Red Deer Foodie

A few months ago, I picked up one of the best paleo resources ever, Practical Paleo by Diane Sanfilippo –  such a great book for those considering paleo or needing to eliminate junky stuff from their diets.  So many of my friends are switching their diets lately due to celiac disease, leaky guts or just the desire to be healthier.  I try really hard to cook mostly paleo, though my addiction to carbs and cheese sometimes effs things up for me!  Last week I whipped up a couple of batches of cookies that I adapted from one of the recipes in the Practical Paleo book – they whip in no time and are the perfect present for anyone you know who is trying to get bad stuff out of their diet!  I wanted to spice them up, so used some McCormick Cocoa Chili Spice Blend – the results were amazing, though don’t forget to pre-warn people that they are spicy (forgot and gave to boss!)  I also made a using of Seedy Quinoa Stacks using puffed quinoa that Erin brought me back from Peru (check out this link for a similar product).

Paleo Chocolate Chili Haystacks (makes 12)

Ingredients:

2 eggs

2 tbsp butter, melted and cooled

3 tbsp maple syrup

1/4 tsp vanilla paste (available at Big Bend Market in Red Deer) 

1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 cup sliced almonds

2 tsp cocoa chili blend

1/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp baking soda

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.  In a medium mixing bowl, whisk eggs and add rest of ingredients (MAKE SURE that butter is cooled otherwise you’ll have some egg chunks!!)  Once combined, let the batter rest in the bowl for about 5 minutes to kind of “firm up” then divide equally into 12 plops on the cookie sheet.   I baked for exactly 20 minutes and they came out perfect!

If you want to try making some seedy cookies for the little tweet tweets out there, method is the same, but here are the ingredients:

2 eggs

2 tbsp butter, melted and cooled

3 tbsp maple syrup

1/4 tsp vanilla paste (available at Big Bend Market in Red Deer)

1 cup puffed quinoa

1/4 cup pepitas

1/4 cup sunflower seeds

2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp baking soda

Tags: cocoa, cookies, easy, paleo, puffed quinoa