New Year Black-Eyed Pea Brownies

For 2016, I'm coming to terms with my extemporaneous blogger tendencies (again). Through much of this blog, I've shared recipe twists, mashups, full on reworks and a few failures from my kitchen. What happens in the kitchen is foil for life. So keep doing it I tell myself. My Super Critic is strict about about what actually gets published.

Bake Free or Die

For 2016, my inspiration is New Hampshire's license plate slogan. When it comes to baking, I must:
#bakefreeordie

The Old Man of the kitchen will blow the strict recipe clouds away!

Free of what, you ask? Not entirely free of recipes, but most definitely of the precision they command from so many. There are those of you out there who MUST make a recipe exactly the way it was written when you make it the first time. Out with that, I say! 2016 will be a year to live free and bake free (of exact recipes).

In that same spirit, I liberated this recipe for Black Bean Brownies into something more creative to fulfill our souls for the new year.

Black-Eyed Peas, for Luck

According to Southern tradition, black-eyed peas (really a bean) are a symbol for luck. One version of the origin of this meaning is that during the Civil War, Union soldiers left the peas alone when raiding crops during the war. It was by way of black-eyed peas and salted pork that the Confederate soldiers stayed alive--thus they became a symbol for good luck. More on that story.

I'm also invoking the soul food part of this story so that those in our nation who are experiencing injustice will see a righting of the scales in their favor in 2016. Yep, I'm talking #blacklivesmatter but also about anyone who is being treated unjustly. We must make these matters right.

Black-Eyed Pea Brownie

Brownie Photography Porn But... Who Hired these Actors?!

The photo is the first cut. I didn't change much but the recipe says, it's best to chill it before serving (I didn't so I'm paying a bad food porn photographer's price).

Here's what I changed from Unconventional Kitchen's recipe:
- Mixed in the chips it called for and then I added another 1/4 cup, approximately, on top
- Added half a roasted banana
- I used NO black beans; this is pure black-eyed pea, two cups worth folks
- The peas on top are just for decoration, not necessarily taste

I had the hubs taste it. He says it tastes strongly of peanut! After a small sample, I agree. No peanuts here, only my favorite brand of Coconut oil from a small, local company I've watched grow over the years into a size big enough to be now getting sold at Whole Foods:  Artisana Organics. Yay Oakland food companies!

Later today:  we'll see what the in-laws think!