Meximart

Due to high prices, poor quality produce, and over a year of me bitching about it I finally broke down and started boycotting our local Genuardi's. It was convenience that kept me going back. It's right around the corner and takes me about 2 minutes to get there, while other grocery stores in the area could be up to 15 minutes, depending on traffic. But, life has calmed down a bit leaving me extra time and a clear head, so a few months ago I finally made the switch. I know buy our soy milk, OJ, cereals, canned foods, and other miscellaneous items at Target; hit up BJ's for bulk foods about once every 4-6 weeks; travel as needed to Trader Joe's and/or Whole Foods for specific health food items; and buy our weekly produce at a small farmers market with quality produce, seafood, and speciality items with very reasonable pricing.

The store is in a small shopping plaza and run by Mexicans (whom I am very found of in general) so I like to refer to it as the Meximart. It's a little bit of traveling from the house, but pretty close to my office so I switched up my shopping day and go on my lunch break to save on travel time and gas. I think they're starting to recognize me, which it's just one more reason to keep me going back. I also like the bit of randomness the place displays. They sometimes have strange varieties of beans and striped eggplants, other times heaping piles of heads of romaine, huge bunches of kale. And the registers are always lined with unusual chocolates, little treats and containers filled with dried fruits. Which is how I ended up with a container of coconut chips. At the time I not one single idea of how I would eventually use a half pound of chipped up exotic fruit, but something about the little neatly stacked display at the end of the register pulled me in.

Unloading the groceries at home, I thought...coconut cream pie. Probably because that's about the only thing I think of when I think about coconut. But I think that might actually be made with coconut milk? Anyways, yesterday in a random spout of cooking I had an inspiration and decided on a coconut layer atop a gooey, yummy chocolate brownie.

Gluten Free Coconut Deluxe Brownies

Prepare 1 boxed/package of gluten free brownie mix according to the directions and spread into pan.

In a separate bowl mixed:

one egg

1/2 C. sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 single serving all natural, unsweetened applesauce

Once blended add in 1/2-3/4 C. coconut chips and 1 C. all purpose gluten free flower.

Spoon onto brownie mixture and bake at 350....cooking time may vary (the brownie mix said 30-35 minutes and I ended up cooking mine for about 1 hr. 10 minutes)