Brownies... Can they truly be "Deceptively Delicious"?!

Before dessert comes dinner. Tonight's "dinner" is a small one, served up after a 4-night/5-day trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico {sans kiddos!} to celebrate the union of two great friends, Bret and Sharon. {Ah... Vacation and the celebration of love!} It was an amazing weekend with every detail covered by the couple, I just wish my stomach would have let me enjoy it. {BAD tummy - Bad!}

On to "dinner". It's a small plate special - Some new, beautifully sophisticated, earthy fabric I couldn't resist. What to make first - Birds? Butterflies? Blankies? A custom order?

Another small plate... NEW TO THE SHOP: I've started making barrettes and clips for little girls hair! Sweet, simple, colorful. Stay tuned for pictures and some more details in a coming blog.

And now... Dessert!

Ever since I heard about them I wondered, How "delicious" are Jessica Seinfeld's "Deceptively Delicious {Spinach & Carrot} Brownies"? As a Dietitian I get asked about them quite a bit, however it wasn't until tonight that I actually tried them out.

You can find the recipe here. I followed the recipe exactly as I have never made anything like this before. First some pictures and comments. Then, my vote.

I had to puree my own spinach and carrots as I don't have those in pureed form hanging around my house now that my little darlin's are eating solids quite well. The recipe calls for 1/2c each of pureed spinach and pureed carrots. I found that to equal about 3.5 large handfuls of baby spinach and about 2 large carrots.

Maybe it was my Mexican tummy revisiting me for a moment, but the sound and look of these two hitting the bowl wasn't exactly tantalizing for me:

I think I let out a little whimper when I had to mix in the cocoa powder, melted semisweet chocolate {btw, there's 6 oz of chocolate chips in 1 cup}, brown sugar, "butter" {I always bake with Smart Balance"}, and vanilla extract.

This is what it looked like after adding in the egg whites and dry ingredients:

Hmmm... Don't you wish you could have licked the bowl?

Here it is, ready to go in:

And the finished product:

Not so bad... Not so bad.

But what does it taste like? Delicious??

The texture was *slightly* rubbery but the flavor itself was pretty good. I'll be honest - I wouldn't call these "delicious". That said though, I *did* finish my brownie and I think these would be awesome for kids! Their taste buds haven't been brainwashed for years by refined sugar and processed ingredients. DEFINITELY worth trying on the kids. It's late - I'll let you know what mine think of them tomorrow. 

I'm also going to try and make them again with some little tweaks - I'll share if they make a difference.

A random note to ponder: Every single person would enjoy something special done for them today. Don't wait to be asked a favor. Get out there and do something. (And if you can do it anonymously, even better!) What are you going to do?