Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

One of my vegetarian clients, Andrea, just sent me this delicious recipe for cookies that my family loves. I’m enjoying them right now with a cup of my favourite Bengal Spice tea! I wanted to share them with you so that you might be able to enjoy making them over the holidays. I have no idea where she found the recipe, so my apologies to the original creator.

1 14oz can organic chick peas (I used Eden Brand- drained)

¾ cup almond butter (if you use a 19oz can of chick peas, use 1 cup of nut butter)

3 tsp vanilla extract

Pinch sea salt

1 tsp baking powder

¼ cup maple syrup (I used a little less and it was sweet enough for us)

In a food processor, blend all of these together until smooth. Then pulse in 1 cup of chocolate chips. On a parchment paper lined baking sheet, drop a tablespoon of batter and flatten slightly with a fork.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 15 minutes or until the cookies start to show little cracks. Enjoy immediately!

Merry Christmas to everyone – relax and enjoy your time off.
Love and laugh out loud.

Just made the most delicious dinner from Fine Cooking magazine (p 12 of Cookfresh Spring 2012 issue). Grated carrots, zucchini, mint and lime with spicy peanut noodles – what a tasty meal. Serves 4 easily (actually could serve 6).

1/2 lb. dried 1/4-inch-wide rice noodles (try and find brown rice noodles for more fibre)
2 tsp. coconut oil
3/4 lb. ground turkey (you could easily forget the meat)
1 Tbsp tamari

Sauce
1 Tbsp sesame oil
1/2 cup crunchy natural peanut butter (no added sugar)
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1 1/2 Tbs. fish sauce
3 Tbs. warm water

1 or 2 fresh jalapenos, finely chopped (seeded if you like)
2 medium carrots, grated
2 small zucchini, grated
2/3 cup coarsely chopped fresh mint
juice of 1/2 lime

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the rice noodles and cook, stirring often, for 5 minutes until just tender. Drain and rinse with cold water, leave to drain in colander.

Meanwhile grate the carrots and zucchini and chop the mint and peppers. Set aside.

In a small bowl, whisk together the peanut butter, vinegar, fish sauce and 3 Tbs. warm water until smooth. Set aside.

In a large skillet, cook the turkey in the coconut oil over medium-low heat. When just cooked through (about 6 – 8 minutes) add the tamari. Then stir in the rice noodles, sauce and vegetables. Add the juice of 1/2 lime and serve.

Garnish with lime wedges (from the other 1/2 of the lime!).

This was delicious served with a mango salad.

I have a theory, and I may be thrown under a moving bus for this, so hang on. As a society, we focus too much on eating grains. At Nature’s Emporium we have constant requests for how to heal stomach problems – like colitis, Crohn’s, Celiac disease, IBS – as well as inflammatory diseases – like arthritis, asthma, cancer. Everybody wants to know about Gluten-Free Diets.

 Here’s my theory: the solution is not to find out about which grains are Gluten-Free, but to change the focus from a grain-centered diet, to a vegetable and fruit-centered diet. Yes, we do need the complex carbohydrates that grains offer our diet. As a result, learning about which grains are gluten-free is important, and I’ll list them below for you in a minute. But when we start telling ourselves and the people around us that we are “on a Gluten-Free Diet” we’re out of focus!

From my quick research online, and my own knowledge and experience, there are 9 gluten-free grains:

• Rice – white, wild or brown (white rice has been milled – that is the husk, bran and germ have been removed. Since these are where most of the nutrients in a grain are found, white rice has little nutritional value. There’s lots more information about rice on the Lundberg  site, as well as the Livestrong  site.)
• Millet
• Quinoa – white and brown (or red)
• Corn (though it’s really a vegetable)
• Teff
• Amaranth
• Buckwheat – includes Kasha which is roasted Buckwheat
• Montina – otherwise known as Indian rice grass
• Sorghum

• Oats – It had been thought that the actual grain contains no gluten, but is often processed with gluten-containing grains and picks up residual gluten. However, recent research has indicated that a protein naturally found in oats (avenin) possessed peptide sequences closely resembling wheat gluten and caused mucosal inflammation in significant numbers of celiac disease sufferers. (Source: Arentz-Hansen, Helene; Burkhard Fleckenstein; Øyvind Molberg; Helge Scott; Frits Koning; Günther Jung; Peter Roepstorff; Knut E. A. Lundin; Ludvig M. Sollid (2004-10-19). “The Molecular Basis for Oat Intolerance in Patients with Coeliac Disease”. PLoS Medicine (PLoS Medicine) 1 (1): e1. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0010001. PMC 523824. PMID 15526039. http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0010001. Retrieved 2006-07-22. )

You can make a delicious bean spread from any beans you have available. And they only take a few minutes to put together. If you use canned beans, choose unsalted, organic brands like Eden Organic.

The main components of a bean spread are:

• beans – what you have cooked, or in your pantry
• nut butter – tahini, almond nut butter
• olive oil
• garlic – my personal opinion is that you can never have too much garlic as long as your partner has some too!
• seasoning – herbs and spices that compliment the beans you have on hand and the vegetables you choose to add – this is where you need to know what tastes good with what, or you can go online and research what combinations have already been tried
• salt
• lemon juice
• vegetables – this is where I use up leftovers, especially slow roasted sweet potatoes, squash, red peppers or eggplant

Great Northern Bean & Roasted Sweet Potato Spread

Yes, that’s what we had in the fridge and pantry to go with the Arrowroot crackers we were experimenting with. Oh, that’s how this all started. Sherri and I were starting to go through the recipes we’re compiling for the Holistic Cooking Academy (moving in upstairs at Nature’s Emporium soon) and we found the recipe for Arrowroot Crackers that follows. Since you HAVE to have a delicious spread to cover such wonder, we whipped this up for you.

1 can                            Great Northern Bean (Eden brand)
2 Tbsp                          tahini
2 Tbsp                          olive oil
2 Tbsp                          water
1 clove                         garlic

½ cup                           roasted sweet potatoes (skins removed)
1 tsp                             curry powder
½ tsp                            kelp salt
½ tsp                            paprika
½ tsp                            cumin 

1. In a food processor, combine the first 5 ingredients until they reach the desired consistency of a bean spread (thick – but not too thick because it will break your crackers!).
2. Add second group of 6 ingredients and process until smooth.
3. Enjoy with some delicious crackers – like the Arrowroot crackers.

Sherri Doak and I will be teaching how to make the following Gluten-Free Arrowroot crackers in the Gluten-Free Baking class in September at Nature’s Emporium.  But until then, you can try them out yourself. Here’s the recipe.

Arrowroot Crackers

1 tbsp ghee or clarified butter
1/2 cup light bean flour (like chick pea)
1½ cups arrowroot flour
1 cup  almond meal
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp  salt with trace minerals
¾ cup purified water – warm
1 tbsp. honey
1 tsp  thyme
½ tsp  basil

Parchment paper
1 egg
1 tsp toasted sesame seeds or black onion seed
½ tsp dulse

 1.  Prepare the batter. Melt butter in a small dish in a low oven. In a medium-sized mixing bowl, mix flours, almond meal, baking powder, thyme, basil and salt. Mix warm water and honey and add to dry ingredients. Add melted butter, and stir, and then mix gently to form moist dough. Turn on oven to 300° F.
2.  Create the cracker. Place parchment paper onto a large bar pan. Press and stretch dough with your fingers into the pan, until dough is very thin – about 1/16th-of-an-inch. Roll with a small roller to help make it smooth. Glaze with a beaten egg, and evenly sprinkle on seeds and dulse. Cut five rows down and eight rows across to make 40 squares. Prick with fork to prevent bubbling.
3.  Bake 30 minutes or until crackers are crisp. Cool on a rack, and then lift parchment paper to slide crackers to a serving dish. Serve with your favorite  bean spread.
4.  Store in an airtight container, or in a tin with waxed paper, and refrigerate.

Hope you enjoy whipping up your own bean spreads with what you have in the pantry and frig!

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