Grain Free Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies (Refined Sugar Free)

Yesterday I posted the Healthy Fudgy Brownie Bites and mentioned how they are now one of my favorite treats.  On Facebook I also mentioned that besides those I have found some fantastic, perfectly chewy, you'd-never-know-they-were-healthy chocolate chip cookies.  I think I might just keep a running stock of these two things and I’ll be good for a long time—though that wouldn’t be fun to not keep trying new things, would it? ;)

Well, these are definitely great chocolate chip cookies and if you didn’t tell anyone, I think they’d never know they didn’t have flour or refined sugar.  I plan to make them again, maybe even today.  They have some coconut in them, which might add to the chewiness.  I think I’ll try them without the coconut, but with lots of nuts and see if they are still pretty much the same.  These also have no added oil or butter—just almond butter.  Instead of loads of sugar they just have a little honey in them.  I used the Enjoy Life mini chocolate chips, which happen to be soy free, dairy free, refined sugar free and grain free.  You could use any kind that suits your diet needs. 

Once again I found these cookies at Jennifer’s blog, Unrefined Kitchen.  She has so many recipes that I want to try.  SO glad I tried these.  Looking through the recipe, I didn’t really change anything, so the link goes to her recipe.  She mentioned using 1/3 cup of honey and more if you’d like—I only used 1/3 cup and they are perfectly sweet.  She also suggested trying nuts in place of some of the coconut, so that is what I did—1/3 cup of unsweetened coconut and 1/3 cup of pecans.  My next try (today?) will be leaving out the coconut.  I love the coconut, but some people who are taste testers of mine don’t like it.  I baked the cookies about 10 minutes.  My scoop must be a bit bigger than Jennifer’s scoop, as I only got 16 cookies and she said the recipe makes about 20.  I used homemade almond butter.

Yep, just finishing up this post and seeing these photos, I need to make these again—today.  Need to run and get more chocolate chips first.  Give them a try.

Here’s the link again for Jennifer’s Almond Butter Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies at Unrefined Kitchen.

I tried, but you still can’t see the amazing texture and chewiness these cookies have in the crosscut photo, you’ll just have to taste them for yourself.

Homemade Nut Butters—Honey Peanut Butter, Almond Butter and Sunflower Seed Butter

Homemade Honey Peanut Butter, July 2013

I’ve been making homemade nut butters and promised a few people I’d post about them.  There is something about making nut butters homemade that is fun and in my opinion taste better.  I love knowing exactly what is in them and controlling how much salt goes in as well.  It is also more economical than buying them.  I’m sure I’ll still buy my favorite ones from time to time, but I’ve really enjoyed the ones I’ve done so far.

Besides for health reasons, I started  making these after ordering five pounds each of raw sunflower seeds, raw almonds and raw pecans.  I love eating raw nuts and seeds.  I actually prefer sunflower seeds raw rather than roasted and salted.  For the nut butter, I did roast and salt them.

I just made the Honey Peanut Butter yesterday.  I might be my favorite one so far!  I had some raw peanuts and roasted them on a baking sheet.  When they came out of the oven, I sprinkled just a little salt on them.  After they had completely cooled, I put them in the food processor and pulse them until they were chopped finely.  Then I turned the food processor on and let them go until they became a paste.  I would stop and scrape the sides of the bowl from time to time.  It only took about five minutes until they became a great peanut butter.  I sprinkled in a little bit more salt.  Then for kicks, I decided to add some raw honey.  I added a tablespoon.  The peanut butter thickened up quite a bit after I added the honey.  I wasn’t sure if it would smooth back out if I just kept the food processor running, so I decided to add some organic coconut oil to it.  That smoothed it right out and the peanut butter tastes fantastic!  I love just the ever-so-slight hint of coconut flavor and the perfect amount of honey.  This might be my favorite nut butter I’ve made so far, but every time I make one, I think that.  They each taste so different, it’s really hard to say.

Homemade Honey Peanut Butter, by Katrina, Baking and Boys!

2 cups raw peanuts

1/8 teaspoon salt (or to taste)

1 tablespoons raw honey

1 tablespoon organic coconut oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spread peanuts on baking sheet in an even layer.  Roast for about 10 minutes.  After removing them from the oven, sprinkle a little salt over them.  Let cool completely.  Put the peanuts in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until they are chopped finely.  Turn the food processor on and let them go until they begin to form a paste.  Scrape the sides of the bowl and process until it becomes a smooth peanut butter ( about 5 minutes total).  Sprinkle with a little more salt.  Add some raw honey (you don’t have to use raw honey).  After it combines, add coconut oil until it is all smooth.  Let the peanut butter cool, then store in a jar.  If it lasts more than a week, store it in the refrigerator.

 

Today I had some of the peanut butter spread on some Grain Free Sandwich Bread I made.  I found the recipe at Unrefined Kitchen.  It is my first try of a grain free bread.  It’s okay.  It’s my first bite of anything bread-like in about a month.  In the recipe, it gives the option of butter or coconut oil.  I used coconut oil.  It also suggested two tablespoons of honey, but more if you want a really sweet bread.  So I only used one tablespoon of raw honey.  I’ll eat the loaf slowly, I’m sure.  It will be fun to try different recipes until I find one that I really like.  It was certainly good with the honey peanut butter on it!

I enjoyed it with some apple slices yesterday not long after I made it.  It’s good enough that I could just dig my finger in the jar as well.  The peanut butter is a light color.  I think it is because the raw peanuts I used did not have skins.  I am assuming a lot of peanut butters are made with the skins on and/or they are roasted to a darker color.  This is perfect to me. ;)

I made sunflower seed butter about three weeks ago.  Loved it.  I need to make some more.  There isn’t really a recipe for that.  I roasted raw sunflower seeds (about 3 cups) on a baking sheet at 350 degrees F. for about 10 minutes.  I lightly salted them when they came out of the oven.  I let them cool completely.  I put them in the food processor and let it go, scraping the sides every couple of minutes until it formed a nice smooth butter.  This took probably closer to a total of 10 minutes until it was the consistency I wanted.  You can decide how smooth or crunchy you’d like any of these butters.

Here’s a couple pictures of the sunflower butter in process.

After a few pulses in the food processor.

After 2 minutes in the food processor.

 

After 4 minutes in the food processor.

After 6 minutes in the food processor.

 

After 8 minutes in the food processor.

My favorite thing to do with the sunflower butter, besides dipping carrot sticks in it, is make one of my breakfast smoothies.  I always put a tablespoon of peanut butter in it, but tried it with sunflower seed butter and it was really good.  I’ve always tried my smoothies with almond butter.  They are all good, but this particular one is really good with the sunflower seed butter.  This smoothie has a secret ingredient that one wouldn’t think of for smoothies, but I love it!

I kept forgetting exactly what I was putting in the smoothie, so I finally remember to take a picture of the ingredients once recently.  Funny thing is, I forgot to add the Greek yogurt in the photo. ;)

The secret ingredient is sweet potato!  So really this smoothie just has banana, sweet potato, nonfat Greek yogurt, sunflower seed butter and my vitamin powder and some almond milk.

Breakfast Banana Sunflower Smoothie, by Katrina, Baking and Boys!

1/2 a banana, frozen

1/4 of a sweet potato, cooked and cooled, skin removed before adding to smoothie

1 tablespoon sunflower seed butter (or other nut butter)

1/2 cup nonfat Greek yogurt

1/2-3/4 cup almond milk (or any other milk)

1/2-3/4 cup crushed ice

vitamin powder (mine has a light orange flavor), optional

Combine all ingredients in a blender.  Pulse and puree until smooth, about 1 minute.

Although I often have green smoothies or put other fruit in them as well, this banana one is my favorite.  You can’t really taste the sweet potato, but it sure makes the smoothie creamy and adds a lot of nutrition!

Finally, I have made almond butter at least three times.  Super easy and great for so many things.  I just made another batch two days ago.

  Here’s one of my lunches recently with almond butter.

Homemade Almond Butter, by Katrina, Baking and Boys!

4 cups raw almonds

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Put the almonds in a single layer on a baking sheet.  Roast for 10 minutes.  Remove from oven and cool completely.  Put the almonds in the bowl of a food processor.  Process (it’s pretty loud at first as they start to chop up!) the almonds until they become a smooth butter.  This takes a good 10 minutes.  Let cool (the food processor warms up a bit) before store in a glass jar.  This amount of almonds made 16 ounces of almond butter.

Almond Butter

Can’t wait to try all kinds of different things with all these nut/seed butters I’ve been making homemade!  I know that there are a lot of grain-free/gluten free recipes that use almond butter and have been enjoying looking at all the possibilities.