Can Vegan be Tasty?

I am SOO lucky my kids have no allergies (not yet anyway) and my heart goes out there to the parents of kids who have allergies. No only do you have to worry about them in school, but if you like to cook you have to be able to find tasty recipes they will eat.

Thanks to a kid in my baby girls Empathy & Understanding class - put on by the Roots of Empathy program - I brought in cookies one day to find out a few vegan kids couldn't eat them. Not to shy away from a challenge I decided to find a good vegan recipe. A good friend sent me a vegan brownie recipe so I made vegan & non-vegan brownies. I have to say.... although I only had apple-pomegranate sauce, the vegan ones were not my favorite & I didn't blame a few of the kids who came up & asked to change theirs for the other brownie (they weren't vegan but had taken a vegan one to try). I know some adults said they vegan ones were good, but I think they were only being polite!

I am planning on trying another vegan recipe soon!!

Here is the brownie recipe:

1/3 cup melted unsalted butter (make sure you get the butter with no milk!!)
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
3/4 cup cocoa
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup unrefined sugar (suggested to half the sugar)
1 small ripe banana mashed
1 1/3 cup spelt flower
1/2 cup sunflower seeds, coconut, carob chips or walnut pieces (I used carob chips - quite good)

Preheat oven to 350F, lightly grease 8 inch square pan.

In a large bowl, beat all ingredients with fork until smooth and pour into prepared pan. Bake 1 hour or until toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean.