Macadamia and Chocolate Cookies

Easter is on it’s way and many of us are thinking about chocolate.  So here’s some more chocolate to tempt you!

Ingredients

80g organic butter (grass-fed if you can find it), softened

1/3 cup organic coconut sugar

1 free range or omega-3 enriched egg

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups almond meal

1 tsp baking soda (gluten free)

1/2 tsp rock salt

100g 85% chocolate, finely chopped

Natural macadamias, roughly chopped

Method 

Preheat oven to 180°C.

Grease 2 oven trays or cover trays with grease proof paper.

Beat butter and sugar in a large bowl until thick and creamy.

Add egg and vanilla and mix well until thoroughly combined.

Sift together and then fold in almond meal, baking soda and salt with a big metal spoon until just combined.

Add chocolate and macadamias.

Place rounded teaspoons full of the mixture onto the prepared trays.

Bake for 12 – 15 minutes or until they turn a light brown.

Remove from oven and set aside to cool a little.

Transfer to wire rack to cool.

Makes 30 little morsels

No-Oatmeal

When I first decided to eat Paleo, the hardest part for me to understand was how was I going to eat and enjoy breakfast.  My old CrossFit coach led me to the Mark’s Daily Apple site with this fantastic recipe.  Just beware, too many nuts can irritate your gut.

Child decorated No-Oatmeal

Ingredients

5 small handfuls of walnuts, 

5 small handfuls of pecans, 

2 Tbsp ground linseed meal

3 tsp ground cinnamon 

1/4 tsp of ground nutmeg 

1/4 tsp of ginger

Reserve 4/5 of the above ingredients for another serving.

3 eggs

1/4 cup unsweetened almond milk

banana mashed

1 Tbsp almond butter

2 tsp pumpkin seeds

handful fresh berries or goji berries

Method

In a food processor, process walnuts, pecans, linseed meal and spices until it resembles a course grain (stop before it becomes powder).   For 1 serving use 1/5 of this nut mixture and reserve the rest in tight fitting jar for another 4 servings another day.

Whisk together the eggs and almond milk into a large microwave bowl.

In another bowl mash the banana with a fork and then continue to mash adding in the almond butter.

Next, stir the egg and banana mixtures together in the microwave bowl.

Stir in the portion of nut mixture.

Microwave the mixture for 1 min and then give it a stir making sure to mix in all the partially cooked mixture off the sides.  return the mixture to the microwave for another 50 secs and then stir the mixture again.  Continue to decrease the timer on the microwave till it reaches the consistency desired.      My household likes no-oatmeal still wet, so we are careful not to overcook the mixture.

Sprinkle the no-oatmeal with pumpkin seeds and in season fruits or goji berries.

Serves –  1 person (or in my home me and my two girls and then we might have some vegetables and meat).  We are careful not to eat too much.

Yaki Nori Wraps

Often people want to know a substitute for bread.  I think the yaki nori wraps, which my family can’t get enough of at the moment, would be a great bread substitiute .  I try to double the dip we use on the Yaki Nori, so we can use the leftover dip with vegetable sticks later.  I found this cashew dip recipe and we love it.

Open Yaki Nori Wrap

Ingredients

tuna

julienne vegetable (cucumber, capsicum, carrot, celery)

sliced mushroom

avocado

crab meat

prawns

For the nut pate:

150g Cashew Nuts

¼ cup water

Chunk of fresh ginger

Garlic clove

1 Tablespoon of lemon  juice

1 Tablespoon of Tamari

+ Sheets of yaki nori (dried seaweed sheets)

Method

Blend the nuts to a crumb and slowly add the water and lemon juice, then the minced garlic, ginger and Tamari till it resembles a smooth (not runny) consistency.

Take a sheet of nori and place it shiny side down.  Spread the Nut pate in a straight line along the bottom edge covering about 3 cm of the yaki nori, at the top of the pate edge, place a line of meat, and some julienned vegetables, carrot etc, on top of this 3 cm covering of nut pate– then roll.  Just before reaching the end of the sheet wet the exposed strip with a little water.  Apply gentle pressure to join the edges of the nori.  You can eat them in the big roll or cut them up for little samples.

 

Fish and Prawn cakes with mayonnaise

At a picnic dinner recently I made some fish and prawn cakes with mayonnaise.  They were served cold  and were a real hit!  They were best when still warm, but everyone still wanted to know the recipe.  I packed them into our picnic supplies with paper towel in-between the layers.  Double the recipe and keep as a quick snack.

Fish and Prawn cakes with Mayonnaise

Ingredients

500g boneless white fish fillets (I used barramundi)

500g green prawn cutlets, shell and tails removed

4 kaffir lime leaves, shredded

1 red chilli, chopped (more if you love the heat)

4 whole coriander stems roots and leaf, washed and chopped

1 tsp sea salt flakes

1 egg

olive oil, for frying

Mayonnaise for dipping

Method

Finely chop the fish and prawn meat quickly in a food processor (don’t puree them).  Put the chopped ingredients into a large bowl. Add lime leaves, chilli, coriander, salt and egg and mix together with your hands.

Shape one large spoonful of the mixture into a ball shape.  Repeat with the remaining mixture to make 20 cakes.  Heat a large frying pan over medium heat.  Pour enough oil to just cover the pan.  Place cakes in the pan and push to flatten.  Cook cakes in batches for roughly 5 minutes, checking that they are golden and cooked through.

Serve with a quartered lime and mayonnaise.

Optional –  Serve them on a bed of cucumbers, tomatoes and shallots.  Or provide a selection of those vegetables as vegetable sticks add carrots, celery,capsicum and provide the little grape tomatoes.