Day 69 - 71, New Year

My plans were foiled today by a sick car.  Coincidentally my eldest son is in bed sick with a cold/cough and my youngest is at a friend's house...so I'm all alone. What's a girl to do?

Cook!

I've been wanting to try this Peanut Butter Chocolate Dessert Hummus recipe for over a month now and today seemed like the perfect day.  I decided to go one step further and bake them into cookies. I've pasted the recipe at the end of the post for you.

The verdict:

Hummus - Delicious. I love it. I absolutely cannot taste the chickpeas. This would be good with low fat graham crackers or even arrowroot cookies (my personal favourite), but since I had neither in the house, I ate it with a spoon. For the Weight Watchers out there, 1/4 cup = 4 PP.

Cookies - I got 30 cookies out of the recipe and at 1 WW PP, that is excellent. These cookies are clean, nothing processed or fake - and are even better than other baked peanut butter cookies I've made. My boys didn't even know the difference and these are way better for growing boys than store bought or even home baked with processed sugar, flour and peanut butter.

I absolutely love this website, The Wannabe Chef. This is the first recipe I've tried but they all look delicious and easy.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Dessert Hummus

Ingredients:

• 2 cups chickpeas
• 1/4 cup natural peanut butter
• 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 1/2 Tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1/4  cup mini chocolate chips 

Drain, measure, wash, and peel your chickpeas. Peeling them isn’t absolutely necessary but it makes for the creamiest hummus and really is worth the effort.(Note: I didn't peel mine and it came out quite smooth).


In a food processor, add the first 4 ingredients and process until the hummus is smooth and emulsified(the one thing no one wants for dessert is chunky chickpea pieces in their dessert).

Remove and lick the blade and fold in the chocolate chips. Move into a deep serving bowl and serve with graham crackers or baby carrots.

My cookie version:

Preheat oven to 350F. 


Spoon onto parchment paper on a cookie sheet and bake for 15-18 minutes. The tops will be slightly brown, but they will still look very soft and mushy.
Let them cool about 10 min on the cookie sheet then cool completely on a wire rack. If you don't let them cool, they WILL fall apart when you pick them up. They are slightly gooey and chewy on the inside, if you like them firmer, you could probably cook them a bit longer at a lower temp. They would look prettier if you use a cookie scoop!


Enjoy!