Banana, Almond Meal, Maple Syrup Cookies (Banana Bread Cookies) Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Vegan, Egg Free

Hey fellow yummy food lover!

This recipe was birthed through a desire to play around with my snickerdoodle recipe and get a little variety in my life - as well as experiment with using less maple syrup. ;)

This cookie tastes like a yummy banana nut bread. I’m pretty into it! It’s on the less sweet side (though sweet enough - I’m not into cardboard)… So, great to keep around as a snack or breakfast on the go. I’ll soon post an edit for more sweet tastebuds - for the moments when you really want a tasty treat! We have to honor our cravings in both situations, right? Let’s get to it!

What You’ll Need:

• Large mixing bowl

• Small mixing bowl

• Whisk

• Scraper

• Cookie sheet

• Parchment paper

• Measuring cups and spoons

Dry Stuff:

• 3 Cups Almond Meal

• 3/4 Cup Tapioca Flour

• 3/4 Cup Hemp Hearts

• 1 Teaspoon Sea Salt

• 1/2 Teaspoon Baking Soda

• 2 Tablespoons Cinnamon

Wet Stuff:

• 2 Mashed bananas (Average size - Measured at about 1 Cup mashed)

• 1/2 Cup Organic (Real) Maple Syrup (room temperature or could cause drama with the coconut oil.

• 1 1/2 Tablespoons Coconut Oil (potential need to heat to room temperature/liquid form)

• 1 Tablespoon Vanilla

How To Do It:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

2. Combine and whisk the dry stuff in the large mixing bowl.

3. Combine and whisk the wet stuff in the small mixing bowl.

4. Marry the wet and dry stuff into the big mixing bowl with a relatively no frills ceremony. Just some honest vows about love, nutrients, good health, cellular regeneration, and peace with food.

5. Mix well. Maybe even get the scraper involved.

6. The dough is made (congratulations!)- Now we make the cookies!

7. How To Do The Cookie Shaping:

8. Pour about 1/8 cup of coconut oil or olive oil in a small dish.

9. Use that oil to lube up your palms. The ingredients are married now, so it’s okay to talk about lube. ;) Keeping your palms oiled allows you to shape the dough without too much sticky mess. Trust me. I’m really smart and I know literally everything. (Just kidding.)

10. Roll balls about 1.5 inch in diameter

11. Press into the desired cookie thickness. I do this with my palms initially, and I give a few encouraging, shape-full pats once placed on the cookie sheet. Sort of like a prebaked attaboy. It’s all good energy that you’ll soon reabsorb in dining process.

12. Fill the tray.

13. Place carefully on the center rack of the preheated oven.

14. Set a timer for 14 minutes.

15. When the timer goes off, take the cookies out of the oven.

16. Let them cool for 120 long a$$ seconds.

17. Pick up the cookie you want to bite into the most.

18. Tell it you love it, and that you want to help it uplevel spiritually by becoming human cells.

19. Listen for it’s excitement.

20. Salivate. Blow on it. Flirt with it.

21. Take that bite. Maybe a small, teasing one at first.

22. Chew.

23. Taste.

24. Breathe.

25. Enjoy.

Love and light to you! I hope you enjoy this recipe! Please give it a share and a thumbs up if you do! :)

Enjoy the pictures below of my son Theo helping me mix the ingredients of this very batch!

This is what the dough looks like.

My little helper LOVES to bake and cook with us!

I asked how much he put in, and he was saying, “just a widdle bit!”

Thumb Print Cookies! (Almond Meal, Tapioca, Maple Syrup - GF, DF)

These cookies were never supposed to happen, they are culinary proof of divine intervention.

I’m a creature of delicious habit. If I’m going to have cookies, they have no business being anything other than oatmeal chocolate chip. This morning however, I was running late for a friends farewell potluck, when I realized that I didn’t have chocolate chips. I threw myself on the floor and screamed for 10 minutes (not true).

Once I recovered, I threw together a dough similar to my simple chocolate chip cookie recipe, rolled some balls, and pressed them into pots. Halfway through the bake, I added raspberry jam.

I shared one with my family on the way. I could tell they wanted more. So did I. The party goers, who were not primarily gluten or dairy free humans, were quite taken with these little delights. I got in the car after the party, and told the fam that I’d make more as soon as we get home. Apparently the teenager was hoping I’d say that. I took notes this time, so now you can make these too! Yay for you. Yay for all of us!

What you need

An oven: preheated to 375°.

A cookie sheet: covered with parchment paper.

A few bowls, a whisk, a scraper, and some grit.

Dry Stuff

3 C Almond Meal

1/2 C Tapioca Flour

3/4 C Hemp Seeds

1/2 t Baking Soda

1/2 t Sea Salt (Always sea salt, btw)

Wet Stuff

1/2 C Maple Syrup (Always 100% real maple syrup)

1 egg (option to use flax egg)

1 T Vanilla

1 T Coconut oil

Directions

1. Gather your dry stuff in a large bowl. Stir well.

2. Gather your wet stuff in a different bowl. You choose the size. Stir really well.

3. Pour the wet stuff into the dry stuff, and stir like your life depends on it. Once that gets difficult to do with a whisk, you may choose to fold the dough several times with a firm scraper or spatula.

4. Here’s where things get dodgy for the weary. Take a deep breath. You’re a rock star and you’re doing a tremendous job. A top chef job, really. I’m really great at bossing people around with my lists, so I’m sure you’re killing this task!

5. Scrape all the dough as together as possible. Yep, try to form a ball, but don’t get too bent about it because it’s pretty sticky stuff. Which is why next you’ll…

6. Pour two tablespoons of coconut oil into a measuring cup that you can contaminate with your egg-dough hands. Then wash and dry your hands, and pour some coconut oil onto your palms. Get nice and greasy!

7. Pick up the whole dough ball, and form it so that it’s not sticky any more. The shape does not matter. This part is to help keep you ahead of the dough, rather than the other way around.

8. Put the ball back in the bowl.

9. You’re ready to make your pinch pot cookies! Roll the dough into 1.5 inch balls. There will be about 15 or 16.

10. Oil your palms whenever you start to feel the dough sticking to them.

11. Then press the ball into a pinch pot. Here’s a video to help you with this process.y

12. Bake your pots for 8 minutes.

13. Promptly take them out and fill the centers with your jam of choice. Mine is a raspberry jam with cane sugar and no preservatives. If the cookie has risen, you may want to press the center down with an ice cream scoop. Don’t use your fingers. Youch!

14. Bake for 9 more minutes.

15. Remove from oven, and look at those sweet delights! Smell your heart out, as you wait for them to cool.

16. Pour yourself a big glass of almond milk, and dig in!

17. Tell your friends where they can find this recipe. Also tell them that they’re beautiful and smart, and that they deserve tasty cookies.

You’re the best! Thanks for playing!

How’d yours turn out? Tell me below. :)

Natalie's Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies (Almond Meal, Maple Syrup, Paleo)

lick your lips yumdiggity!

Hey beautiful readers! There's nothing I hate more than a recipe blog that tells you all about everything else first. I think hell really might be a never ending bus ride with the windows shut tight and you're forced to read the beginning of recipe blogs, but never see the actual recipe.

So without further ado, here's the worlds best gluten free, dairy free, paleo - esk Chocolate Chip Cookie (bar) recipe.

You'll need to mix the dry stuff, then mix the wet stuff.

Then mix the wet stuff into the dry stuff.

Dry stuff

1.5 C. Almond flour

1.5 C. Rolled oats

1/2 C. Tapioca flour

1/4 C. Hemp seeds

1/2 t. Baking Soda

1/2 t. Sea Salt

Wet Stuff

1 organic egg ( completely optional. I actually leave this out now due to an egg sensitivity in the house. I don’t even sub a flax egg, and the cookie still turns out great.)

1/4 C. Maple Syrup (the real stuff) + About a tablespoon of overflow. ;)

1 T. Coconut oil - Organic, unrefined

1 T. Vanilla extract

Once everything is sufficiently mixed, go ahead and fold in your dairy free chocolate chips.

You'll want to use about 3/4 C.... but who am I to judge if your hand slips a little bit and it end up being closer to 3 cups worth? I'm kidding, right? ;)

Mix it all up... You'll need to use a scraper to gather the dough into a ball.

Pour 1.5 T of coconut oil onto a cookie sheet, then spread the oil with your hands. Do not wash you hands yet.

Use your

oily hands to pick up the dough ball and transfer it to the cookie sheet.

Keep your hands nice and slimy as you press the dough into one big cookie, until it's about 1/4 of an inch thick.

The oil trick saves lots of heart ache, hand washing, and about 1/2 the dough. Trust me on this. I've made a lot of cookies!

Once the cookie is pressed, bake at 375° for 17 minutes.

Congratulate yourself. You've just created something delicious without any gluten or dairy. Many people said this couldn't be done. Send each of those naysayers a picture of your chocolatey and satisfied face.

You are a shining star, and now you know how to eat like one. ;)

Thanks for baking, make good choices. :)

 

Almond Flour Blueberry Bread (Paleo, Whole 30, Gluten Free, & Dairy Free)

So yummy!

Hey! I just wanted to show you how fun and simple it is to make a great recipe into something new and all your own. You can find the written recipe for my Blueberry bread at nataliepfund.com under the "let's eat" tab. I hope you enjoy the video!

Hey my fellow eaters! A few things to know in addition to the recipe meme above:

It looks like I forgot to add the hemps seeds to the meme. :) You can add up to 3 Tablespoons without the flavor taking over, in my opinion. If a more nutty flavor isn't your style, simply add less.

Oil your pan, or use parchment paper.

You can oil your hands as you press the dough into shape. I demonstrate this tactic in the video. It helps to not get the dough stuck all over your hands. I used olive oil here, but grapeseed or coconut oil would also work great!

Try adding lemon rind or a few drops of food grade essential oil, and let me know how that tastes!

I hope you enjoy this recipe. Please share it with friends to love food. :)

Ali's Mom's Spaghetti Sauce

I LOVE this spaghetti sauce. As far as I'm concerned, its the only spaghetti sauce.

You'll see more from this blog as I continue to post non original recipes because the blogger is a good friend of mine. In fact, I only feel so comfortable experimenting with recipes because ofmy familiarity with her comfort level and talents in the kitchen. Many of her recipes are the ones I learned to be more creative with as a budding "adult who cooks real meals."

Here's the recipe: Mom's Spaghetti Sauce

Things I've altered:

• My Whole Foods in Honolulu doesn't have sweet Italian sausage, so I prefer to use their existent mild Italian sausage.

• I like strong flavors, so I often add more basil (like 1/4 c) and oregano (less than 1/4 c) than the original recipe calls for.

• I didn't feel like disturbing my Cuisinart processor this last time. It was so peaceful sleeping on it's shelf. Actually I just didn't want to clean it, so I used my immersion handheld blender once all the ingredients were ready to simmer. It did the job beautifully - but I was careful not to over blend.

• I prefer to eat my sauce on spaghetti squash, as pictured above.

• You can sneak in a few extra veggies here, like zucchini squash, eggplant, or kale chopped really small. :)

• Sometimes I add a little cayenne pepper.

• Sometimes I put a little sauce on my eggs for breakfast.

Alright folks! Let me know if you try this recipe!  Have fun, and eat up!

Thanks for reading, make tasty choices!