Crackers

I found this recipe.. yeah! I know where I found this recipe!!!  YAYAYAYAYAYAY

http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/     submitted by Dee Sparks

Crackers Wheat/Gluten/Yeast Free

1 C flour - use any type wheat free - buckwheat, oat, brown rice, chickpea, white rice
1/2 t salt
2 T olive oil or coconut oil or grapeseed oil
1 - 2 t seasonings
3 - 4 T water

Preheat oven to 400
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In food processor or by hand mix flour, salt, oil and seasonings.
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Add 3-4 Tb water - start with 3 and whirl or work in and add more as needed to form a ball. 
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Remove dough and roll out on well floured surface using same flour as in mix.
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Transfer to baking sheet or pizza stone and bake 10 minutes at 400
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Once they are nicely browned, cool and break into pieces. One serving is 1/4 of the recipe.
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Try chickpea flour and after rolling out cracker sprinkle with sesame seeds and use rolling pin to press into the cracker. (Good with hummus)
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Try buckwheat flour and after rolling out cracker sprinkle sea salt and use rolling pin to crush it into the cracker.
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Try brown rice and white rice flour (1/2 cup each) and add some Italian spices to the mix before mixing. Try basil, oregano, granulated onion - about 1/2 tsp each.
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Have fun with it and as long as it balls up nicely you've got a winner!

Number of Servings: 4

Recipe submitted by SparkPeople user DEE_SPARKS.
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I used 1/2 C white rice flour and 1/2 C chickpea flour, thereabouts. It equaled 1 C at any rate. I used a BIT more salt than 1/2 t and I did use 2 T of an Italian seasoning blend. It was wonderful. Hubby almost liked it, it was that good. He won't eat any more than the bite he tried, so I get ALL of the crackers. :::: insert happy dance here ::::  

Coconut Flour Brownies

I am looking on the web to find where I got this recipe... and so far, it is hiding from me, big time. It's probably hiding in plain sight...

I have tried making a Paleo brownie recipe before, and it had soooooo much chocolate in it. I just could not eat it and I through it out. I love chocolate... but, my goodness.

This recipe, I think, calls for too much chocolate, too, so true to form, I changed it as I went along. I'm glad I did cut the chocolate in half. I also cut the amount of butter in half, too, which, maybe shouldn't have been cut back that much. They taste good, but they are a tad on the dry side. I also put the batter in a 9 x 9 inch pan instead of the 11 x 17 inch pan called for. I do like my brownies a bit thicker than a pancake, which I think they would have been that thick in that size a pan. It calls for a cup of Erythritol and I used a powdered stevia blend, which I had on hand.

Here is the recipe I used, as it was written.

Coconut Flour Brownies

(Ingredients (use organic versions)
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 C Erythritol
8 oz unsweetened baking chocolate
2/3 C coconut milk
2 oz crushed walnuts
1 1/2 C salted butter
6 large cage-free eggs
1 C coconut flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 11 x 17 inch pan. Melt butter and chocolate in a pan on the stove. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Mix eggs, Erythritol, milk, & vanilla. Fold flour into egg mixture and stir. Mix in chocolate and stir until smooth. Fold nuts into mixture. Pour into pan and bake 20 - 25 minutes.

I halved the amount of chocolate and butter. I took away too much butter, I think. They do taste good, though. It's more dense cake with a good taste.  :)

Coconut Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies

mmmmm... cookies... mmmmmmm mmmmmm.... chocolate CHIP cookies. No wheat flour. YAYAYAYAAY  I'm getting to like coconut flour pretty well.

I found this recipe from Paleohacks and had to try it, of course!!  I love chocolate chip cookies!

Coconut Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies - Paleohacks

1/3 C coconut flour (use extra if required)
1/3 C dark chocolate chips
pinch of sea salt
2 whole eggs
1/4 C coconut oil
1/4 C raw honey
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Grease a baking sheet or line it with parchment paper.

Mix the coconut flour, salt, eggs, coconut oil, honey, and vanilla together thoroughly with a whisk.

Throw in your chocolate chips (stop eating them!) and make sure they're evenly distributed throughout the cookie dough.

Use a tablespoon or dessert spoon to portion out the cookie dough onto your baking sheet. Pat down.

Place your cookies into the center of the oven and bake for around 10 - 15 minutes, depending on the texture you want. If this is your first time baking with coconut flour, then aim for around 12 minutes and check to make sure the outsides of your cookies have turned an inviting golden brown color.

Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes.


And they are delicious. Even with the modifications I used. I've cut out sugar in my diet to almost non-existent; which is a good thing! Yes... there are sugars I get in some stuff, but I have cut drastically back on sugar. So... my chocolate chips were raw cacao nibs, no sugar in them. And for the 1/4 C honey, I used half that amount and 3/4 tsp liquid stevia to make the other 1/8th cup.

Now, just an aside.... when putting in the coconut oil, you do want it melted, or darn near melted. You might want to have your eggs at room temperature and I use a sifter for my coconut flour because it just really gets lumpy on my and it's hard to get the lumps out (they hide), so...sift the coconut flour. And... speaking from experience here... when adding all your ingredients to the bowl, don't let the soft/melted coconut oil sit around with cold eggs while searching for ingredients and adding them... and if you DO happen to do that... well.... Oh... and don't use a whisk. I had to take a wooden spoon to get the dough that was inside all the way to the top of the whisk out. Wasn't so very hard, just not a necessary move and I kinda made a mess with it. So... no more whisk for me.  LOL

Very good cookies!

Buckwheat Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake

I found this lovely recipe.... somewhere. I TRIED this lovely recipe and I'm thinking buckwheat is gonna become my friend.  :) I was scared to try it, but I did break down and try buckwheat. It is not pretty, but it is good.

This is called cake, I think it is more like brownies.

Buckwheat Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.

1 C smooth, natural peanut butter
1 C sugar (I used a stevia/dextrose mixture, no sugar)
1 C apple sauce
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 C buckwheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/3 C cocoa

Mix together the first 5 ingredients with a mixer. Add the remaining ingredients and blend with a spoon, then with mixer on high for about 2 minutes.

Pour into greased 9 x 11 cake pan and bake 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Grab a cup of coffee or tea and enjoy a slice or two while curled up and reading a book!  :)

Note to self, and anyone else wanting to know: Store in the fridge.

Grain Free Chewy Ginger Cookies

These are.... good. I thought so at any rate, and since I'm the one eating them, I'm the one who counts, right?  LOL

Found this recipe here, at Empowered Sustenance dot com. First time I made them I didn't read the directions quite right, and baked them for 20 minutes. Don't do that! Once I got past the blackened around the edges of the cookies, they tasted good.  : )

Grain Free Chewy Ginger Cookies

• 1 Tbs. grassfed gelatin
• 2 Tbs. coconut oil, melted
• 2 Tbs. unsweetened applesauce
• 2 Tbs. honey
• 1/4 cup sunflower seeds, preferably soaked and dehydrated (or .9 oz. by weight nut flour or Sun-Flour)
• 2 Tbs. coconut flour
• Scant 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. apple cider vinegar

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with a Silpat or parchment paper. Mix together the gelatin, coconut oil, applesauce and honey.
2. Finely grind the sunflower seeds in a coffee grinder for 10-15 seconds, until you have a find powder. Don't over-grind or you will get sunbutter. Stir the ground sunflower seeds, coconut flour and ginger into the gelatin mixture and let sit for 10 minutes to firm up slightly.
3. Before baking, stir in the baking soda and vinegar. Drop by generous teaspoons onto the baking sheet and flatten slightly. Bake until golden, about 12-14 minutes. Remove from the oven and let rest on the baking sheet for a full 20 minutes (do not remove cookies from baking sheet until they have set). The cookies will be "gooey-er" while warm and chewier at room temperature. For best texture, enjoy within a few hours of baking.

Curl up with a good book, cup of coffee or tea, and a few cookies and enjoy!!!   : )

Flax Batter Quick Bread

First off...I found the original recipe for this here. It uses whole wheat flour, which I do not...and I think it's missing some ingredients... such as liquid! 1 egg, 2 egg whites and 1/2 C honey just does not make a batter when mixed with 4 cups of flour. I will post here what I did.

Flax Batter Quick Bread
2 C ground flaxseed
2 C amaranth flour
1 tsp sea salt
2 tsp baking soda
1 egg
2 egg whites
1/4 C honey
Add enough whey and milk to make a pourable batter

Mix ingredients well, pour into well greased loaf pan and bake in oven at 325 degrees for 50 - 60 minutes, until done.

This turned out to be quite good.

Blended Flour Yeast Bread

This is it! The bread I am making today and hopefully it turns out. LOLOL  With the White Rice Flour Yeast Bread recipe in my last post, it had us using the mixer, and I did. I didn't have a stand mixer and used my hand held mixer, which probably would have been fine had I added more liquid to the should-be batter, but it was more like bread dough when you use wheat flour. I nearly mixed my fingers in with the dough those beaters jumped around so much.

Today, I didn't use the electric mixer and I could have. Maybe I should have, but I just used my trusty arm and wooden spoon. OH! And the large eggs I used today were a heck of a lot larger than the large eggs I used last time. Not all large eggs are large, I guess. LOL And my batter was actually batter this time.

Here is what I did.

Blended Flour Yeast Bread

3 C Coconut Mama's blended coconut flour
1 1/2 - 2 packets Stevia-in-the-Raw sweetener
1 T yeast
1 1/4 t unrefined sea salt
1 1/2 C warm milk
1/4 C melted butter
3 large eggs

Mix the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl until blended well. Add the warm milk and melted butter and mix well. Add one egg at a time and mix well with each egg. Keep mixing for awhile, it should be thick and creamy looking. Cover the bowl with a clean towel and let rise for an hour.

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Scrape down the sides of the bowl and fold inwards to deflate the batter. Pour into a greased 8x4 inch loaf pan, cover with greased wax paper and let rise until batter crowns the rim of the pan, about 20-25 minutes. Could be longer depending on the temperature. Bake until golden brown, about 38-40 minutes.

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OK, gotta go check to see if the batter is ready to put into the oven now. I will let you know how it turns out!!  :)
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Out of the oven and has been cooling for awhile and I just took a slice, buttered it, and oh my goodness... THAT is what it was supposed to be like the first time but I didn't have enough liquid in it and this is very good. I think I'll be making this bread again. Yes, I will.  :)

aaahhh... here is a tip. 1. Store it in plastic bag in the fridge. (no preservatives like store bought bread. 2. You know how home made bread starts drying out, even wheat flour bread, after the first day, no exception here. BUT, stick a slice in the toaster at a light - medium toaster setting. It shouldn't be enough to toast it, but it will warm it up and it will be moister than just being sliced and eaten.

White Rice Flour Yeast Bread

Well, ok, yeah, this is the recipe for White Rice Flour Yeast Bread, I just didn't make it quite like this, I substituted. Of course I did!!  Here's the recipe I kinda did and didn't follow.

White Rice Flour Yeast Bread
Adapted from King Arthur Flour by someone other than me

2 C white rice flour
2/3 C potato starch
1/3 C tapioca starch/flour
3 T sugar
2 t instant yeast
1 1/4 t salt
1 1/4 t xanthan gum
1 C warm milk
1/4 C softened unsalted butter
3 large eggs

In a large mixing bowl mix together the dry ingredients. Slowly pour in the warm milk while mixing on low with mixer. Add the butter and beat until thoroughly blended. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Scrape the bottom and sides of bowl. Beat the batter for 2 minutes on high.

Cover bowl and let batter rise for one hour in a warm place.

Scrape down sides of bowl once again to gently deflate the batter. Grease an 8x4 inch loaf pan and pour batter into pan. Smooth out the top using a spatula. Cover with plastic wrap sprayed with cooking spray and let rise in a warm place just until loaf barely crowns above the rim of the pan, about 20 to 25 minutes.

Bake in preheated 350 degree oven until golden brown, about 38 to 40 minutes.
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That's the way I didn't do it. I had some Coconut Mama's Coconut Blend flour and used 3 cups of that instead of the first three ingredients and didn't change the liquid portions at all. It tasted good, but it was dry dry dry. (coconut flour) I, also, did not use the xanthan gum, since I didn't have any. It may have already been in the flour blend, I'm not sure. It did still taste good.

I will make another post about the bread I am making today, again with the blended flour but a few tweaks. It is rising in the loaf pan now, getting ready to go into the oven.

Almond Flour Cheese Crackers

oohhhh.. these are good. I like crackers and cheese crackers are a lovely thing to eat and ... oh, I like I like I like. I do usually not get these rolled out evenly so the middle is thicker than the edges, which makes the edge side crackers get cooked quicker than the insides, but it's all good. I figured out how to fix it. I also don't get it into a perfect rectangle the size of the cookie sheet. It's still all good. LOL

Almond Flour Cheese Crackers

1 1/4 C blanched almond flour
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 C freshly grated cheddar cheese
1 1/2 TBS melted coconut oil
1 large egg
garlic powder (optional)
onion powder  (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Grate cheese.
In medium sized bowl mix dry ingredients and cheese. Mix oil and egg together and add to dry ingredients.

Cut two pieces of parchment paper to fit your cookie sheet. Put one sheet on counter and put dough in the middle of it, flatten it out some. Lay the other parchment paper on top and use rolling pin to roll out as evenly as you can get it to reach the edges of the paper.

Remove the top parchment paper and put the parchment with the dough still on it into your cookie sheet. Bake for 7 minutes. Take sheet out of the oven and use a pizza cutter and slice the partially cooked dough into squares. Finish baking for another 7 minutes or until lightly browned.

OK, here's where I take the pan out and break off the outer squares, or oddly shaped pieces, and put them on the counter to cool and let the rest on the cookie sheet cool a little, also. I break the remaining squares on the sheet and move them around a little and put them back into the oven because they aren't as done as the outer pieces since they are thicker. I bake them a little more and take them out when they are lightly browned. Doesn't take a lot longer at all.

Let the crackers cool for about 30 minutes and store in a container, if you can keep from eating them all in one sitting.

Enjoy!!

No Bake Apple Crumble Bars

I found this neat recipe here, http://byebyegluten.blogspot.com/2011/09/no-bake-apple-crumble-bars-gluten-free.html, and had to try it. Hubby liked it! Ate most of it. I made some more today and I don't think he has found it yet. LOL He will, though! 

I did not add any sweetening of any kind to the apples, although it calls for a small amount maple syrup. I did add the honey to the crust and topping. It is very tasty. 

No Bake Apple Crumble Bars

Apple Filling

3 organic apples (I used granny smith- a tarter flavor)
1 Tbsp maple syrup
1 Tbsp water (add more if you like it more gooey)
1/2 tsp saigon cinnamon
dash of nutmeg

Crust/Topping
1 cup Blanched Almond Flour
1/4 cup Coconut Flour

3 Tbsp honey
2 Tbsp coconut oil1 tsp Alcohol-Free Vanilla
1/8 tsp Celtic Sea Salt

Slice and peel apples. Place them in a pan with the rest of the filling ingredients and cook over medium heat. Stir occasionally and cook until fork tender. If you want a more gooey or sweet apple, you can add more maple syrup (or honey) or water.

While your apples are cooking, put your almond and coconut flour and salt together in a small bowl and stir with a fork, breaking up any clumps. Add the oil, honey, and vanilla and stir well.

Press a little over half of the mix into your 8 x 8 pan and top with the apples. Take the rest of the topping and sprinkle it evenly on top of the apples and press lightly.  

Happy eating!!  :)