The verdict...

Family Dinner Night was OUTSTANDING! The company was delightful, the soup was excellent, and the brownies were not too bad! Plus the weather was nice enough we dined alfresco - which is good because my patio farm house table seats 6 adults way more comfortably than our tiny indoor table.

THE SOUP: we made some modifications to the original recipe due to some food allergies of our "family" members. One friend is allergic to dairy and citrus, I am so sad for her! So, for the meatballs we left out the lime juice and served lime wedges on the side. And we substituted 1/2 a cans worth of diced green chilies for the pepper jack cheese. Another friend is allergic to avocados, like really REALLY allergic, so we didn't even slice into them. Can I just say... I LOVED this soup! LOVED IT! The most time consuming part was the meatballs but it was oh so worth it! I can see maybe making up a triple batch of them, browning them, and freezing the extra for another time. And maybe making the meatballs smaller too. They were 2 -3 bites each and a smaller meatb all would make for mour refined eating with company. ;-) I will definitely be adding this to our regular rotation of soups!

THE BROWNIES: these were ok. I made some modification to the original recipe. I substituted granular maple sugar for the white sugar. I like the deep but less sweet flavor of the maple sugar, and it is less processed than white sugar, which is something I'm trying to reduce in our diet. I also added some coffee extract which always helps in intensifying the chocolate flavor in my opinion.

So... what went wrong you ask? Well, I'm going to go back and measure my pan - I think I used a 9 x 9 instead of 8 x 8. The brownies were thin and a tad dry in my opinion and the size of the pan may have been the cause. I might try date paste as the sweetener next time instead of the maple sugar. Date paste should still give it that rich deep flavor, plus add extra moistness and more sweetness that most people expect in a brownie. That said, my husband said he liked them - he liked that they were less sweet and thus had a deeper chocolate flavor. And when I told him the were completely grain free and made with black beans, we was shocked.

CONCLUSION: make the soup. Tonight. I mean it. TO-NIGHT!! But take a pass on the brownies. If you are really curious, stop by my place, I have left overs you can try.  Although, I'm not done messing with the recipe. I'm going to see if I can make these work. You may see "Black Bean Brownies, Part Two" in the near future!

(Here is a photo of my husbands 2nd bowl. My 1st AND 2nd helping was gone before I remembers to take a picture, it was THAT good!)