BLACK BEAN CHOCOLATE AND FIG COOKIES // RECIPE BY golubkakitchen.com

Here is comes – the third and last recipe our favourite organic/vegan foodbloggers put together for material girl’s current Sustainability Special. Today golubkakitchen.com‘s Anya Kassoff is sharing a dark dark (chocolate) secret with us!

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If you could have any anyone, really anyone, over for dinner, who would it be?
There is a Russian TV journalist, Vladimir Pozner, known for his progressive political views, clever documentaries and a thoughtful weekly talk-show. Despite the significant differences in age and upbringings, I always felt like we could be best friends.

When it comes to healthy and organic food, is there one particular ”rule“ that you really believe in?
I believe in not investing my money into irresponsible factory farming practices if at all possible.

ZUTATEN:
(ergibt 18 kleine Cookies)

1/4 cup raw pumpkin seeds or any nuts like almonds, walnuts, pecans, etc.
1/4 cup dark chopped chocolate – chilled
1 cup dried figs – stems removed and soaked for an hour
2 soft dates – pitted and chopped
425g (15 oz) can black beans, about 1 3/4 cups – rinsed and drained well, or the same amount of cooked black beans
1 small beet – peeled and finely shredded – optional
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tablespoons coconut oil – melted
1 tablespoon chia seeds
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
pinch of salt
1. Preheat oven to 190ºC. Grind the pumpkin seeds or nuts into a coarse meal in a food processor. Transfer to a large bowl. Grind the chocolate into tiny pieces, add it to the pumpkin seeds.
2. Drain the figs, reserve about 1/3 of them, chop and combine the rest with the beans, dates, cocoa powder, coconut oil, chia seeds, vanilla extract and salt in a food processor. Pulse several times to turn into a chunky puree. If you decide to use beets, add it at this time as well.
3. Add the ground pumpkin seeds and ground chocolate into the food processor. Process everything to combine well and transfer the mixture to a large bowl. Chop reserved figs, add them to the chocolate mixture and mix to combine.
4. With a small ice-cream scoop, scoop about 18 cookies on a parchment paper-covered baking sheet. Dip the scoop in water in between each cookie. Slightly flatten each cookie with a wet spoon. Bake for 15 minutes and let cool. The cookies are going to be very soft while still hot.
5. Keep refrigerated in an air-tight container after the first day. They keep well for about a week.

Note: I’ve also tried making these cookies with different types of beans – red, white and even chickpeas, and all work equally great.