I always stock my pantry with different kinds of chocolate chips and keep them in glass jars for snacking and urgent chocolate cravings. I figure it’s better than having on demand cookies and the little morsels are somewhat better for you— especially the dark chocolate 63% cacao kind, right? Anyway, I had a zucchini that was about to go bad and I stumbled upon a recipe at HummusApien.com that inspired me to make chocolatey brownies made with very few ingredients that are all pretty much staples in the pantry. See my recipe below for these easy, gluten-free brownies that only require one mixing bowl and easy clean up!
Ingredients:
- 3/4 cup Natural Peanut Butter
- 1/4 cup Honey (I used my dad’s that he harvests in our backyard!)
- 1 Zucchini
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup cacao powder
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 3/4 cup chocolate chips
- 1 tsp vanilla
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray an 8×8 inch pan with pam or butter spray.
- Shred zucchini with a cheese grater of some sort and make sure all of the liquid is used and place in the bowl. My shreds were about 1-2 inches and some of the big chunks I just tossed.
- Add peanut butter, honey, egg, cacao powder, baking soda, vanilla, and most of chocolate chips to bowl and mix.
- Put in baking dish and top brownies with the rest of the chocolate chips (or add more)!
- Bake for 20 minutes.
I was inspired by local grocery store chain H-E-B and how they have handled preparing for the COVID19 pandemic not only in advance, treating their employees with extra wages, making sure customers feel safe inside, curbside pick-up and delivery, but also their $3 million in donations to local nonprofits. They launched a campaign called #TexansHelpingTexans, and this is what inspired me to make these brownies for my friends who have birthdays in April that I cannot see! I wanted to do something besides donate money and support local restaurants and this is something I thought of as I love celebrating birthdays and wanted to be creative for those that won’t feel my love in person this year.
