Black Beans & Brownie Mix? What?

Have you heard about these "healthy" brownies?  Stay tuned I made an attempt at them tonight.  First, recap of the day since breakfast.....

MORNING SNACK

-juicy plum & iced coffee  :)

The morning flew right along (yay for that) and soon it was time to venture home for lunch & to walk Reggie.  

LUNCH

I failed to blog about it last night, but the hubby called after his meeting and wanted to meet friends for drinks.... met them and we ended up at a restaurant where it was ladies night, 1/2 priced drinks & entrees.  So I figured I'd order a salad since I was low on greens at home. So today's lunch was.....

most of last nights mediterranean salad: field greens, feta, kalamata olives, artichokes

plus a few add-ins: left over sauteed onion & green peppers, slice of turkey, some walnuts and a couple of Wickles..... not bad

Trudged on through the work day and then hit the grocery store for appetizer fixings for tomorrow night.  I made THE most disorganized shopping list.... I felt like I was walking around in circles, it may have been one of my longest trips to the grocery store ever.  Oh and of course as I headed to my car I realized several things I forgot, but at that point I just had to get out of there!

I headed home, unloaded groceries, said hi to the hubby and had a snack. 

SNACK

The hubby surprised me with a request to go for a run!  He has been so busy with work lately he really hasn't been exercising much, so I was happy to go for a short run with him.  We did maybe 2 miles or so, which was a good start for him to ease back into running.  Put me down for a total of 7 miles today.  :)

After our run we were both HUNGRY, so we just heated up last night's leftovers..... dinner for me then was basically repeat of last night. 

DINNER

-flat out, chicken, cheese, greek yogurt and some salsa

And now the moment you have been waiting for......

Actually I may just have been in the dark on this one, I heard about it from a friend and then googled it and saw it was all over the place.......what rock have I been under?   

Can of black beans + brownie mix = moist chewy brownies?  what?

I had to try it out.  
Pureed the black beans, juice and all.... wasn't sure if I did them enough and then mixed them in with the brownie mix. 

End result.  I'm not 100% sold.  My brownie was still warm so I'll hold off judgement till they cool off...... and I get to try another.  ;)

Since I made some "healthy" brownies, I made some naughty cookies.....   My favorite recipe is from the King Arthur Flour cooking book.  They are the Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies.... and yes they involve corn syrup, bad bad bad.  But they test so good. 

See doesn't that look GOOD!

Meanwhile, I was also making a black been and tomato quinoa salad for tomorrow night.  Couldn't just have black beans in the brownies!   Unfortunately I realized the most recent plant I killed on the deck was my cilantro plant.... so I gotta pick up some fresh cilantro tomorrow with the other stuff I forgot at the grocery store. 

Its pretty though, huh?  Oh and even before I read the suggestions I opted not to do the butter & vegetable oil (what's up with that), instead I did 2 tablespoons of olive oil and that worked out well.

I am cookied & brownied out for the night....  gotta clean the kitchen and put everything away, then hit the hay.  I have kettlebell tomorrow, bright and early at 6 am.  

Have a great night!!

Britt