Tag: blueberries

Oats & Bits Cookies

Today I am sharing a recipe for what I have called Oats & Bits Cookies.

There are some cookies that the supermarket bakery sell that we quite like. However they are not gluten free and are high in sugars, preservatives and so on. So I decided to see if I could make my own homemade variety.

I am sharing the gluten free recipe I came up with. I am calling them Oats & Bits Cookies, as I am certain that you could change up the ‘bits’ or ‘fold in ingredients’ depending on personal preference.

Oats & Bits Cookies

Makes 16-18

Ingredients

2 ¼ cups of oats

1 cup almond flour

½ cup maple syrup

85 gms butter (melted)

pinch of salt

1 tbsp vanilla paste

½ tsp ground cinnamon

¼ tsp ground nutmeg

Bits (or Fold in) Ingredients

40g raisins, currants or dried blueberries

1 tbsp pepitas

1 tbsp choc chips (I used dark, dairy free chips)

Method

Preheat the oven to 180’c and line a baking tray with baking paper.

– Pulse 1¾ cups of the oats in a food processor till they are a fine crumb, then transfer to a large mixing bowl.

– Then add the remaining oats, almond flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt to the bowl.

– In another smaller bowl, whisk the vanilla, syrup and butter together.

– When combined, add to the bowl with the dry ingredients and mix well.

– Lastly fold in the raisins, pepitas and choc chips.

– Using a tablespoon, place spoons of the mix onto the tray and press lightly into shape.

Bake for 20 min, or until golden.

Let the cookies cool on the tray for a while before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

I think that the beauty of these cookies is that you could add anything from the pantry as a fold in ingredient.

Things like – chopped nuts, chopped dried apricots, your favourite muesli or granola, whatever you fancy.

I hope you have fun creating your style of Oats & Bits Cookies.

 

Till the next post,

 

Live clean n Prosper

Super Smoothies

Todays post is about Smoothies.

Now that the ‘silly season’ is over we are concentrating on getting back on track with our food choices and increasing our movement.

Starting with Breakfast….

We are big fans of ‘smoothies’ for breakfast, ever since we attended a seminar on ‘gut health’ by Dr Peter Dingle. It was at that seminar that we learned about the absorption of micronutrients, the ‘microbiome’ in the gut and how it is all linked to our overall health.

A healthy gut has several important jobs, including helping to fight off infection, as well as performing all of its usual digestive and regulatory functions, like absorbing and synthesising nutrients that are essential to keeping your body running at its best.

Probiotics and a healthy microbiome in our digestive tract is now recognised as one of the most critical conditions for our health and wellbeing. While it is obvious when it comes to many digestive disorders recent research has shown it can be involved in virtually every form of chronic illness. **Dinglewellness.com

Smoothies are one of the ways to get a bunch of good micronutrients into your gut. I have shared one of our favourite smoothie recipes.

 A Super Blueberry Smoothie

 approx. ½ cup frozen blueberries

 ½ a banana

approx. 20 raw almonds

1 tsp Maca powder

1 tsp chia seeds

1 tsp super greens powder (our choice is called ‘Green Qi’ from Modere)

¾ cup Coconut milk (You could use your preferred type of milk instead)

About the Ingredients 

Blueberries are rich in polyphenols, which have an antimicrobial and antioxidative effect. **Dr. Mercola.com

Almonds are an excellent source of protein, healthy fats, and antioxidants. Almond skins even contain beneficial phenols, flavonoids. and phenolic acids. **Dr. Mercola.com

Maca contains over 55 beneficial and naturally occurring phyto-chemicals (plant chemicals). It’s also a powerful adaptogen, which means it has the ability to balance and stabilise the body’s glandular-hormonal system, nervous system, cardiovascular system and musculature.

Chia is a legitimate superfood because of its nutrient content. The seeds are full of healthful omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, they have high levels of protein, fiber, and no cholesterol. They also contain minerals in significant amounts, including calcium, phosphorous, potassium, zinc, copper, and manganese. **Healthy Smoothie.com

We choose to use Coconut cream & water instead of milk as we try to keep our dairy milk intake to a minimum.

and get moving….

We are also making an effort to get moving and go for a morning walk on our days off as well as monitoring our incidental movement throughout the day.

This has been a bit of an eye opener; it’s really surprising some days how little we move. There are also some mornings when I really don’t feel like going walking, but you know, once I have made the effort and I’m walking down the street, I’m really glad I did. It wakes me up, gives me time to think about my day; what I need to do and what I want to achieve. Of course it gets the metabolism up and running for the day. Walking increases the heart rate, burning those calories and improving lung capacity.

 Till next post,

 Live clean ‘n’ prosper.