Choco-Coconut Cookies

I must be on a roll, or all good things come in threes, as I have another delightful cookie recipe for you to try. They are grain free, refined sugar free and dairy free.  I am not sure but they just might be my favorite ones yet.

I should start at the beginning of this story.

 I love to have friends over, dinner, tea or just a visit.  Some very good friends of ours came for dinner last night.  Everything was perfect, the steaks, a new salad we tried from joy the baker, and herb roasted potatoes.  Our friends brought the desert.  This is usually a trick for me as there are so many things I can't eat and desert just doesn't work unless I make it myself.  Now I must say I didn't say no to these cookies.  The lonely cookies that survived the night did not survive my daughter the next day.  So I just had to make some more tonight.  There are some of you out there needing to make something new as well.  I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

2 Tbsp melted coconut oil
2Tbsp maple syrup
2 eggs
2Tbsp cocoa
1 cup shredded coconut
1/4 cup sliced almonds
1/4 cup chocolate chips
Pinch of baking soda

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix oil, maple syrup and eggs.  Mix in coconut, cocoa, and baking soda.  Fold in chocolate chips and almonds.  Drop by teaspoon onto parchment lined baking sheet.  Bake for 20 min.  Cool on parchment until cool.  Enjoy. We did.

I would put more photos on but for some reason the blog is conspiring against me and I can't get more photos on for some reason.  Trust me they are good.  I used a fine flake coconut but they are better with a larger flake coconut.

Chocolate love

It might just be love at first taste, maybe even just the thought gives my heart a little flutter. You see I have always loved chocolate.  Like my father before me, though I suspect it is not a mutual adoration. I am still in denial. This is my story and I think I will tell it this way... One bright beautiful afternoon my good friend Charly came over to get a little help with her knitting.  Her very good idea, no wait great idea to bake as well was a welcome addition.  We made Brownie Cookies.  I don't know where she got the recipe from, but I changed a few things for the second batch.  Yes I made two batches in one day.  Here is the second variation as I think we all preferred them, I must admit they were both so good though that I will have to make more very soon.

Brownie Cookies: Grain-free, Sugar-free
4 eggs
1/3 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1/2 cup fat (softened butter, ghee, coconut oil)
1/2 cup honey
1/2 teaspoon real salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon organic coffee (like, already made to drink. Not coffee grounds.)
4 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/2 cup cacao nibs ( I didn't have any for the second batch and they were good without)
1/2 cup coconut flour
Instructions

Beat the eggs. A LOT. My new trick is using an immersion  blender for this. When you’re baking without baking soda, you want to make sure you fluff up the eggs as much as you can.

Then, use the blender to mix in the applesauce  til it’s smoothly blended with the eggs.
Add in the fat, honey, salt, vanilla, coffee (I learned recently that coffee brings out the flavor of chocolate really nicely, and if you just use a little, it doesn’t taste like coffee), cocoa powder, and cacao nibs. Blend until it’s smooth.

Then, slowly mix in the coconut flour, allowing it to “settle” in the mixture as you go. You may need more or less than 1/2 a cup. But for this recipe, I was aiming for more of a batter-like consistency than a dough-like one, since all my attempts at coconut flour cookies have shown me that they do not rise, spread, or otherwise change shape in the oven hardly at all. I don’t want ball-shaped cookies. I want flatter, cookie-shaped cookies. So I make the “dough” thinner for cookies like this.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. Check the bottoms to see if they’ve turned a little darker in color. Hard to see from the top since everything is brown!

Well here I sit staring at a blank page, or my version of that.  I wonder why on earth I started a blog, what was I thinking?  Where do I want to go with it.  In the past, random gym people encouraged me to write about my clients and life at the gym. It seemed like a breech of their privacy even if I changed their names. I don't know that my daily life is all that exciting.  Not to mention I would rather knit or bake or quilt or read or almost anything than write.  It is a toss up to clean the bathrooms or write on my blog.  You get what I am saying?  Although I see the need to improve myself, or shall we say do something's I might rather not. Hmmm my grandmother is most likely not impressed with my grammar.  You see if I try to self analyze, I have tried to please those around me all my life. I am a pleaser.  Not always a good thing.  I remember a good friend telling me an eon ago that I needed to love myself before anyone else could love me. Wise words, but very hard for me. I was always trying to please too many people.  We can start with my sister.  I have adored her forever.  I remember a time when I would do anything for her.  I am now maybe a little more reasonable. I still love her unreservedly but can now live my own life. You see I went to visit her yesterday and make some wooden blocks with her. It was a very nostalgic moment for me.  I used to go to her place a few times a week when my kids were little, if we lived in the same city.  When she lived in Vancouver we were there so often, if you asked my youngest Simonne where we lived she would say "Bancouber" in her cute little voice.  My she was adorable.  Kind of like the poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow about the little girl with a curl in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, she was very, very good, but when she was bad...  Yup that is Simonne still.  I was really going to tell you all about how I had gone to my sister Cheri's house yesterday and what fun we had. I came home telling Brian I need to go more often, as I feel the need to organize my house better.  I wish I was nearly as neat and organized as Cheri is. Oh my house is clean, but nowhere as nicely put together as my sisters is.  I seem to be going in ten directions at once. I might try to think I have one project on the go at any given time, sadly that is not the truth.

I laugh as I read over what I have written. I must confess I have told myself I can not edit myself to excessively or I would never post anything.

So back to my sister, I love her house, her style, and her blog.  Don't get me wrong I am not jealous at all. I don't want to be her.  I want to be me, you see I have learned to love myself.  I might actually be better at a few things than I thought I was. I love to sew, bake, knitting is a newly reclaimed love. I am actually playing with the thought of learning to spin my own wool.  Ok one day after I organize my house better.  I just have to take time out to play with my adorable grand kids. I can't seem to get enough of them, they are so cute. I just hope that in some way I can make their world a better place.

As I find myself rambling. I feel the need to go knit, as my grain free coconut lemon blueberry biscotti finishes baking.