I’m going to start out by fully disclosing that my goal this morning was to sell you on brownies made with sweet potatoes and now I’m just going to rush right into your next question:
WHY TF WOULD ANYONE WANT TO MAKE BROWNIES FROM SWEET POTATOES?
This is a poignant, pertinent, and sensible question in a day and age where we actively over expose ourselves to misery and conflict before breakfast. Brownies are supposed to be a sweet and sacrosanct treat. They are not supposed to be good for anything but your soul, and they do not need vegetables adding to them. But please, try to understand my madness.
I am easing into my second week of being abjectly horrified by how long it is taking me to bounce back from a small surgery and associated not-so-small infection. I’m tired, I’m teary, I feel constantly seasick and have already made about 35 typo corrections to this post. I’m sick, people, and I’m doing all the medicine and the resting and the hydration and I still feel terrible. I’ve read the advice, I know I need to be patient, pun thoroughly intended, but I also need to try to support my poor innards after the various offences of the past ten days. The goals, in brief, are anti inflammatory nutrition, and post penicillin binge gut flora recovery. That mostly means fibre.
Add to this a pending vising from my gluten free and insulin challenged mothership (hi, mum) and it would also be of benefit to have some treats on hand for her that aren’t going to make her sick too.
And finally, my good goddess, I am BOOOOORED! Sleeping is boring. This last season of Yellowstone is depressing. The ‘time to read’ notice on chapters from my kindle is putting me off the book I just downloaded.
I feel like cooking and I keep opening the freezer to see that bag of sweet potato and remembering an old attempt at brownies which went…….OK.
I did some googling, I found some recipe basics to work off with ingredients I had in the house. I sent out for a box of ready brek because seriously who has time to screw around making oat flour? Me, I do, but I really CBA.
This is where you expect the ingredients list, right? And a short but chatty method as to how you too can make these rank, savoury and quesitonably not-actually-that-healthy-healthy-brownies.
Well you’re wrong, much as I was wrong when I started out on this particular project.
I made the brownies. I smushed the sweet potato and sifted the cocoa and felt endlessly self righteous with the agave syrup. I giggled like a cartoon villain at the oat flour cheat. I mixed up the claggy, sticky mess and baked it for half an hour at 180. I let it cool a little and that first, still warm slice had a promisingly fudgy middle despite not crisping at all on top (lack of butter and real sugar?).
Friends, this brownie tasted the way that healthfood shops smelled in the early 90s. Namely like savoury, dry farts with a dying whisper of long forgotten chocolate.
What a waste of bloody walnuts.
So why am I telling you about this? Because you don’t need to fail where I did. You don’t need to take these frankly ridiculous paths into trying to make a baked good that might win you a couple of points with the Hemsley sisters. It’s silly, and obviously going to be awful. It’s like expecting a cauliflower pizza to hit the spot. It’s like ‘fasting’ for the nine hours you are asleep and expecting to drop two pounds by the morning. It’s not going to happen, but somehow we still nourish that shining drop of hope, against all sensibility, that maybe, maybe this time, those pricks on the internet were right. Maybe some gross wellness trend wont be gross and add to my unwellness. Maybe I can eat cake and be thin……….
Negatory, my good buddies. This shit is awful, and pedalled by people who want you to feel bad about yourself and give them money or follows or the soul of your first born kraken or whatever. We should eat well with lots of vegetables and avoid sugar for the most part and when it comes to the rare moments of the least part, just have a sodding treat. Not broccoli chips, not raw cacao infused cabbage water, not ice baths or collagen supplements from Mars.
We need to grow up. I also need to throw up now, so see you soon.
BTW I actually love broccoli chips, but you get the point.
Food. Boom. 