Apple-Cinnamon Cookies

These cookies are sweetened only with the natural sugars already present in the apple and plantain flour

Ingredients:

1 cup apple flour
1/2 cup ripe plantain flour
1T cinnamon
1/2 tsp pumpkin spice
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 eggs

Instructions:

1. Mix all dry ingredients together.
2. Beat in eggs and vanilla until you can't beat it any more.
3. Knead the dough with your hands for a minute or so. It will be quite sticky.
4. Scrape your hands then clean them and oil them with coconut oil or butter.
5. Roll the dough into balls and press flat with your finger or a fork.
6. Bake on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet for 12 minutes at 350F

Very good, a little dry - maybe add another egg or some water next time. Also, I think I will increase the leavener.

Butternut Squash Buns

This is a recipe that I'm trying for the first time, and I'm going to share with you how it turns out. I previously peeled, sliced and dehydrated two butternut squashes. Then I ground them up into a flour. I am loosely basing this recipe on the previous Paleo Dinner Roll recipe that I posted with my Chili recipe.

Ok, so I posted the recipe below just so someone can learn from it. These were TERRIBLE! I think what made them terrible was the fact that I made my own squash flour instead of buying more Anti-Grain Flour - which is awesome by the way! I will be posting some recipes that I've made with these flours soon!

Dinner Rolls (Adapted from here)

Ingredients

• 1 cup tapioca flour (starch)
• 1 cup squash flour
• 2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup coconut oil
• 1/2 cup grass fed ghee
• 2 large egg, whisked
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• optional: 1 tbsp fresh chopped chives or garlic or onions or other herbs, 1/2 cup grated cheese

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Combine the tapioca flour, squash flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda a in a medium bowl. Mix well and break up any chunks.
3. Pour in oil and warm water and beat together. Add the whisked egg and continue mixing until well combined.
4. Spoon out about two tablespoons of the dough and roll into balls. Use extra tapioca flour in the palms of your hands so the dough does not stick.
5. Place each roll of dough onto a greased baking pan or parchment paper
6. Bake for 35 minutes.

Homemade coconut milk

So we normally buy canned coconut, but this morning we ran out and I remembered that we had some shredded coconut that I bought a looooong time ago and was planning on making some coconut milk with it. Well now was the perfect opportunity! When buying coconut, it's really important to choose coconut that has nothing other than coconut. No sugar, no sulfates, no nothing. I tried making coconut milk before with coconut that contained sulfates and it smelled like sulfur - gross!!

Recipe: (for approx 3.5 cups of milk)

2 cups shredded coconut
3-4 cups boiling water (or less if you want to make coconut cream)

Instructions:

1. Measure the shredded coconut into a 1 L glass measuring cup

2. Pour the boiling water over the shredded coconut until the total volume is 4 cups.

3. Let the mixture soak for half an hour or so. But don't wait until it's completely cooled down.

4. Pour the hot (but not scalding) mixture into a blender and blend on high for 2-5 minutes. (The time will depend on how powerful your blender is).

5. Once the mixture is completely blended, pour into a nut-milk bag, or pour it through a sieve lined with cheesecloth.

6. Once it has all dripped through, squeeze the nut-milk bag or cheesecloth to get the remaining milk out.

7. Place in a jar in the fridge and store for up to one week, or freeze for up to a year.

It is really yummy to drink on it's own, warm with a dribble of vanilla and a sprinkle of cinnamon on top! Perfect way to warm up on a cold winter's day!

This coconut milk tastes much better then canned coconut milk in my opinion, and you don't need to worry about guar gum or BPA. Guar gum is commonly added to coconut milk to thicken it, and BPA is in the lining of most cans.

Pumpkin Pie Balls (paleo, vegan, nut free)

I'm not sure about the proportions since I pretty much just made it up as I went but it was (with total guesstimates for the amounts!):
1.5 cups ground pumpkin seeds
Dashes (to taste) Cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, allspice and salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
5-6 mejool dates
3-4 tbsp pumpkin

Coating:
Ground pumpkin seeds
Cinnamon
Maple sugar (optional)

Blend pumpkin seeds in food processor until fairly fine. Add spices, vanilla and 1-2 dates. Pulse until the dates are completely combined. Keep adding dates until the mix starts to get a bit sticky but is still falling apart a bit. Next add pumpkin and pulse until evenly combined. You may need to mix the last bit by hand.

Roll into balls and roll into coating.

Paleo Strawberry-Rhubarb Crumble

So this is a dessert I was making for "non-paleo" family members, so I added more sugar then I would have if it had just been for us. So adjust the amount of sugar/honey to your taste. This may seem quite sweet but was great for non-paleo taste buds! This was also quite a large batch and could serve 8 adults, so you may want to split it in half if you're just doing it for a family of four. That's partly why I left the measurements in tablespoons, so it would be easier to adjust the size.

Topping:
6 tbsp arrowroot flour
6 tbsp almond meal
6 tbsp coconut sugar
2 tbsp pecans
2 tbsp walnuts
1/2 tsp salt
drizzle of honey (to taste, ~ 1-2 tsp)

Process all of the above in food processor until it's like a dough, then mix in by hand:

1 cup coarsely chopped pecans
1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

Filling:
4 cups cut up rhubarb
4 cups cut up strawberries
1/3 cup honey
2 tbsp arrowroot flour
1 tbsp lemon juice

Mix all the filling together and pour into a pyrex dish, then spread the crumble topping over the top. Bake at 400'F for 25 minutes, or until the topping is brown.

Banana Muffins (Paleo, vegan, egg-free, nut-free and sugar-free)

I have a hard time not baking. I really do... Anyway, after the realization that my youngest daughter (who is now 6 months) is allergic to eggs, I couldn't do anymore paleo baking... Or so I thought! After making plantain tortilla chips, I saw how stretchy the plantain "dough" could be. This is a huge issue for gluten-free baking. The gluten helps hold stuff together. In traditional (re: non-paleo) gluten-free baking, they often use xanthan gum, or something else that's 'binding' but wouldn't likely be paleo. So, I was so excited with the plantains!! I also googled to see if anyone was using plantains as an egg-replacer, and low and behold I found this post by The Paleo Mom discussing how to use binders in paleo baking. She did discuss plantains! But rather then trying to follow a tried and true recipe, I decided to invent my own! I love to do this, and sometimes it ends in utter failure. But luckily this time it was a huge success!! So here is my super simple recipe for banana muffins!

Ingredients: (makes 12 muffins)
1 large plantain (it was yellow, although I'm sure green or black would work too)
2 overripe bananas
1 tsp sugar-free vanilla
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 1/2 cup pumpkin seed flour (ground in my food processor)

First I mashed the plantain and bananas together in a bowl. There were still some chunks, so I poured it all into the food processor and blended it until smooth. I'm sure you could do it in a blender too. Then combine the vanilla with the banana/plantain mixture. Next, combine all the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl. Then pour the dry ingredients into the wet and stir until combined. Spoon out into muffin cups and bake at 350'F for about 15-20 minutes.

I have tried making them with nut flour (almond and cashew) and they turned out great! Even better... But if you need a nut-free version then the pumpkin seeds work really well! I did try making them with sunflower seed flour... Let's just say I won't be doing that again! There's a reaction between a compound in the sunflower seeds and baking soda that turns green. And I don't mean a hint of green, I mean after a night in the fridge you could use this as camo makeup! Here's a picture of the green muffins!

Plantain Tortilla Chips

I tried making these tortilla chips made from plantains. It took me 2 days and 3 different grocery stores to find green plantains, but I did manage! They took a really long time to blend in my food processor but at the end it was 'dough-y' but smelled like banana. I was very, very skeptical about how well this would work. I was pleasantly surprised!! They do need a little tweaking though. The first batch, I spread out too thick and I undercooked them at first and they were soft and stretchy, but they would have been excellent as tortilla wraps! I will have to try that in the future! Then I put them back in the oven and they got crispier, but they were pretty thick and hard. But taste-wise they were great! Then the next batch I made some of it too thin, and it kind of burned. But there were some that came out perfect! So, it was more of a user-error issue! I think they'll work out better next time, and I will definitely be making them again! I will also try making tortilla wraps out of them and make fajitas!