Banana Ice Cream

Had a hard time getting a flattering picture of this stuff, but I can't emphasize enough what a delicious and simple treat this turned out to be.  Peel, chunk, and freeze3 ripe bananas in a freezer bag.  Place them in the blender with a 1/2 cup of soymilk to start.  Blend until smooth, adding a few drizzles of soymilk when the stuff starts to lock up on you.  The consistency is creamy, but it's basically a sorbet with very little added sugar and basically no fat.  I drizzled a touch of agave nectar over this serving and it was perfect!  A wonderful cold summer snack you can feel good about.

Black Bean Brownies...

...just as bad as they sound.  I thought I was going to be clever and bake brownies that used no flour and no sugar (just agave nectar).  Guess I had some unreasonable expectations.  This recipe comes from the Baking with Agave Nectar cookbook by Ania Catalano.

To the author, I must apologize for this post.  I must be missing something, but I followed the recipe about as well as I could and ended up with formless, overly sweet, and greasy lumps of dough that I could have used to sculpt a big gooey booger.  I'm pretty sure that's what the kids wanted to do with them.

When I eat a brownie, I'm always expecting some bit of chewy crunch on the outside, or at the very least a bit of cakey goodness that melts into fudgie gooey-ness in the middle.  This recipe certainly tasted of chocolate and no one would have identified the black beans, but the texture was all wrong.  Brownies just need some frickin' flour and granulated sugar.  Why are we kidding ourselves?  Good question.