Plant based brownies that you can feel good about eating

Did you know that you can grow brownies? I never tried it personally; however, I was able to use some leftover ingredients to create what I consider to be a very delicious plant-based brownie. 

Clean eating is not as hard as you think; it can actually be pretty manageable sometimes. Well, for me anyway, because I adopted a nasty habit of reading what's on the back of the boxes of some of my favorite, classic, old-school snacks. Oreos, Cheetos, and Taki's all contain ingredients I cannot identify, like Niacin, Thiamine Mononitrate, and Riboflavin. This scares me because I'm not a dietitian and shouldn't have to be a scientist to understand what I put inside my body. Don't get me wrong; I indulge in my favorite toxic desserts occasionally, but mostly in desperate situations — like when I'm stuck in the airport at 4:00 AM and have no other options.

At home, I have options. 

Before I understood how to use my options properly, I used to dibble and dabble with my childhood favorite, Duncan Hines. Duncan Hines was the GOAT of brownies from the 80s until I started reading labels, which means we had about a 25-year-run which started when I was elementary school. 

I whipped up my first batch in '89. Students in Baltimore City public schools used to get out half-day every Wednesday. That means we were released into the streets before most of our parents got home from work. We were latchkey kids with the responsibilities of letting ourselves in the house, feeding ourselves and not destroying the furniture before mom, dad, or both (if you had a two-parent household) came home. 

On most half days, I could be found playing basketball or football in Ellwood park with my friends, but on this particular Wednesday, I was starving. I don't quite remember all of my options; however, but we did have spaghetti. We always had spaghetti. Mounds of spaghetti.

My dad loved to make spaghetti as much as I hated it. Nowadays, parents like myself give our kids a choice. It is not strange to hear me asking my daughter, "Do you want noodles, chicken or would you like to go out to a restaurant?" But when I was coming up, you were getting spaghetti, and you better love it, even if you hate it. Lucky for me, no one was home to force-feed me dad's sugary concoction of noodles and Ragu, so I took it upon myself to climb onto the countertop, reach for the box of Duncan Hines, and make chocolate brownies for the win. I saw my dad and older sister make these, so I knew I could do it. 

Nine-year-old me didn't know anything about reading the ingredients back then. If I did, I would not have even been able to pronounce the Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid, and Carrageenan that the famous cake company uses. That likely worked in my favor because I dumped the entire box into a bowl and went straight to work. I mixed the Duncan powder with the required amount of eggs and water that I didn't measure. My dad didn't use a measuring cup, so I didn't need to. The only missing ingredient was vegetable oil. 

What's vegetable oil? I asked myself after reading the box and tearing my cabinet apart. We didn't have any, so I called my mom at work. 

"Phlebotomy, Phyllis speaking" 

"Hey Ma, it's me, what's vegetable oil?" 

"Vegetable oil? Why do you need vegetable oil? What are you doing?"

"Nothing, something for homework, and it says something about vegetable oil, but I don't see any here. Do we use that?" 

"We don't have any; we normally use Crisco." 

I looked at the blue can that read Crisco sitting next to our oven. It was grease used to fry chicken and then reused for fried chicken and then reused to fry fish, which may be reused to fry even more chicken. It stunk. That beige-colored goop had small pieces of particles floating in it before it became stiff from sitting and waiting to be used again. Crisco was beyond disgusting, and would probably make my brownies taste like old fish. 

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"Ma, that's gross; that can says vegetable shortening, not oil."

"Ohh boy, it's the same thing as butter or margarine. Now go do your homework; I'm busy."

We hung up. I would not touch that can of disgusting grease. However, we did have some Country Crock in the refrigerator. Ma said it was the same thing as vegetable oil, so I snatched it, put it in the microwave, melted it and added all of it to my brownie mix, making it lovely, thick, gooey and ready to bake.

And this worked! That first batch of brownies was maybe the best I had ever made in my entire life.

I continued to bake these brownies for years until I became freaked out about the weird ingredients. And then, when it came time for me to focus on health, I wrote brownies off in general . . . before realizing that making brownies or a brownie substitute is not difficult at all.  

My plant-based brownies are just as satisfying as Duncan Hines, even though they are not as sweet. The satisfaction comes from the fact that you can eat and enjoy them and you don't have to feel bad. Not to mention, they are simple to make and just as easy as the artificial store-bought stuff. 

If you have a sweet tooth, adding pure organic cane sugar is an option, even though I don't use them in my recipe.