Lauren's Ultimate Cookies

 A sweet friend sent me this recipe as a "must have" for our allergy journey. After tweaking it a little to make it work in our house with a peanut allergy it has become a staple in our home.  I couldn't agree with my friend more when she says these are packed with great things, and she doesn't mind the kids having them every day.  I encourage them often, sometimes even when we need a quick breakfast as we are running out the door.  

A few of the changes and why: I use almond butter instead of peanut butter, but I felt like that made them a little dry, so I added 1/2 cup of honey.  I swapped out the brown sugar for sucanat and lessened it to 3/4 cup.  Finally, with some controversy around xanthum gum (it being produced from wheat, soy or corn bothers me since H is allergic to 2 out of 3 possible sources) I felt safer using psyllium husks.

Let's bake!!

There are so many dry ingredients I like to gather them first, in a large bowl.  

2 cups flour

The gluten free flour mix used is 1/2 cup each oat flour and sorghum flour, 3/4 cup brown rice flour and 1/4 cup coconut flours.  (If your goal is gluten free you want to make sure all your oat products are specifically gluten free.) 

1 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp psyllium husks

3Tbsp shelled hemp seeds

2 Tbsp raw chia seeds

1/3 cup flax meal

 2 cups GF oats

1/2 cup oat bran

1 tsp sea salt

2 tsp baking soda

1 cup shredded unsweetened coconut

 In a mixing bowl mix the following:

1/2 cup coconut oil

1 cup almond butter

2 tsp pure vanilla

3/4 cup sucanat

1/2 cup honey

3 eggs (egg replacer also works if needed)

1/3 cup (or a little more if needed) water

Once these are mixed well, begin adding the dry ingredients.  Be warned the mixing bowl may run over!

 Add in 1/2 bag of chocolate chips and mix a little more.

 We make these very large cookies (my friend uses an ice cream scoop.)  The batch makes about 50 cookies minus the dough you happen to snack on as you roll the cookies out. 

 After baking 17 minutes at 350* they will be done.  Once they have cooled enjoy the cookie taste and the protein boost :)

New Go To Snack

New recipes have been filtering through our house for the last few months as we are becoming an "allergy aware whole foods eating family."  We have found many new things that are great and some that have flopped for one reason or another.  My flagged picture file is overloaded and my post drafts are multiplying quickly due to this whole experience.  Eventually I will get them all posted, but I have raved about this snack to so many friends and family that it has to break free from its holding spot. 

  I found the "Chocolate Power Balls" in the first cookbook I found that met all the food restrictions first placed on Haleigh's diet.  (It was like finding a life preserver in the middle of the ocean!)   I was sharing with my mom and sisters in one of our texting flurries this new recipe I was going to try. One of them asked, "What are chia seeds?" 

My response was simply, "I'm not sure I think I'll skip those."  Then I began searching out the answer to the question and found that a lot of the "power" in these Chocolate Power Balls comes from this seed I had only heard of when growing sprouts of some sort on a funny character shaped planter.

A quick search informed me that this is ... "an ancient superfood that is currently experiencing a renaissance... Chia is actually the Mayan word for strength...  it gives an incredibly sustaining surge of energy..." apparently not enough good can be said about this seed...

~high protein ~5 times the calcium of milk~high in potassium, iron, omega 3 and 6

~provides energy~boosts strength~bolsters endurance~levels blood sugar~induces weight loss~aids in intestinal regularity.  (http://www.rawreform.com/content/view/345/127/)

Needless to say we loaded up the car and headed to one of our local vitamin shops to pick up a bag.

Like I said, this was in the beginning stages of our journey so our kitchen equipment on hand required us to take a few extra steps but the results were worth every step and then a few. 

Begin by placing 1 cup of walnuts, 1 cup of cashews and 1 cup of pitted and chopped dates (I often use figs)  in a food processor and pulse until ground.  (We chopped them in the mini chopper and added them to a mixing bowl.) 

Add the rest of the ingredients:  1 TBSP chia seeds, 1 TBSP pure vanilla, 1/2 cup Enjoy Life Foods vegan chocolate chips (Obviously these are very special chocolate chips that are soy free, dairy free, nut free however, they surprisingly taste very good.  As long as your chips don't have hydrogenated oils they aren't so bad for you;) 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/8 to 1/4 tsp cardamom (I used nutmeg until I remembered to put cardamom on my store list) and 1 TBSP water or orange juice.

Mix it all up until the mixture begins to form a ball.  (If you are not using a food processor you may have to roll up your sleeves and use your hands to get it all mixed really well.)  If you are using a food processor it will look like this ...

Form the dough into about a TBSP size ball and place on waxed paper on a cookie sheet.  (Mark sure it will fit in your freezer though because that is the next step.)  Place them in the freezer for about an hour (or until you remember you put them in the freezer.)  Then you can pack them into lunches, pool bags, picnic baskets or just put them into a baggie and store them in the refrigerator for up to a week.  Although, they've never been around long enough to see a whole week in our fridge. 

Enjoy!!  
I promise we do, in fact there are some in the freezer right now!