My husband (bless his heart) is unwillingly but sweetly coerced into trying many of Nana’s vegan concoctions and is the kind of guest that every hostess would like to have in attendance. He not only tries everything he is served, he eats it all…whether he liked it or not. The only problem is, if he doesn’t like something she has created he doesn’t tell her and she makes it again another time. During one dinner we had Fried Chick’N patties, vegan cornbread with vegan “butter” and sweet potatoes. My husband asks his mother in law very politely what each item was as it went onto his plate…”this is soy protein wrapped in a spring roll wrapper and fried”. “this one is vegan cornbread so no eggs and the butter is made out of vegetables”. And so on. A few more items in he pointed at the sweet potato and she replied “it’s a sweet potato”. His adorable response “yes, but what is it really?”. Honey, it’s just a sweet potato.
But Nana’s not stupid. She knows he’s just being nice so she tries to make things that are as close to meat as she can get hahaha. Then one day she stumbled upon this happy accident. John loves brownies. And he loves the secret ingredient in this particular recipe. She tried it. She served it. He loved it. It has become their little secret vegan to carnivore affair. So much so that she even named her adapted version of the original brownie recipe after him. Isn’t she adorable?
So back to the brownies. You’re going to love these even if you’re not vegan or even know one. But if you are a vegan AND on Weight Watchers you will soooo thank Nana for this one.
John’s Brownies – 7 Weight Watchers Points Plus per serving (16 servings)
Ingredients:
- 2/3 cup water
- 1/3 cup pitted prunes (the secret ingredient!)
- 1 cup Enjoy Life All Purpose Flour
- 1 tsp Baking Powder
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1/4 tsp Baking Soda
- 1/3 cup quick cooking oats
- 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
- 3 ounces unsweetened chocolate melted (let it cool before mixing it in)
- 1/3 cup your choice vegetable oil (although olive oil is probably not the best idea!)
- 2 tsp vanilla extract (try to use real vanilla extract if you can)
- 1 1/3 cups Sugar in the Raw or other organic sugar (I think I’m going to try coconut sugar next time in a mini batch and see how that goes)
- 3/4 cup chopped walnuts (if you can’t have or don’t like nuts leave these out and deduct 1 points plus per brownie)
- 1/3 cup Enjoy Life Vegan Mini Chocolate Chips
- Smart Balance non stick spray butter flavored
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a 9″ square baking pan with foil or parchment paper. Spray with nonstick cooking spray. While oven is pre-heating place prunes and water in a microwave safe dish and microwave on high for 2 minutes. Set aside and let this sit for 5 minutes. While the prunes “soak” add flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda to a small bowl and whisk together until blended. Using a food processor or immersion blender (Nana prefers the immersion blender because she can control where everything is going) chop the oats until they are finely ground. Add the prunes with the water and process until very smooth. Add the cocoa and continue until smooth. Scrape the prune mixture into a large bowl. Add the chocolate, oil and vanilla and stir until smooth. Add sugar and stir until well blended. Then add in this order the flour mixture, walnuts, and chocolate chips. Scrape the batter into the pan you have prepared. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out moist but not wet or any crumbs. Let the entire thing sit on a wire rack until completely cool before you try to cut it. When cool remove everything from the pan using the foil or parchment paper and cut into 16 squares. WARNING! Cut them into the 16 squares…do not assume you can eyeball it and just sample with a spoon. I “sampled” my way through about 1/4 of a batch one time which had ramifications way worse than 28 points plus if you catch my drift 🙂
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