No Sugar Oat Drops

*Chef's Note: I have tried to find a recipe for some sort of homemade granola bar for years now without much success.  I finally found this recipe (thanks to Pinterest) and scoffed at it initially; how could it even taste good? It's like a cookie but without sugar and HOW CAN YOU LIKE A COOKIE WITHOUT SUGAR?!? But then the more I thought about it, the more I realized I needed to give it a try. And boy howdy did it turn out well!  This particular snack is full of all sorts of protein thanks to the nuts, terribly high in fiber (from the oats, dried fruit, and nuts), high in those "healthy fats" they keep talking about, and just a little bit sweet because of the bananas and the fruit.  These are really filling for how small they are and freeze well; this makes them perfect for taking in lunches and grabbing when you're headed out the door and are trying to stave off that dreaded blood-sugar plummet I've come to know so well.  These also happen to be vegan and gluten free. And they make your house smell amazing when they bake. And they take just as long to make as a batch of cookies. Are you sold yet?*

No Sugar Oat Drops
adapted from Blueberry Girl


Prep: 20 minutes
Cook: 20minutes
Makes: 18 cookies


1 1/2 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1 cup coconut flakes (I used the kind you can find in the baking aisle but if you really wanted to go super healthy you could get unsweetened flakes at a whole foods store)
1/2 teaspoon salt 
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice (I didn't have any, so I used 1/8 tsp cardamom and 1/4 tsp nutmeg)
1/4 cup of almond meal or flax meal*
1/2 cup mixed nuts, finely chopped (I used almonds and walnuts)
1 cup dried fruit (I used 1/2 dried cranberries, and 1/2 raisins)


3 ripe bananas, mashed (the browner the banana, the sweeter it becomes)
1/4 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract


Preheat oven to 350 F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. 
In a large bowl, combine oats, almond/flax meal, mixed nuts and coconut . Stir in spices and salt. Add dried fruit and mix well, making sure the fruit doesn't clump.


In a smaller bowl (or a blender, if you're like me and cannot stand chunks of banana) combine canola oil, mashed banana and vanilla extract. Pour wet ingredients over dry ingredients and stir until well combined. 


Using measuring cup, scoop up a scant 1/4 cup of dough and drop it on the cookie sheet. Press the dough together with your hands into a flat-ish cylinder, or pack the dough into a round cookie cutter to form. Because these cookies don't spread when baking they only need to be an inch or so apart. 


Bake for 20 minutes until edges are golden brown, rotating the pan halfway through baking.

Tips:
*If you don't want to buy almond meal or flax meal, blend 1/4 cup of almonds or flax seeds with 1 teaspoon of flour or cornstarch until the mixture looks like cornmeal (the flour or cornstarch will absorb the oil that comes from the ground up almonds or flax). If it starts clumping, stop processing otherwise you'll end up with almond butter or whatever flax seeds turn into when it's pureed. You'll want to use cornstarch to keep this gluten-free. 
*This recipe is not hard and fast--explore using different nuts or fruits or less fruit or maybe add a bit of molasses to the banana mixture. Just remember to keep the proportions the same, so if you take away the  nuts entirely, add that much more rolled oats to keep things in balance. Likewise, if you're short a banana but you have applesauce, try the substitution. 

Cornmeal Biscuits

Hi again. I know it's been a while.  Can I blame my lack of posting on my slow-as-cold-tar computer?  Hopefully sometime I'll get a new one and therefore be more willing to upload and edit pictures so I can keep sharing awesome recipes. I made this one yesterday and felt compelled to share.  


*Chef's Note: I have a great love for all things America's Test Kitchen because of their awesome recipes backed by science.  This makes me happy on so many levels: my foodie, my science geek, and my perfectionist--this food comes out good every single time. This recipe comes from Cook's Country, a cooking show made and hosted by the ATK people but has a more home-style feel to the food they create. This was my first foray into making biscuits at home and I feel like it went well, but I know I can get better results with more practice. These biscuits are hearty enough to be dunked in soups (they are seriously awesome in chicken broth-based soups) and rather exquisite when slathered with honey butter.*

Cornmeal Biscuits 

from Cook's Country

Prep: 20 minutes
Cook: 15 minutes
Makes: 12 2 1/2" round biscuits or 16 2x2 1/2" square biscuits

Ingredients

1 C cornmeal (the finely ground stuff, not the larger-grained stuff you use to make polenta)
1 1/4 C buttermilk
1 tsp honey

2 C all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder (yes, that seems kind of high, but trust me here)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 sticks (3/4 C) cold unsalted butter cut into 1/2 inch cubes

Directions

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the cornmeal, buttermilk, and honey and let it sit for 10 minutes.

In a large bowl or the bowl of a food processor, blend together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Cut in the butter cubes until the mixture resembles course meal.

Combine the buttermilk mixture and the flour mixture and fold together until just combined and there's no remaining flour. Do not overwork the dough--it will be quite shaggy and not hold together very well.

Lightly flour your board and knead the dough a few times.  Pat it into a 9" circle that measures about 3/4" thick.  Using a 2 1/2" biscuit cutter, cut out biscuits, flouring your cutter between each cut. Pat out your dough scraps and cut out remaining biscuits. (If you have no biscuit cutter like me, pat your dough into an 8"x10" square and mark it into 16 squares.  Use a bench scraper or a knife to cut out the biscuits.)

Place the biscuits on a parchment paper-lined tray.  Bake at 450 for 5 minutes until the biscuits start to rise, then turn the oven temperature down to 400 and bake for 8-12 minutes until golden brown and risen.  (If your oven is obtuse like mine, you may need to rotate your pan halfway through the baking process to ensure even browning.)

Tips
*If you don't have a food processor or a pastry blender, you can still achieve excellence in butter cutting.  Just freeze your butter and then grate it with the large holes in a box grater.  After mixing in your butter, cut through the flour mixture with two knives until it looks like course meal.
*Really, don't over-work the dough.  The biscuits cut from the middle of the rolled out dough took less of a beating and they rose beautifully, while my outside biscuits suffered more pummeling and didn't rise much.  They still taste great though.
*I freehand my honey butter and this time I went with about 1/2 a stick of butter, 3 tablespoons powdered sugar, and a tablespoon and a half of honey.  Make sure you sample it to make sure it tastes right (such hardship!) and add whatever you deem necessary (cinnamon? vanilla extract? orange zest?).