Chewy Raisin Almond Butter Cookies - Recipe Review

You ever get that craving for something sweet? Of course you do- you're reading a food blog! Since you are familiar with that feeling you know there is absolutely nothing that you can substitute for that sweet desire. I begin my web surfing to find an SCD/paleo- compliant delicious cookie recipe. So here it is: "Chocolate Chip" Cookies from Heal~Balance~Live.
I did make some revisions (obviously chocolate is not SCD legal) so here is what I did:

Ingredients:
3/4 cup almond flour
1/4 cup coconut flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/3 cup almond butter
1 egg
2 tsp. vanilla
3 Tablespoon oil or butter
1/2 cup honey
1 cup raisins

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in a medium size bowl. Bake at 350 degrees for about 6 to 7 minutes, depending on the size of your cookies.


(it only makes about 7 cookies, but it's so worth it)

I wonder where the missing one went...

I've given my reasons for choosing coconut flour over almond flour. For this recipe it is lovely because it saves on expensive almond flour. Also, the cookies don't have that strange almond flour texture. The almond butter is a nice touch. For some reason every time I make cookies with a nut butter they do not hold together after baking like normal cookies do. They seem to crumble too easily after coming off of the pan (any ideas as to why?) so after baking and letting them cool i put these into the freezer. Then later I felt like a snack, so I took one out and didn't want to wait for it to thaw. To my surprise there is no need to! These cookies are even better frozen! Trust me on this one, you want to make this recipe.

Southwest SCD Black Beans

I like simple things. Sunshine, solid colors, comfy sweatshirts. So you can imagine that I appreciate simple recipes as well. So here is a 3 ingredient recipe that results in delicious black beans that are SCD safe (of course) and that make for a tasty snack, lunch, or meat substitute:

1 cup black beans (after being soaked overnight and cooked until very soft)
1 or 2 tablespoons of hot sauce (I like Frank's Red Hot brand myself)
1 dollop of dripped yogurt

Stir ingredients together & you have something you will want to eat over and over again. !Vivia los frijoles!

No Sugar Added SCD Legal Bacon

A few months ago, shortly after starting the diet, as I was working my way up through the phases, I realized that my quest for finding sugar-free bacon was almost impossible. I looked everywhere that I thought would be reasonable to carry such a food: Whole Foods grocery, Trader Joe's grocery, even the local farmer's market bacon was cured with sugar! Why these companies do so is beyond me. Isn't bacon good enough with just its crispy, greasy self? I mean really, who can taste the added sugar in the bacon? I know when I used to eat regular bacon it tasted, well, like bacon- not like sweet bacon. So even though Elaine said that eating this "regular" sugar cured bacon is for some reason ok to do once a week if fried very crisply, I chose not to do so. So where did I end up stumbling upon this beloved sugar-free pork goodness?
At the grocery store I was shopping at every week. It's called Dierberg's and it is a local chain in the St. Louis area. Perhaps you can request this specific brand at your local grocer. I was so excited to find this treasure! Now I don't feel guilty about an occasional bacon fix. Although I do not recommend eating this super often, as there is very little nutritional value to pork fat, and we all know what bacon does to the waistline, I am thankful that this option is available near me. I hope you have success in finding the like. And in case you are wondering, it tastes the same a sugar-cured bacon.

 

 

Homemade Cheeze-Its SCD Style

 

These are actually an adaptation of Mrs. Ed's crackers. This was my first attempt at making my own crackers and I was paranoid that they would be too crispy and thin and just fall apart as soon as a spatula touched them to take them off of the cooking stone. No worries, they turned out great and are super easy to make. Here's the recipe:

2 cups Almond Flour
3 ounces mild cheddar cheese shredded

3 ounces Monterrey jack cheese shredded

1 tablespoon Salt, plus more for tops

1 Tablespoon garlic powder

1/2 tablespoon dried onion flakes
1/4 cup Water
1 TBSP Olive Oil

I used my Vitamix, but you could use a food processor. Mix the cheese and almond flour until smooth. Then add the rest of the ingredients and blend until well mixed. Take the "dough" and place between two sheets of parchment paper. Use a rolling pin and roll until the thin-ness you desire your faux Cheese-Its to be. Don't be shy about the thinness, I actually made mine a little too thick and they were not very crunchy, but still very tasty! Score into cracker sizes. Sprinkle top with salt (this is key). Bake at 325 degrees for 25 minutes. Enjoy!

SCD Hot Cereal For Breakfast!

For those mornings you wake up and you don't want to eat meat and eggs there lies another solution! Hot "cereal" SCD style. No whole nuts, no baking, and no coconut  milk needed. It takes 10-15 minutes and it almost tastes like oatmeal :)



1 cup water

bring to boil then add

1 cup almond flour

stir continually for 10-15 minutes, until most of the water has been absorbed and the consistency is to your liking (I prefer mine on the less-liquidy side)

add 1/2 cup cooked rainins
cinnoman to taste
sprinkle of vanilla extract
2 tablepoons or so of honey

would be good with any fruit added really.

But for the stage (stage 1, again) I am currently in, I need everything cooked and the simpler the better, especially for breakfast; it's never fun getting a pile of dishes started that early in the morning.
Yumm...

SCD Banana Bread & Apple Pie

I'm still working on those 10 gallons of apples my grandparents bought me. That is a positive thing, as I haven't had to buy apples in a few weeks and that hasn't happened since I started SCD. In case you haven't noticed yet, the Specific Carbohydrate Diet is not cheap to be on. My grocery bills have over doubled to around $200 a week for just me and my husband. This is due to
chain reaction ending up with good-for-you foods being much more expensive than fast, artificial, boxed, wrapped, and packaged products. The purpose of this rant is to reason on why I prefer the use of coconut flour over almond flour. Almond flour serves it's purpose and does work well for breads and baked goods, etc. However, it's obvious that this being used as a substitute. Almond flour has a distinct taste- like almonds; and it has a texture that is slightly grainy. Also, when you use almond flour you have to use just as much, if not more, cups per recipe as you would with wheat flour. Coconut flour, on the other hand, does not have a strange texture, tastes slightly sweet, and uses only a fraction of the amount versus other flours because it is made from dried coconut and therefore absorbs liquids rapidly. So when making recipes coconut flour seems to be the more economical and tasty choice. Here is the link to where I get a lot of coconut flour recipes, and most of them are easy to convert to be SCD safe: Coconut Flour Recipes. I made the banana bread and it is delicious. Very moist and, having been deprived of chocolate for so long, and maybe this is just me, but this bread has a hint of chocolate chip taste- yum! Also have been making open faced apple pie (pie without a top crust). Here is the Coconut Pie Crust Recipe I use. The crust actually looks way better than the picture on that blog. For the filling I use:

6 cups (roughly) sliced and cooked apples
1 tablespoon cinnomon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
mix all together and pour into pie crust

optional topping:

1 1/2 cups unsweetened shredded coconut
2 tablespoons honey

Bake at 350 until coconut mixture caramelizes- watch carefully this happens very quickly!

(ps that is yogurt on top!)