feminism have a lot in common, which they talk openly about: they are wealthy, straight, attractive, white women. This is the same problem Gloria Steinem faced in the ’70s. Despite the progress Steinem made, she was accused of not understanding the plight of everyone else, of creating an elitist, exclusive movement dedicated to the advancement of a few. Sounds a lot like what people are saying about Sandberg’s book and social campaign, Lean In. Have we not progressed at all?

Once again, we are undermining ourselves because we don’t see ourselves directly reflected in Sandberg’s mirror. But, while our finances might look different, Sandberg argues that we all face the same struggle. In her recent 60 Minutes interview, she says that as women we all learned to downplay our accomplishments from a young age (hell, some of us were even encouraged to celebrate our alleged failures in song). Girls who displayed leadership skills were deemed bossy; as we get older bossy becomes bitchy. She notes that women hold themselves back to avoid these negative stereotypes. While we hold ourselves back, we also take down those women who don’t.

Sandberg is not saying, “Lean in and be me,” but she only has her own life experience to draw from. She’s saying, lean into your own life and ask for whatever it is that you want or need. And yes, it will be easier for women with supportive partners and good jobs. The best response, I think, to her advice about work is Jody Greenstone Miller’s piece in the Wall Street Journal: It’s about changing the structure of the American workday so that all people—parents and singles alike—can have a fulfilling life outside of work. Figure out a way to let people who don’t have Sandberg’s advantages leave work at 5:30, too.

There are many women (and men) just struggling to get by who might look at all of this and say, this isn’t about me. But it is. Feminism has long been about giving a voice to those who are silenced, and Sandberg has the stage. She acknowledges her status and said during the 60 Minutes interview, “Yes, it’s easier for me to say this, and that’s why I am saying it.”

It’s time we stop shooting the messenger and listen to her message. It’s time to stop saying, “I’m not a feminist, but of course I believe I deserve to have a place at whatever table I’m sitting at. I’m not a feminist, but I should be paid as much as my male counterpart. I’m not a feminist, but I think women are equal to men.” It’s long-past time to remove the stigma around feminism, stop creating barriers between each other, and get down to the real conversations about equality at work and at home. As long as we separate ourselves because of a word, we’re not going to achieve equality no matter how far in we may lean.

Image: Lean In

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