Sugar and grain free? No problem.

That's what we call these. They don't last long at our house. They almost have a caramely/pecan pie-ish taste. Mmm, they're so good! They're sugar and grain free, but they don't have that I'm healthy taste to them, at all!

Ingredients:
1/4 C coconut oil (or oil of your choice)
1/4 C honey
1 t vanilla
1 1/4 C blanched almond flour
1/4 t sea salt
1/4 t baking soda
1/2 C chopped nuts (I use pecans... mmmMmmm)
1/2 C shredded coconut, unsweetened

Before you get started, preheat your oven to 350 F.
In a large bowl, combine oil, honey and vanilla, and set aside.
In a medium bowl, combine almond flour, salt, baking soda, nuts and coconut.
Add dry the ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix throughly (I use a big spoon).
Take about a tablespoon or so and roll/shape (they can be a little sticky so they may not "roll") them into a ball and slightly flatten.
Bake them on a parchment lined cookie sheet for 8-10 minutes, or until golden brown around the edges. Cool and then move them onto your serving tray (I made the mistake of trying to move them too soon... Just trust me, don't do that).
Enjoy. My mouth is watering just typing the recipe out!

Adapted from Simply Living Healthy

Tantrums. Bad Tantrums.

(this is not a picture of a tantrum:)
Personal story:

Ezra is my sweet boy, but he used to throw terrible, and I mean terrible tantrums from time to time. All kids misbehave and throw fits, either because they’re tired, have had too much sugar, need discipline... But these aren’t the type of fits I’m talking about.

How to describe them? It’s like for a few minutes, my sweet boy isn’t there. He turns into someone who is screaming and yelling at the top of his lungs; growling, throwing things, kicking the walls and crying uncontrollably. Then, after it’s all over and we’re talking, and I ask him why he threw such a fit? He will usually look bewildered and say very genuinely, “I don’t know” and then star down at the floor very sad.

For a while these outbursts seemed to happen all of the time. Anyone who’s experienced these kinds of tantrums knows, you seriously wonder what’s happened to your kid? We figured it was the “terrible two’s” carrying over into the three’s.

Then, one day we noticed that he hadn’t had a tantrum in a while. They began to happen less and less, until it was only one every week or two; then they seemed to pretty much stop... Interesting.

Around this time we’d changed up our disciplining techniques and cut out TV (except for “special occasions”). Those were the only reasons we’d accredited seeing such an improvement in Ezra’s overall wellbeing. It was so nice having our goofy, innocent crazy kid back! Yet, with all of the changes we’d made it didn’t make sense that every now and then one of these tantrums would pop back up. Granted, it wasn’t as big of a deal because we knew that they would pass and he’d be fine, but it was confusing.

It wasn’t until one night, after we’d been out celebrating with family, that Josiah and I connected the dots. When we got home Ezra was bonkeroos!! He wasn’t being “bad” necessarily, he was just bouncing off the walls and was going ninety to nothing in his eyes. At one point he ran up behind Johnny and just whacked him on the back of the head! “EZRA!!” I yelled. “Why did you do that?” Again, he looked down, and then back up at me and slowly and quietly said “I don’t know.” “Ezra” I said “No, WHY did you do that?? You could hurt Johnny...” And that’s when it clicked.

That night he’d had red ice cream.

No. This could not be it. I didn’t believe it. I went to Josiah and told him and we both just stared at each other. Food dye? That just seems too weird. I’ve heard about those people who are sensitive to food dyes and I think it’s a bunch of crap... at least, that’s what I thought.

Hello google.

I found stories of the kind of behavior that we were experiencing and the culprit was indeed, artificial food coloring.

Up to this point, I had never had a second thought about food dyes. If the word “food” is in the name, then it’s got to be safe to eat... But, these are a few of the things I learned about artificial food coloring:

Many of them contribute to hyperactivity, restlessness and attention problems in children.

Some of them are known carcinogens. In short, a carcinogen is a substance that is capable of causing cancer in humans or animals.

The FDA actually recommended that one of the Red dyes be banned because of it’s link to thyroid tumors; Yet, it is still being used today.

In Europe they have to put a warning label on products that contain certain food dyes.

So, besides coloring the food, what do the dyes do? NOTHING. Absolutely nothing. They add no nutritional benefit or flavor. Something else that’s interesting, it is completely possible to use natural food coloring, most companies just choose not to. For instance, in Europe (again) Kraft Foods uses natural food coloring in it’s Mac ‘n Cheese, but here? Nope.

Once we started entertaining the idea that food dye could be a huge culprit in Ezra’s tantrums, it clicked with us that the uncontrollable behavior began to lessen around the same time that we changed our diet to a more plant based, whole foods, natural way of eating. We would still let Ezra have cheats if we were out somewhere (hence random tantrums?), but the more real ingredient foods we ate, naturally we ate less processed artificial foods. Looking back it’s plain to see a direct correlation to our diet and Ezra’s behavior.

There are a lot of stories out there like ours. Your child doesn’t have to have an “allergy” to something for it to not be good for them. I encourage you to educate yourself and not assume, like I did, that things are safe just because they’re for sale to eat. Check labels out. I was shocked this Easter when I couldn’t find one jar of relish at the grocery store that didn’t have yellow dye in it. Really? Food dye in pickles?? I would never have thought.

Now, I still believe in fun foods and candy; I just want the real stuff, not something that was formulated in a lab. This is a link to a store that sells candy that is 100% natural and artificial dye free. Not only is it not harmful to you or your child, but there is no comparison to the taste. Hide your debut card before you click though. Trust me.

THIN MINTS!!

The other day, as I was driving home, I passed some kids selling Girl Scout cookies. I don’t know about you, but I attach memories to different things, good and bad. Let me tell you, I have all kinds of great memories attached to those delicious little bits of heaven. There’s something nostalgic about them. Popping a sleeve of those guys into the freezer and then enjoying them while watching movies on Friday night... Ah, the good ol’ days.

I want my kids to have those same good memories attached to delicious little treats too, and this is what I was thinking about as I passed the Girl Scouts. Only, I don’t want them to have to eat a bunch of hydrogenated oil, high fructose corn syrup or any other crap ingredients to be able to have fun, happy, party foods. This gave me an idea... Could I make thin mints?

YES!

Are they “easy” to make? Well, they’re not “hard”, but they’re time consuming. This isn’t that big of a deal to me though. Good tasting healthful food, takes time. My one rule in the kitchen is that is HAS to taste good. Eating healthful foods doesn’t have to taste like cardboard.

So, this is where I got the recipe. I had to adjust it a little to make it dairy, gluten and soy free (she gives some good ideas). Instead of butter, I used coconut oil. Instead of whole wheat flour, I used 1/2 C brown rice flour and 1/4 C sorghum flour. Instead of regular chocolate chunks, I used Enjoy Life soy-dairy-gluten...free chocolate chunks (I am in love with whoever started this company, by the way. I want to hug them for like an hour straight).

Now, she makes these cookies look like everything magically falls into place; but we know that when you’re actually the one making them, that rarely happens. So, I’m going to give you a pictorial play by play.

Should you choose to make these cookies, you absolutely will not be disappointed. I honestly like them more than Girl Scout thin mints, and I didn’t think that was possible. They’re light and crisp and don’t leave that plasticy feeling in your mouth when you’re done eating. Oh, my one bit of advice: don’t eat too much of the chocolate as you're baking them... you won’t realize how much you’ve eaten until you’re about ready to barf, and that just takes away from the goodness of the cookies:).


My thoughts at this moment are, what the eff? It's a bunch of crumbs!! Fight the urge to add water. She says to "shape into a ball and then flatten into a disc and then place it into the freezer". Right. As you can see, that didn't work for me. I just stuck it into the freezer like this (but don't leave it in the freezer too long or you'll have a rock on your hands... trust me).


After removing it from the freezer and pressing it around in my hands (a lot), and then rolling it out (I put a piece of parchment paper between the roller and the cookie dough) it came together like this.


I used a glass to make the cookie cut outs.


This is my hodge-podge of cookies.


Once they've cooled, right before the chocolate dip. You want to avoid making them too thin, or they'll crumble and you'll yell obscenities.


My homemade double broiler. Hey, use what you got, right?


Freshly dipped cookies. Had a little chocolate left over, so I grabbed some strawberries. Whoa, was that a good decision! To coat the cookies, I just dropped them in the pan (one at a time), spooned the chocolate over the top and then took them out with my fingers, shaking off the excess chocolate.


I like them best once they've been in the freezer for a little while. Oh my. These are so good. And the best part is that you can feel good about eating them!:)