Peanut Butter Chickpea Blondies

Eating a healthy diet at home has been such a challenge! I’ve been home for less than a week and I’ve eaten a bucket of peanut M&Ms and about 10 pounds of dark chocolate by myself! I wish I was kidding. At school, I rarely bought packaged snacks because I knew there was no way I could control myself around them, but there is an abundance of chips, cookies, and candy in our pantry, and I just can’t seem to stay away from it all!

At least most of my meals have been pretty healthy. My mom always stocks the fridge with a variety of fresh, organic produce and dairy that I never buy at school because I’m too cheap. I love it! The other day I had Greek yogurt topped with chopped mango and kiwi for breakfast. And for lunch, I made myself a humongous salad with kale, carrots, tomatoes, cucumber, celery, and a hard-boiled egg. Yum!

I’m trying to convince my meat-loving family members to eat more veggies too. I put some raw kale on the table for dinner the other day and my dad asked, “What IS that?” with a very skeptical look on his face. Then I made these chickpea blondies for dessert and my sister told me she wanted to throw up (she’s a little dramatic).

I know that most people would agree with her after hearing that these blondies are made with garbanzo beans, but honestly, these blondies are REALLY good!! Obviously they’re not super sweet and buttery like regular blondies, but they’re still quite fudgey and delicious. Plus, they’re vegan, so you can eat as much of the raw batter as you’d like, which I think is even BETTER than the baked blondies. It tastes like Snickerdoodle Dessert Hummus!!

I ate wayyy more than my share of these chickpea blondies, and even my sister ate a couple after I told her that there were chocolate chips in them. She proclaimed them “gross,” but at least she tried them, right? Baby steps! 🙂

Chickpea Blondies

Source: adapted from Chocolate Covered Katie

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups chickpeas (1 can, drained and rinsed)
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• heaping 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup oat flour
• 1/4 cup natural peanut butter
• 1/4 cup chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease an 8×8 inch baking pan.

2. Place all ingredients (except chocolate chips and walnuts) in a food processor and process until completely smooth. Stir in chocolate chips and walnuts.

3. Scrape batter into prepared pan and spread evenly.

4. Bake in preheated oven for 35-40 minutes. Do not overbake.