Chickpea peanut butter chocolate chip cookies! (and a look into homemade kombucha)

Healthy cookies are never as good as real cookies, right?

Wrong.

While these will not fool you into thinking you are eating real cookies, they will satisfy you as a sweet treat that rivals those other unhealthy versions (and, psst....they are plant-strong and gluten-free!).

On a recent visit to Seattle, my friend introduced me to these and we ate them all within just a few days (and we may or may not have doubled the recipe.  Just sayin'....).

Recipe here at TexanErin

We doubled the recipe and followed it almost exactly, using agave nectar and dark chocolate chips.  Ours did not hold up together as well as the ones in the pictures on TexanErin, so I think next time I would add one more smidge of peanut butter to hold them together better.

These are certainly not low-calorie, but at least you can feel good about eating them since you are getting the benefit of the nutritious ingredients rather than eating empty calories in refined flour, sugar, and butter!  Blech!

Note:  I agree with TexanErin when she says that a regular blender will not work.  It won't....we tried it.  Our only alternative was an immersion blender, which worked to some extent.  It took forever!  So really:  use a food processor!

You basically just blend up all of the ingredients (except chocolate chips), stir in the chocolate chips, then form little balls with your fingers:

Bake at 350 degrees F for 10-12 minutes (while you wait impatiently.).  When ready, they will not look much different, maybe a little drier.  Remove them from the pan to cool, and eat!

Now that your mouth is watering over these attractive, sweet treats, let me warn you that this next random tidbit is the opposite of attractive and sweet.  While in Seattle, I also learned how to brew your own kombucha and it is not.pretty.  Easy, yes.  Pretty, no.

You basically just brew tea with distilled water, add sugar then let it cool, then add a scoby to it and let it sit in a glass container covered with a cloth for about a week.  The scoby is one heck of a fungus and it STINKS when it is not actively submerged in the kombucha.  Check it out:

The scoby is a fungus that ferments the tea into kombucha.  Each time you make a batch of kombucha, a new scoby grows (see the layers below).  This is often how people begin making kombucha, by obtaining a scoby from a friend who has brewed it before.

You have to let it ferment in a cool, dry area for a week or so, so sadly I was unable to taste the final product.  I have heard reports that it turned out quite delicious.  Here are a few more sites with more info, if you are interested:

http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-kombucha-tea-at-home-173858

http://www.culturesforhealth.com/make-kombucha

Yes, these are the types of things that my Seattle friends do on a regular night!  I love them :)