Recipe: Oat & Almond Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies

I know it's been a little bit since I last blogged. But, I'm working on getting back into the routine, Lord willing. So, I thought I'd start out with a yummy new recipe that I tried.

Everything is gluten-free at our house, because there are too many with allergies to wheat. We normally use rice flour for baking. But, have been using a lot of oat flour lately due to waiting on the co-op order to arrive for the rice flour. Almond flour is another flour we keep on hand around here most of the time for my 20 year old brother who is on a mostly-grain-free diet (he was on the GAPS diet, but has started adding certain foods back in over the past couple months, since it's been a good 18 months on GAPS)

Anyways, I had some leftover Almond Flour from our New Year's party because I was unable to finish making all the cookies I was going to make for the party (due to getting sick). I also had a bag of peppermint/chocolate chips. So, I looked up almond & oat flour chocolate chip cookies. One of the recipes I found looked like it would be good and I could alter it enough to make it work with what we had in the house. The end result: The cookies turned out fabulous and the recipe is definitely a keeper!

Oat & Almond Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies
Yield: (I doubled the recipe, it made 6 1/2 dozen)
*remember there is a Printer-Friendly button on the bottom of each blog post.

Ingredients:
1 1/3 Cup Oat Flour (we make our own by grinding oatmeal in our Vita-Mix)
1 Cup Almond Flour
1/2 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1/4 Teaspoon Salt
1 Tablespoon Flax Meal
3/4 Cup Brown Sugar
1/4 Cup Water
1/3 Cup Oil
2 Tablespoons Vanilla
1 Cup Chocolate Chips

Directions:

1.  Combine all the dry ingredients & mix together.

2. Add wet ingredients (water, oil & vanilla) & mix together.



3. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until all combined.

4. Add the chocolate chips and mix until well combined. I used peppermint/chocolate chips and they were AMAZING!

5. Place on cookie sheets and bake at 375 for 12-15 minutes or until the edges of the cookies are golden brown. Remove from pan, place on cooling rack and let set for 10-15 minutes.

(As a side note: These cookies are also good if you do not add any chips to them. I set aside some of the dough and added chocolate to it for O, because he cannot have the chocolate chips due to the dairy in them.)

(Original recipe was found here, but I revised a lot of it).

Enjoy!


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Gluten-Free Flat Bread

Sorry for the lack of blog posts lately!

This is a new favorite recipe around here - Flat Bread. It's really easy and absolutely delicious. It goes great with soups, or even snacks. You can season it anyway you want, so you can make it sweet or savory!

The recipe below was done to make it savory, since we had it with soup for dinner.

Gluten-Free Flat Bread

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 egg
3/4-1 1/2 cups water
1/2 teaspoon salt
Italian seasoning, Parsley, Cumin Powder, Pepper or whatever desired seasonings (optional)

Directions:
*Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
 
1. Add all the ingredients together.

2. Mix until all combined.

3. Add any seasonings you would like at this point. I added Italian seasoning, Parsley, Cumin Powder and Pepper.

Mix the seasonings in (I had some help from a little O-man :)).

4. Oil the pan you will be baking it in, then spread the doe on the pan (it should be thin enough to spread well with just a little spreading help from a spatula). I used a regular cookie sheet and had the doe go 3/4 of the way up the side of the pan.

5. Place in the preheated oven. Bake for 15-25 minutes or until the flat bread is starting to crack, bubble and turn light brown on the edges.

The finished product with a few toppings added to it!

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Gluten-Free Poppy Seed Muffins

The way I like to bake gluten-free, is to find a regular gluten recipe and replace the flour with GF flour. I have rarely had something turn out wrong :). So, here's another recipe that I did that too. I found this recipe on AllRecipes.com and turned it gluten-free!

Gluten-Free Poppy Seed Muffins
Yield: 2 dozen regular muffins, 3 dozen mini muffins

Ingredients: 
3 cups gluten-free flour (I used rice flour)
2 1/2 cups sugar
4 1/2 teaspoons poppy seeds
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
1 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoons almond extract

Directions:
1. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, poppy seeds, baking powder and salt. Mix together. Add the eggs, milk, oil and extracts. Mix into dry ingredients, just until moistened.

2. Fill greased muffin cups 1/2 to 2/3 full. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean.

3. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from the pan. Let cool on a wire rack.

Enjoy!

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Wordless Wednesday: Gluten-Free Goodies .... again

For recipes, see http://hanunyahssweetcreations.blogspot.com

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Trienza Enzymes vs Nutrivene Enzymes

Some children with Down syndrome are greatly helped by the addition of enzymes to their diet, in supplementation form. International Nutrition has a Nutrivene Daily Enzyme which is on their recommended protocol.

We have never used the Daily Enzyme, because O has struggled with reflux over the years. Some children have their reflux get better when given certain enzymes, while it may trigger worse reflux for others.

Enzymes can also be helpful to the child if they have trouble digesting certain supplements, have constipation, or just have slow moving bowels.

There are a myriad of enzymes out there. Two that are commonly used by families on the Einstein-Syndrome list (ES) are the Nutrivene Daily Enzyme and the TriEnza by Houston Enzymes. One mom on the ES list shared what they had used for their son and a brief comparison between the two enzymes, as she used both of them.

So, here's a guest post from Jayme O.:

This is by no means an exhaustive comparison, so you will have to do your own research, but here are the basics.

The information about Trienza can be found at this link.  

From what I can see, Trienza is a combination of three of Houston Lab's most popular enzyme combination formulas; No Fenol, Zyme Prime, and AFP-Peptizyde. It is a full spectrum, plant based enzyme formula with enzymes that break down fats, proteins, carbohydrates, phenols, and gluten/casein/lactose.

The information about Nutrivene's enzyme formula can be found here. 

Nutrivene-D Daily Enzyme contains Amylase (breaks down carbohydrates), Cellulase (breaks down fibers found in fruits and vegetables), Lactase (breaks down milk sugar), and Lipase (aids in fat digestion). It does not contain any enzymes that break down protein. The way they measure their formula is not comparable with the way they measure the enzymes in the Trienza. 

They use different forms of measuring, so it is hard to compare the formulas.

In my experience, I first used the Nutrivene enzymes. At this time Vision was in a constant state of being constipated and really struggled to have a bowel movement. They were often hard and painful to pass. 

Then, when I discovered that the Nutrivene enzymes had rice flour in them (something that Vision is allergic to), I switched to a broad spectrum, plant based enzyme formula from Source Naturals. It seemed to help some with digestion and with helping the constipation, but it certainly didn't stop the constipation issues we were having. It was when I switched to Trienza that things got vastly better for Vision in digesting his food and having softer, easier bowel movements. It is still not perfect for him in the bowel movement area, but it is much improved. I will keep using the Trienza.

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Gluten-Free & Dairy-Free Thanksgiving!

We had quite the Thanksgiving get together on Thursday. Lots of food. Lots of family & friends. Lots of fun.

One requirement we had for those who contributed to the meal was that everything had to be gluten-free and (cow milk) dairy-free. It was quite easy to do and very delicious! So, here are a lot of pictures from the day.

We also had an extra challenge in the food department - we had to make a lot of dishes GAPS diet approved, since my brother, dad, sister, aunt, cousin, and a couple friends are on this diet. This wasn't too hard, since all the meat was homegrown meat, and we make everything from scratch. It was just some of the desserts, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, etc, that the GAPS diet folks can't eat.

One picture of the big "Happy Thanksgiving" sign we had hanging!



Veggie platters, deviled eggs (made with GAPS friendly mayonnaise), applesauce (also GAPS friendly)

Salad & toppings

Homemade Thousand Island dressing

Fruit salad with 9 different kinds of fruit

Rutabaga

Mashed potatoes and gravy

Green beans with bacon & almonds (the bacon was homegrown & "homesmoked" - very yummy!). Also GAPS friendly.

Meatballs (GAPS friendly)

Strawberry Sauce to put on GAPS Peanut Butter/Squash pancakes

A squash dish for GAPS.

Spaghetti Squash stir fry (also GAPS friendly)

Sweet potatoes with Marshmallows

Cornbread stuffing

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins, Kefir Biscuits & Apple Muffins

Pickled Beets, Pickled Asparagus, Olives & Pickled Corn

And then the drink counter. We didn't want any soda, since we aren't too fond of all the high fructose corn syrup in the soda, so we made homemade sparkling juice drinks. Sparkling Limeade (some that was both GAPS friendly and then a non-GAPS limeade, since it was made with sugar), Sparkling Apple, Sparkling Cranberry-Peach, Ginger Tea and Peppermint Tea.

We also had Jello dishes (with homemade marshmallows).

And of course, the standard Cranberry Sauce.

Popcorn balls

The meat was all roasted in a deep pit. We had to finish it off in the ovens. But, there was Ham, Deer Roast, Duck & Chicken.

And finally the desserts:

Pumpkin Pies (some GAPS friendly), Apple Pie, Frozen Peanut Butter Pie (GAPS friendly), Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies, Oatmeal Cookie Sandwiches, Whoopie Pies, Peanut Butter Truffles, Chocolate Chip Cookies, Fudge, and Double Chocolate Chip Cookies.

There was so much food that was all so good! We're very blessed! Hope your Thanksgiving was good!



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