Almond Flour Cookies

These cookies are to die for! You can add whatever ingredients you want to make the perfect cookies you're in the mood for using this dough as a base. I made chocolate chip cookies and I have a few suggested optional ingredients listed below, but there are soooooo many possibilities!



If you haven't tried almond flour yet, you're seriously missing out! You can make so many delicious desserts and even savory entrees using it. I've been on a quest to create healthy but delicious recipes that don't contain any added sugar or refined carbohydrates in order to keep my diet as natural and healthy as possible. It's not as difficult to eat well now as it was a few years ago with all the white flour and sugar alternatives readily available for very affordable prices at most grocery stores; plus it's a small price to pay for better health!

Main Ingredients 
1 cup almond flour 
3/4 cup steel cut oats
1 ripe banana

1 egg

1/2 tsp baking powder 1/4 tsp salt 

1 tsp coconut oil 

Suggested Optional Ingredients

2-3 tablespoons chocolate chips
1 tablespoon peanut butter  

1/4 cup walnuts or pecans 

1/4 cup raisins or cranberries 

Shredded carrots or zucchini for veggie nutrients without the taste  

Raw cane sugar, Stevia, honey, maple syrup, or dried medjool dates for extra sweetness

(I adde Stevia and chocolate chips to mine)

Preheat your oven to 350F.

Mash the banana with a fork in a medium sized bowl and combine the rest of the ingredients. The batter should be firm enough to hold it's shape and stick to a spoon. Depending on the optional ingredients you use, you may need to add more or less dry ingredients, but these ratios worked perfectly for me. Spoon 1-2 tablespoons per cookie onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for 10-15 minutes until the middle is set and the edges are golden brown.
Yields 1 dozen cookies. 

Enjoy!
Thanks for stopping by :)

Baked Zucchini & Sweet Potato Fries

Seriously, guys. Best recipe ever.

They're perfectly crisp, have amazing flavor, and taste like they've been deep fried!

I'm really excited about this. I can't even tell you how many times I've tried to make baked sweet potato fries. Every single time -I've tried at least 10 times- they've always come out too mushy, never crisp, then when cooked longer they become burnt on the edges but soggy in the middle, etc. I've tried using corn meal and bread crumbs to coat them, plain potatoes misted with olive oil, different oven temperatures... the list goes on. I've tried tons of recipes and combinations of recipes and not a single of them have been successful. UNTIL NOW! This was just another one of my experimental sweet potato fry recipes and it happened to turn out amazing!
          The secret? Almond flour. Almond meal, almond flour, whatever you want to call it, it's a miracle. I'll be posting many more healthy recipes with almond flour soon!
          I've never tried making zucchini fries before but by chance I happened to have a zucchini that was going to go bad soon and I didn't want to waste it, so I added it just for kicks and it turned out great!

Ingredients

Sweet potatoes
Zucchini
egg
almond flour

Optional:
Olive oil or coconut oil
garlic powder, cayenne pepper, salt, pepper, whatever seasonings you like!
(I used cayenne and garlic salt)

*For all ingredients, use as much as you want to make. I made one sweet potato and one zucchini and I needed 1 egg and 1/2 cup of almond flour. It was enough to fill one whole baking sheet without any of the fries touching.

Preheat oven to 400F.
Cut up the zucchini and sweet potatoes into fry-sized pieces. The easiest way I've found is to cut them in half long ways, so that you have two stumpy short pieces, and then section those off as desired. Whisk the egg(s) in a bowl and coat the veggies with it. Pour the almond flour onto a plate and mix in the seasonings. Remove the excess egg from the veggies and coat with almond flour. This will get a little messy and the almond flour will start to get mixed with the egg and create clumps, so be sure to remove as much egg as you can from the potatoes/zucchini. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and arrange the fries so that none of them are overlapping. Use a second tray if necessary, just don't crowd the pan or they won't get crispy. I didn't use any oil, but at this point feel free to mist or drizzle the fries with olive oil or coconut oil.  Keep in mind that ovens vary and the size of the fries will affect cooking time. I baked mine for around 20 minutes, flipping the fries after about 10 minutes.

Serve hot with whatever dipping sauces you like. I like to eat mine with avocado hummus, sriracha, and Greek yogurt.

Remember that you don't have to stick to any recipes, that's how new ones are made. Be creative and enjoy cooking!
Thanks for stopping by :)