Sunday, March 2, 2014

Chocolate Chip Bars - With A *secret* Ingredient

Chocolate Chip Bars - With A *secret* Ingredient

Now, I could just share with you a very good Chocolate Chip Bar recipe, but then you would not know what a crazy health junkie I am, and would further more not realize the extent I go to, to make sure everyone gets a healthy dose of veggies. Even if it comes in the form of a dessert. Oh and excuse the amount of recipe posts lately. I do realize I went from posting zero recipes, to suddenly all recipes! But in my defense, when cold weather moves in (it just so happens to be about 16 degrees outside at the moment and blowing sleet...) I get the "cooking itch", therefore I have been doing quite a lot of experimenting in the kitchen. ; ) OK, enough jibber jatter.

First off here is our "Tried and True" Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe:

 2 1/2 cups flour
1 t. soda
1/2 t. salt
1 cup butter 
1 cup honey
1 t. vanilla
2 eggs
2 cups chips
1 cup nuts (optional) 
I also added a handful of flax seeds, for an extra nutritional punch.

In separate bowls, mix your wet and dry ingredients, then add together and mix well. Then either spoon onto a cookie sheet, or pour into a buttered pan to make bars. Bake at 350F.


Some of my family likes nuts, the others don't, so I did half/and half.


Bake until golden brown.


You could use any kind of nut, but I still had a bag of walnuts out from the other day, since they were handy I used them.


Here is your daily close-up food picture:


 These bars turned out extremely soft, dense and oh-so-good!


Now, you may be thinking, this recipe isn't "un-healthy", but it doesn't exactly have greens in it neither.



HA!

That's what you think!!

 
I sure pulled the wool over your eyes!


For your information, THESE bars have....


an entire jar of sprouts in them.


Or to be more specific, wheat sprouts. 


Or another term for it is fodder.


I based this whole recipe around this jar of sprouts I had, that needed to be used up. Originally I sprouted them for the finches, Finton and Creamy, but they were only eating a tiny handful twice a day and these needed to be used up immediately before they past their prime nutritional content. So I blended them up with a little water and made a green liquid, then mixed that into my dough. I admit I was expecting these bars to turn out green, and the dough was in fact a pale green for a little while, but with some more mixing, it disappeared and the bars turned out delicious, and without any odd flavors. You wouldn't have even known they were in there, unless I had told you.
 

Hard to believe there are ground up sprouts in this bar huh?


Have you ever hidden any greens in your baked goods? How did they turn out?

Blessings - 

~ Aspen

7 comments:

  1. Haha! I love it!! Sprouts were the last thing I was expecting! *smile* They look delicious!

    You almost had a repeat of our "famous" green cookies *wink*

    ♥Kayla♥

    ReplyDelete
  2. I thought about you the whole time I was making these! BUT, I DIDN'T try and burn the kitchen down...unlike two dwarven sisters did....no names will be mentioned. *cough*

    ~ Aspen

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hehe! Clever woman! =) I'm thinkin' I need to add this recipe to our list.. =) I love it when you can put in odd ingredients that are you good for you but no one notices. =)
    And, now I am curious... dwarven sisters burning down a kitchen... hmm... maybe I shouldn't ask.. lol!

    ReplyDelete
  4. My mom used to put zucchini in the brownies and black beans in the fudge. To this day, I still don't think my brother knows. So don't tell him, pleez. And not about the parmesan cheese in the pancakes either. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sarah - Yah, about that. To make a l o n g s t o r y short, my dwarven brother..or sister if you prefer, had spent *quite* a few hours in the kitchen, about 13-15 hrs to be exact and we were defiantly sleep deprived. Anyway, we were baking like crazy hobbitsess, and left a top burner on and had thrown a towel down right beside it, and the towel was touching a box of matches. Not the best situation. But we caught it just in time and thankfully we DID not burn the house down, but we almost did. There, you asked, I told.

    Reyna - Paresan cheese in pancakes! Oh, do give me a recipe!! I've never heard of that before! I've been wanting to try black bean brownies for awhile. Maybe that will be my next kitchen experiment.

    ~ Aspen

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Okay, I'll email you. They are made with zucchini and almond flour - grain free. I'll have to find the recipe in my many files. ;)

      Delete
    2. Oh yeah! Thank You sweety!! I have neither almond flour or zucchini...but both of those items will be added our next co-op order. ; )

      ~ Aspen

      Delete