Black Bean Brownies Version 2

Made the Black Bean Brownies again yesterday. Changed the recipe a little in an attempt to make them less crumbly. The changes were mostly successful and the ones that weren't didn't hurt anything. The brownies were less crumbly and were moist and more melt in your mouth than chewy. They were not especially more chocolaty or sweeter. The peanut butter also was not especially evident, I could smell it more than taste it. All in all, I'd raise it about 1/2 point.

ec's Flourless (Black Bean) Brownies Version 2
Tags: Desserts, Snacks, Beans, Bake, Low Sugar
No flour and no sugar but still tasty.

Ingredients
15 ounce can Black beans
3 large Eggs
1/2 cup Butter melted
1 tablespoon Vanilla extract
2 tablespoon Torani Sugar Free Classic Caramel Syrup optional
1/2 cup Simply Jif peanut butter or your favorite peanut butter
1 cup Splenda
1/2 cup Cocoa
1/2 teaspoon Baking powder
1/8 teaspoon Salt
Cooking spray

Instructions
Preheat oven to 325°F.
Spray a 9" baking pan or one of them new-fangled brownie pans.
Put dry ingredients into a bowl and stir a little to mix.
Place the black beans, eggs, melted butter, vanilla extract, caramel syrup and peanut butter into the bowl of the food processor. Pulse a few times to start blending. Add about a quarter of the cocoa powder, Splenda, salt, and baking powder to the bowl, pulsing a couple of times before adding more, blend until smooth.

Bake the brownies for 30 to 40 minutes, or until they are set in the center. Allow to cool before cutting into squares.

Yield: 16 Servings

Version 2 change history: added 1/2 cup peanut butter (I used Simply Jif - 1/2 the sodium and 2/3rds the sugar), increased the Splenda from 3/4 cup to 1 cup, increased the cocoa from 1/3 cup to 1/2 cup, removed the walnuts (I'm just not that fond of walnuts baked into things. I love them straight from the package) and added 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder. Also added 2 tablespoons Torani Sugar Free Classic Caramel Syrup at the last minute, just because I've been looking for some way to use it up.

BigOven -- Easy to use recipe organizer for Windows

Lunching with Mr Bento episode 02

This is my second entry about Mr Bento and the lunches I put through him. My first one was the entry: Today's Lunch with Mr Bento posted September 9th.

First, who or what is Mr Bento? Made by Zojirushi, the Mr. Bento Stainless Lunch Jar (SL-JAE14) consists of a stainless steel, vacuum insulated, outer container with 4 microwaveable inner bowls, included is a forked spoon with snap-on cover and a zippered carrying bag. The size of the various inner containers are: Main Bowl 15.2 oz., Large Side Bowl 10.1 oz., Small Side Bowl 6.8 oz., Soup Bowl 9.5 oz. The company offers several lunch jars with this one being the largest. You can see how some people use it in the the Flickr group: Mr. Bento. I've added a Flickr Slideshow at the bottom of this page to make it easier for you.

My second Mr Bento lunch this month (Monday, September 13th) consisted of Blackened Chicken Strips on Pasta with Cajun Sauce from the BigOven recipe site. Apple sauce, the end of last week's Brownies, and some Blue Bunny No Sugar Added Reduced Fat Ice Cream Vanilla. I put the ice cream in Mr Bento's soup bowl and yes it does stay frozen. Well, it takes a little preparation and forethought but it can be done.

The Blackened Chicken on Pasta was good. Not 5-star but a solid 3.5. I may at some future time play with the recipe a little to make it more suited to my personal preferences. As mentioned above I found it on the BigOven recipe site. I mention this because recently, most of the recipes I've found really interesting I've found on TasteSpotting. This is sort of a best of the best food blogs site. Members of TasteSpotting submit images/links from around the web and the submissions are reviewed and the best served up complete with the most delicious images.  Everything there looks great, even the things I know I wouldn't like. I've added a Feed roll at the bottom of the column to the right for those of you who'd like to see the most recent additions to TasteSpotting's site.