This one's for you, Tina! The brownies remind me more of a quick bread than an actual brownie. But, its still quite tasty and I'll make it again. Its a great way to use your farm share for those of you who don't like beets. Enjoy!

Chocolate Beet Brownies

These brownies are rich, chewy and secretly nutritious!

1/2 cup butter (or 1/4 cup butter and 1/4 cup applesauce)
4 oz. unsweetened chocolate
4 eggs
1 cup brown sugar (packed)
1 cup applesauce
1 tsp. vanilla
1-1/2 cup unbleached white flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. baking powder
1 15 oz. can beets packed in water, drained and mashed; or 1 cup cooked beets
1/2 cup finely chopped almonds
1/2 cup wheat germ

Melt butter and chocolate over low heat. Set aside to cool. In a separate bowl, beat eggs until light in color and foamy. Add sugar and vanilla and continue beating until well creamed. Stir in chocolate mixture, followed by applesauce and beets. Sift together flour, salt, spices and baking powder and stir into creamed mixture. Fold in wheat germ and almonds. Turn into greased 9x13-inch pan and bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes. Cool before cutting into squares.

Sorry about the paragraph form. It didn't look like that when I hit submit!

They sound really yummy, all except the beets, lol. I have a serious beet aversion from childhood. Don't ask. I wonder what I could substitute?

I think most of the point of these brownies is for people to eat beets. You can't even taste them. Apparently the richness and sweetness of the beets are supposed to complement the chocolate. But I'm not picky. I love beets, I love chocolate, it all works out.

I cleaned it up. I'm not sure why it did that. Maybe the original recipe was in MS Word. Sometimes it adds lots of funky formatting that doesn't translate well onto the web.

Anywho. I still need to try this recipe. I actually found another beet recipe I really like - it sounds weird. It's a Beet & Beet Greens Risotto. It took me forever to make it, simply because I had to keep stirring it while adding the stock. But it was worth it. Even my 3yo ate it and asked for THIRDS!

(For anyone not in the know, beets are my all time most hated veggie. In fact, I like pretty much all others. Since we get so many in our CSA share, I just have to find a way to like it.)

Yummy, you gotta post that risotto recipe. It sounds delicious!

So here's another beet recipe: Grated Beet & Carrot Salad

Equal amounts of beets & carrots, raw, shredded in the food processor. I also threw in a daikon, just b/c I had some.
Mix with a garlic clove, about a tablespoon of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and dijon mustard. Salt, pepper and tobasco sauce to taste.

Believe it or not its really good. It sounded so strange I had to try it. And it is quite tastey. The real test will be if Kaya eats it. Enjoy!

I just made these and we all liked them (especially when I added chocolate frosting!). DH said he could taste the "secret ingredient", but I call him a liar. The four year old liked them, even though he did notice some red bits and asked what they were. I told him "brownies". I was too lazy to puree them, but I imagine that would eliminate any tell tale chunks. Thanks for the recipe, Christy!

(When beets showed up in our CSA box, I was disappointed that they didn't have the greens on them. I wanted to try the risotto. I think we'll do a different CSA next year.)

I finally made these. I could also taste the beets. I pureed them even. I had to add a dark chocolate icing before I liked them.

It was a good thing to try, but I'm not sure I'll make them again... I would like to try the Grated Beet salad. I bet I'd like that. We're all out of beets at the moment.