Archive for September, 2008

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Menu Plan Monday Sept 29th

Sunday, September 28th, 2008

My mini pumpkins still have a few weeks to grow, but they look like they’ll be here in perfect timing for Halloween. They’re minis, so much too small to carve.

The food of the week is almonds, as chosen by Kimberly of Living Free.  Like Kimberly, I’m currently grain free again, which is a pain in the neck.  Enough said.  But I’m jazzed that she’s chosen almonds! I have a few almond recipes planned, and I’m quite an avid almond eater. I use almond meal and flour a good bit in my baking, and just pulled Apple date bars out of the oven, which are made with almond meal. My only complaint with almond flour is that it’s so dense and filling that I usually get full very quickly and can’t eat much of the final product.

This week, I posted my Daring baker recipe for flatbread crackers. They are super yummy, and I had a lot of fun making them! Another post was a recipe for a cross between salsa and guac, which was perfect on the crackers.
I also made Ricki’s Frosted Banana Bars into mini bites, which were delicious and adorable.

This weekend has been very busy, and much of next weekend will be busy, too. I’m teaching a gluten free class in Alexandria, which is always great fun, and I’ve been squeezing in time to volunteer to register voters, too. BTW, if you haven’t registered and you live in the US, NO EXCUSES!!!! um, unless you can’t vote for some reason, in which case, you’re excused. 8-) Anyhow, here’s the plan:

Monday:
Vegan
Apple date bars for snack
Quinoa with homemade basil (it didn’t happen last week)

Tuesday:
Chicken curry with papadams and a TBD veg
Happy Rosh Hashana: Apples dipped in agave/almond caramel (the closest I’m getting to apple in honey at this point)

Wednesday:
Roast turkey with celery in a chestnut sauce

Thursday:
Leftovers with sauteed fennel

Friday:
Thai inspired:
Chicken in a Thai Pepper sauce with broccoli

Saturday:

Here, fishy:
Halibut with parsley/hazelnut pesto


Cooking projects:
The apple date bars are still cooling, but hopefully they’ll be good
Agave “caramel” using almond milk

From my garden:
a LOT of tomatoes
peppers
lemongrass
celery
basil
assorted herbs

From the Farmer’s market:
Peaches–last ones!
pears
apples
kale
fennel

Posted in menu plan, weekend herb blogging | 3 Comments »

Crispy crackers: A daring baker challenge

Saturday, September 27th, 2008

This was such fun!  Many thanks to Natalie from Gluten A Go Go, and co-host Shel, of Musings From the Fishbowl for September’s Daring Baker Challenge. I haven’t had much in the way of crackers or bread in the past 4 or 5 years.  Something about not being able to have gluten, dairy, eggs, corn, soy, sugar, yeast, and made the idea of bread and bread products a little off-putting.  Crazy, I know.  And then came the really fun part: giving up grains for a while (long story).  What can I say, I’m always up for a good challenge, it inspires me to be more creative.

I don’t think I have ever had real lavash crackers so I didn’t have a good sense of what I was going for.  I decided to play with several ideas, and it was great fun.

After quite a few experiments, the crackers started to taste like…well, crackers. I could have precut them to make them more evenly shaped, but that’s not really my style. I thoroughly enjoyed them, and certainly do plan to make them again. I also made the Salsa-mole to go with them, but alas…I was having such fun eating the crackers that it didn’t occur to me to dip them until they were all gone! They are especially great if you are on a low glycemic, a low carb, grain free or no amylose diet, or South Beach kind of diet because they are tasty, and they aren’t very difficult.

Take 1: almond flax crackers

I barely got a picture of these babies before I gobbled them all.  I didn’t quite get the texture right, but the taste was yum. However, I wanted something much crispier.

Take 2: flax crackers:

I got a sheet of goop that was starting to burn.    Direct to garbage.

Take 3: hazelnut/mesquite/agave/cinnamon crackers
they smelled heavenly, but were way too gooky. I’ll have to work more on those.

Take 4: brazil nut/chestnut/sorghum crackers:

I played with these a bit. They very yummy, not quite crispy or thin enough.  If you want the recipe, drop me a line. But I really wanted to make a grain free cracker, so…

Take 5: my delightful, grain free, crispy, delicious crackers. 

2/3 cup canned or cooked garbanzo beans, washed and drained
1/3 cup chestnut flour
14 brazil nuts
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
2 Tablespoons of water, or until the mix starts to come together

3/4 teaspoon coarse sea salt
1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning

Wash the garbanzos well and drain off all of the water.  Put first group of ingredients in a food processor and pulse until the nuts disappear into the mix.

Add water 1 Tablespoon at a time. 2 worked well for me, but it may differ slightly depending on how moist the beans are and the size of the brazil nuts.

Line a baking sheet with parchment. Put dough on the sheet and put a second sheet of parchment on top. Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough as flat as you can. Refrigerate dough for an hour.

Preheat oven to 275, and Sprinkle coarse salt and herbs on top. Bake for 30-40 minutes, depending on how thick the dough is. Some “pockets” may bake a little faster than others.

I can’t wait to see what the other Daring Bakers did with their lavash crackers!

~from Cheryl’s kitchen ©2008. Please do not replicate without crediting/permission.

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Posted in appetizers, baked goods, bread, daring bakers | 12 Comments »

Salsa-mole

Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008

I was fully prepared to make guacamole, but there were all of these tomatoes and I was craving salsa, too. Problem solved: salsa-mole.

This made a great, quick, vegan lunch that I enjoyed most thoroughly! If you’re a big fan of cilantro, like I am, you may want to increase it. You can enjoy this on tortilla chips, crackers or just with a spoon. Yum!

Cilantro, or coriander, is a member of the same family as carrots, celery and parsley, and yet the neighborhood rabbits leave it alone. Come to think, they’re not too clever, they rarely munch on my garden. Usually they have grass instead. Hey, I’m not complaining but grass instead of veggies? You must be kidding! Now that the weather is getting cooler, I’ve planted some again and I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Many culinary traditions make good use of cilantro, such as in Mexican, Indian and many others. However, there are some misguided people out there that can’t abide the taste or smell. Regretfully, DH is one.

1 avocado, diced
2 Roma tomatoes, diced
1 heirloom tomato, diced
1/2 sweet pepper, diced
small shallot, finely minced, or a Tablespoon sweet onion
small handful of chopped cilantro
1 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
salt and freshly ground white pepper to taste
good squeeze of lime

Add everything together, mix and enjoy!

This is my weekly offering to Weekend Herb Blogging, the baby of Kalyn’s Kitchen. This week’s host is Cook (almost) Anything At Least Once is our host, and that’s a motto that sounds like fun. Her photos are stunning!


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Posted in main meal, recipe, side dish, vegetables, weekend herb blogging | 12 Comments »

Menu Plan Monday Sept 22nd

Sunday, September 21st, 2008

I didn’t do a menu plan last week, and I had to do a lot of last minute scrambling.  Lesson learned!  So here’s my plan.

This week’s ingredient is apples!  Thanks to our lovely host M-elle at Cooking and Uncooking. I love apples.  Since I grew up in NY, apples=Mc Intosh.  No negotiation.  I still eat Macs, but find that now I prefer apples better suited to VA.  When I’m in NY, I still love my Macs, though.  The plan is to make a good honey apple cake sometime between now and Rosh Hashana.  Given the whole gluten/dairy/egg/corn/soy/sugar free thing, it make take a few tries to get it right.  We shall see…

Last week I posted a recipe for my lemon poppy seed bread (or muffins), and also the winner for the fun give away I was hosting.  I also went on a baking binge of a sort.  I made some molasses cookies, a peach crisp, 7 layer bars and Karina’s Polenta Pear muffins (yes, I’m allergic to corn, no, they were not for me, and the corn meal I used was pretty icky, which is why they dodn’t turn out well.  The smell was awesome, though.).  Most turned out well, none turned out great, which is why you’re not reading more about them at this point.   And why, may you ask, am I baking like a madwoman?  Well, with my cranky ankle I can’t go out and canvass to register voters at this point, and people are a lot friendlier when you offer them a cookie or a muffin. 

Here’s my darling baby watermelon, too. I do understand that for most people “watermelon” does not usually follow the term “my daring baby” but that’s ok with me. Every year I grow them, every year, only one makes it due to storms, critters, illness, etc.

Monday:
Garden herbs:
Baked chicken breasts marinated in “garden goo” (a garlicky parsley rosemary marinade)
Roasted Asparagus

Tuesday
Vegan
Perfect Guac with crackers, tomatoes and red pepper slices

Wednesday:
East Indian
Coconut curry beef stew with roasted cauliflower and papadams

Thursday:
Home made pesto with quinoa or chicken (for DH)
Sauteed broccoli raab with pine nuts

Friday:
Grillin’
Grilled Buffalo burgers with herb-y peppers

Kitchen projects:

Roasting a gob of tomatoes
Banana mini bites, using Ricki’s recipe for Frosted Banana Bars

Sea’s Chai muffin-letts

Garden harvest:
Watermelon!
Tomatoes
Basil
Thyme, oregano, rosemary, etc.
Celery
Cilantro

From the market:

onions
peaches, last of the season
apples
pears
tomatoes
peppers

Posted in menu plan | 4 Comments »

Lemon Poppy Seed Bread

Friday, September 19th, 2008

Go gourmet with this delicious vegan treat! I gave a slice to a friend, and then I was out of town for a week. When I returned, I had 3 emails requesting the recipe! I’ve had gluten eaters come back for seconds.  This bread is perfect for brunch or a snack, and also works as muffins. It’s largely whole grain, and the Salba seeds lend a wonderful moistness. It’s gluten, dairy, eggs, soy, corn and sugar free and vegan.

I’ve been meaning to post this recipe for a while, and am so glad I got around to it.  It won the Gluten Intolerant Groups‘ (GIG) Healthy recipe contest, and it is quite yummy.

There are a lot of different flours in it.  I suspect that you could substitute most of the flours with an all purpose GF mix, though I don’t know if the rice bran would sub well.  If you try it, please let me know!

Salba gel
1 T whole Salba seed
¼ cup water

½ cup + 2 Tablespoons brown rice flour
½ cup sorghum flour (or teff flour)
½ cup almond meal
¼ cup rice bran
¼ cup sweet rice flour
¼ cup tapioca flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 Tablespoons poppy seeds

2 Tablespoons honey (or agave, for vegan version)
¾ cup orange juice
¼ cup canola or olive oil
¼ cup agave nectar (or 1/3 cup sugar and 2 Tablespoons honey)
Zest of 1 lemon
2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Line a 9X5 inch bread pan with parchment paper overhanging the edges. Preheat oven to 350º.

Combine Salba seed and water, in a small bowl, set aside. Combine all flours and starches and mix well, eliminating any lumps. Add in poppy seeds.

Zest lemon before juicing. Combine honey and warm orange juice. When well mixed, add in oil, agaves nectar, Salba gel, and lemon juice and lemon zest.

Mix wet and dry ingredients and stir until everything is combined. Bake at 350 for approximately 50 minutes, cover after 30 minutes to prevent over-browning. Check for doneness with a toothpick.

Allow to cool on a drying rack, and remove with parchment paper “handles” after 5 minutes to prevent a soggy bottom. Cool completely on drying rack.

Serve and accept compliments.

Makes one large loaf, or two 5X3 loaves or muffins.

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Posted in baked goods, bread, recipe | 5 Comments »

And the winner is….

Tuesday, September 16th, 2008

First, the winner!  I’m delighted to say that a long time Internet buddy, Brenda Lee, won the goodies.  Congrats, Brenda Lee!  For those of you who don’t know her, she’s the list mom for the GFCF yahoo group, one of the most knowledgeable people on the GF diet and baking that I’ve EVER met (and that’s saying a LOT!) and an all-around fabulous gal.

So many people asked about Salba and chia that I’ve linked to 2 articles I wrote for the Gluten Intolerance Group (great group, BTW!) Hopefully that’ll clear up a few questions.

Baking with Chia

Chia: A GF superstar

Here’s also a list of my recipes that use Chia or Salba.

Banana Mac Chip Cookies (GF, CF, EF, SF, low sugar and vegan)

Black Sesame Whole Grain Bread (GF, CF, EF, SF, sugar free and vegan option)

Carrot Muffin Cakes (GF, CF, EF, SF, sugar free and vegan option)

Brazil Nut Brownies (GF, CF, EF, SF, sugar free and vegan)

Nanaimo Bars Redux (GF, CF, EF, SF, sugar free and vegan)

Turkey Garden Burgers (GF, CF, EF, SF, sugar free)

Posted in news | 6 Comments »

Luscious Banana Bread

Friday, September 12th, 2008

My in-laws came to visit, leaving me with an overabundance of bananas. Later that day, a friend gave me a jar of orange blossom honey, with the theory that since I bake so much, surely I’d use it. Well, I rarely bake with honey, most of it goes to DH’s tea. But honey has such a lovely flavor, and as I eyed the bananas and honey sitting side by side, I thought, bring on the banana bread!

This is a particularly dessert-y banana bread, and sweeter than many of my baked goods. It’s quite different of my very favorite banana creations, my Nana Skillet bread, which has a much more mellow flavor. I was actually surprised at how it came out because there was a pretty modest amount of sweetener, but a little honey goes a long way! Especially if you’re using super ripe bananas, the chocolate chips are totally optional. As impossible as it sounds, I think I put in too many! Next time I’d likely leave them out all together or only use 1/4 a cup (I used 1/2 cup). Like all of my creations, this is delightfully gluten, dairy, egg, soy and corn free, and can easily be vegan by using agave and cane sugar free by eliminating the chips or using cacao nibs. It’ll thrill your honey for sure. Both loaves and the cake were devoured and enjoyed by gluten eaters and non gluten eaters alike.

I favor mini cakes and loaves in general because they’re so darn cute, and I can also gift them to different people. Rather than doing a big loaf, I used 2 mini loaf pans and a mini bundt (2 mini loaves and 2 mini muffins would also have worked quite well). I assume a standard loaf pan would work, too.

I used the GF flours I had on hand. I used almond meal because I wanted to use healthy fats from real food, like the flax and almond, rather than butter or oils. I’m sure any mix of whole grain gf flours would work, and would suspect wheat flour would work, too.

And just so you’re forewarned, the honey turns the bread a deep yummy brown. Don’t be afraid, though, it didn’t burn.

1/2 cup almond meal
1/4 cup brown rice flour
1/4 cup teff flour
1 rounded tablespoon mesquite flour(optional, or add carob or more almond meal instead)
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of cinnamon
pinch of fine sea salt
2 overripe bananas
1 rounded tablespoon ground flax
1/3 cup sparkling water
1/2 cup honey
1/3 cup chopped pecans
1/4 cup chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350. Line pans with parchment for ease of serving and cleanup. Stir flax into the sparkling water and set aside for a few minutes. Mix dry ingredients thoroughly. Mash the banana until you’ve got mush. Combine it with the honey, add the flax mix and stir thoroughly. Briefly combine dry ingredients and honey mixture and add in chopped nuts, mix until just combined.

Put into preheated oven. Bake for 30 minutes at 350, then cover with foil and turn down to 325. A mini bundt was done in 30 total, but the small loaves took close to an hour.

This is my submission for Weekly Herb Blogging. It may sound like this wouldn’t fit, because Kalyn’s rules for WHB state unusual fruits or veggies, and bananas are certainly run of the mill! But did you know that bananas are technically herbs, and not fruit? Well, they’re really the fruit of an herb, so that should count.

Our host is Gretchen from Canela & Comino, who has quite a range of global dishes in her recipe section. I must say, I spent far too long looking through the archive!

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Posted in baked goods, dessert, recipe, weekend herb blogging | 12 Comments »

Hundred list…

Tuesday, September 9th, 2008

Ok, I couldn’t resist. Here goes! This is supposed to be a vegan 100 list, which I saw on Veggie Girl’s site (and many others) but many of the things are animal based, so color me confused. I counted something whether I had the meat based version or the vegan one. I was surprised that I’d tried so many, given all my allergies. If you’d like to do it, here are the instructions:

1) Copy this list into your own blog, including these instructions.

2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.

3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.

4) Post a comment here once you’ve finished and link your post back to this one.

5) Pass it on!

1. Natto
2. Green Smoothie
3. Tofu Scramble allergic
4. Haggis um…no.
5. Mangosteen Hopefully soon!
6. Creme brulee
7. Fondue
8. Marmite/Vegemite
9. Borscht I think so…not sure.
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Nachos
12. Authentic soba noodles
Super yummy. Yay buckwheat!
13. PB&J sandwich seriously? who hasn’t eaten pbj?
14. Aloo gobi
15. Taco from a street cart
16. Boba Tea
17. Black truffle allergic
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Gyoza
20. Vanilla ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Ceviche
24. Rice and beans
25. Knish -heck, I’m a jew from NY, whaddya expect?
26. Raw scotch bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche one of my very favorite drool foods from my years in CA
28. Caviar
29. Baklava probably the last non-gf food I’ve made. I miss making these and I miss eating them even more!
30. Pate
31. Wasabi peas—which I promply spit out, so I’m not sure if that counts
32. Chowder in a sourdough bowl do I get extra points for eating my chowda in Boston?
33. Mango lassi love these…
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Mulled cider =I make some every year
37. Scones with buttery spread and jam
38. Vodka jelly
39. Gumbo
I make an amazing gumbo, if I do say so myself.
40. Fast food french fries - I still occasionally have a few when I can find them GF
41. Raw Brownies
42. Fresh Garbanzo Beans
43. Dahl
44. Homemade Soymilk allergic
45. Wine from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more-wine is wasted on me. Double for expensive wine.
46. Stroopwafle
47. Samosas
48. Vegetable Sushi
49. Glazed doughnut
50. Seaweed
51. Prickly pear- I plan to have one very soon!
52. Umeboshi allergic
53. Tofurkey allergic
54. Sheese
 ok, I miss cheese and all, but fake cheese scares me.
55. Cotton candy
56. Gnocchi
57. Piña colada
58. Birch beer
59. Scrapple um, no. just no.
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores!
62. Soy curls allergic
63 Chickpea cutlets
64. Curry
65. Durian
66. Homemade Sausages
67. Churros, elephant ears, or funnel cake—and then I promptly went on one of those rides that go upside down and let’s just say all didn’t end well.
68. Smoked tofu-years ago at Moosewood. One of the only ways I liked tofu.
69. Fried plantain—me gusta mucho!
70. Mochi
71. Gazpacho
72. Warm chocolate chip cookies - warm is the best way to eat a cookie, in my opinion
73. Absinthe
74. Corn on the cob
75. Whipped cream, straight from the can I think I had it more straight from a can than any other way!
76. Pomegranate–let’s just put it this way, I have to schedule teeth cleanings at the end of pom season because I have so many pom stains.
77. Fauxstess Cupcake
78. Mashed potatoes with gravy
79. Jerky
80. Croissants
81. French onion soup
82. Savory crepes
83. Tings
84. A meal at Candle 79
85. Moussaka -
86. Sprouted grains or seeds
87. Macaroni and “cheese”
88. Flowers
89. Matzoh ball soup
90. White chocolate
91. Seitanallergic
92. Kimchi
93. Butterscotch chips
94. Yellow watermelon I’ve even grown one!
95. Chili with chocolate
96. Bagel and Tofuttiallergic
97. Potato milk
98. Polentaallergic
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Raw cookie dough heck yeah!

Posted in about | 14 Comments »

Menu Plan Monday September 8th

Sunday, September 7th, 2008

Another week, another menu plan.  I enjoy the planning because it helps me mentally organize, but usually, things don’t happen according to plan.  The days switch, something isn’t at the market and it gets bumped back, I opt for leftovers…but almost all of it happens in some form or another.

The past week was a busy one in the kitchen for me.  I made Banana Macadamia Chip cookies and Choco-cocoa clusters for my adoption/adaption of 101 Cookbooks.  I also posted one of my all time favorite recipes, Grilled herbed peppers.  DH got a beautiful birthday cake, which I will post soon…

Long story short, it’s a good time for a simple week in the kitchen.

This week’s food is tomatoes!  It’s a great time of year for them.  I went a little tomato overboard with the Roasted Tomato and Caramelized Onions soup, and I slow roasted a bunch this weekend, too.  Since I’ve been meaning to make Natalie’s Bombay Chicken for quite some time, so that works perfectly.

Monday:
East Indian inspired
Bombay Chicken (with adaptions for dairy, corn and alcohol free)with roasted panch poron cauliflower and papadams

Tuesday:
Vegan:
Steamed broccoli with a Malaysian brazil nut butter sauce

Wednesday:
Easy:
Roast turkey with sauteed fennel and celery in a chestnut sauce

Thursday:
Leftovers for E, tomatoes and avocados for me.

Friday:
Vegan
Quinoa in a lemony thyme broth
Crispy kale Chips

Baked good:

There is currently a chocolate overload in the house (strange as this may sound) There’s a Chocolate orange cake and chocolate covered orange peels, so I’ll be sticking with something savory, most likely Hazelnut flatbreads

From my garden:
Tomatoes
Peppers
Parsley
Thyme
Ground cherries
Garlic (frozen from my garden)

From the market:
Onions
Kale
Fennel

Posted in menu plan | 6 Comments »

101 Cookbooks: an adoption and an inspiration

Saturday, September 6th, 2008

101 Cookbooks meets 101 allergies…not quite, but sometimes it feels like it!

I love Heidi’s blog, 101 Cookbooks. One of the things I like best is Heidi’s inventive use of non-gluten grains and flours, like teff, millet, amaranth, and my favorite, mesquite. It’s cooking and baking for people who love good, real, unprocessed foods. Rather than specialty gluten free foods, her site often features great foods that just happen to be gluten free. The pictures are gorgeous, and each is a work of art in itself. Not only that, she has a real, fresh, approachable way about her writing which makes it feel more like an intimate conversation. And the occasional post on social consciousness? It makes me miss my Berkeley days.

Her cookbook, Super Natural Cooking, is among one of the most food stained in my kitchen, which for me is a sort of cookbook rating system.  8-) Some recipes are gluten free, some aren’t, but most are pretty adaptable to GF. It’s worth getting just for the discussion of flours and grains!

I’ve made quite a few from the website and the book, with my favorite being a gluten/dairy/egg/soy free Chocolate Coconut pudding. There is a list of GF recipes on the site, but don’t limit yourself! There are quite a few GF recipes that aren’t tagged as GF.

I “adopted” Heidi, because she’s one of only a handful of mainstream bloggers who aren’t gluten intolerant that choose to make a point to cater to GF folks and have a GF tag.  So thank you, Heidi, both for the GF recipes and great ideas.

For my adoption, I made the Choco coco clusters. They were amazing! I was first introduced to the concept of salt and chocolate by Sally. I tried it, and thought it was interesting, but I wasn’t sure if I actually liked it. But this adoption was my excuse for getting a smoked salt, and the pairing of smoked salt and the deep rich chocolate was just incredible. I did half a batch with almonds, as per the recipe, and use toasted brazil nuts for the other half. Next time I’d maybe add in some orange peel? Both ways were really amazing.

And for the inspiration…

when I read Heidi’s recipe for Banana Chip Cookies, I couldn’t get them out of my head. Banana chips in cookies?   Yes, most of the ingredients were off limits for me, like the wheat flour, eggs, sugar, butter, etc. but I was determined to pull together a gluten free, whole grain, vegan, dairy/egg/corn/soy free version with little sugar.

I’m delighted to say, mission accomplished! It took a few tries, but hey, the experimentation process was delicious.  And these were absolutely incredible. I used macadamia nuts, which gave a total buttery richness, and sweetened them with agave. People who ate them wanted more, and this was by far the best chocolate chip cookie I had since going GF (and everything else free). The only downside is that an egg free dough means you’ve got no good reason not to just eat it raw…

I didn’t use a binder because I didn’t think it was necessary. Personally, I find xantham a off putting (ya know, something about casings of bacteria and all). They stay together just fine as long as you chill them and keep them small.  But if you want bigger cookies or don’t want to chill them, just add in your favorite binder, like xantham or guar or a little chia seed.

Though I had to change a bunch of elements, the spirit of Heidi’s remains in the whole grains and banana chips.  I never would have thought to put them in a cookie on my own!

Also–I use a spoon-in method rather than sweep and dip, meaning you spoon the flour in one spoon at a time. I don’t know what effect, if any, doing it the other way would have on a final product.

Banana Mac-Chip cookies

3/4 cup sorghum flour
1/2 cup ivory teff flour
1/4 cup arrowroot starch
1/4 cup sweet rice flour
1/4 cup flaxseed meal
1 tablespoon mesquite (or 1 more tablespoon teff)
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
scant 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
1 rounded teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder

1/3 cup coconut oil
3 Tablespoons macadamia butter or cashew mac butter
1/2 cup agave
2 Tablespoons of molasses
2 Tablespoons vanilla
1/3 cup sparkling (bubbly) water

1 cup (measured pre-chopped)  macadamia nuts, lightly toasted and salted
2/3 cup banana chips
2/3 cup chocolate chips (dairy and soy free)

Chop macadamia nuts and banana chips.  I finely chopped about 1/3 of them, and left the rest coarsely chopped.  Chop banana chips.

Mix dry ingredients together thoroughly. Cream the coconut oil, nut butter and sweeteners, then add vanilla. Mix wet and dry, add in the bubbly water and add ins. Chill for 30 minutes.

Put walnut sized mounds on a silpat or parchment about 2 inches apart.   Bake at 350 for 8-9 minutes or until they start turning a yummy golden brown.

LET COOKIES COOL COMPLETELY before moving them, or they will definitely crumble.  Ideally, you’d wait 15 minutes before moving/eating, but the broken ones don’t count, right?

The adoption/adaption of Heidi’s recipes and 101 Cookbooks is part of “Adopt a GF Blogger”, as hosted by Book of Yum.  Many thanks to Sea for starting and hosting this event. 

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Posted in baked goods, dessert, recipe | 18 Comments »

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