Saturday, July 9, 2016

Craftsy Sale July 2016

Hey Everyone! I hope you are having a great weekend.  Craftsy is a having a great sale this weekend and I wanted to share it with all of you.  They are offering 50% off of their top classes.   I love their classes and have learned so much from them.  I would love to have you give them a try.  They also offer free mini classes if you want to give them a try to start with.  Just click on the picture below and check out all that Craftsy has to offer.

Have a great weekend.
Debi


Craftsy

This is a sponsored post and I may receive compensation for your purchases from Craftsy.

Thursday, July 7, 2016

Low Carb Chocolate Chip Cookies


I started making these grain free Low Carb Chocolate Chip Cookies last month and they are definitely delicious.  I even took a batch on our cruise last month and shared them with my table mates and they were a big hit.  So I can confidently share this recipe with all of you.  The inspiration for this recipe came from Amy's Healthy Baking.  I have tweaked it a little to fit my tastes.  I like cookies with a little bit more texture then the plain coconut flour cookie, so I have added almond meal to the recipe.

One of the things that I have found difficult with any type of a low carb diet is giving up all of the food that we love.  I met an amazing woman on a flight in May and she lives on a pretty restrictive diet.  She pulled out a tupperware of snacks on the flight and shared her story with me.  She was diagnosed with leukemia about 7 years ago and had to have a bone marrow transplant.  The bone marrow came from her sister, which was great.  She had a very aggressive form of leukemia and would not have survived without the transplant.  She is healthy now, and doing great, but the transplant changed her body chemistry, so she now has lots of allergies and asthma, which are things she never had in the past.  They are health issues that her sister has had, so when she had the bone marrow transplant, she now has the same health as her as her sister. (I thought this was very interesting. This was something I never had thought about.)  

Anyway, what I came away from with all of that was that I could do this.  This needed to be a life change for me, and I wanted to come up with a way of making this ketogenic diet work for me.  I would never be able to go bread free and treat free, I know that, so I have been determined to come up with tasty alternatives and fit the way I am supposed to be eating.  I came back from Colorado with a new attitude and armed myself with all kinds of recipes that I found on Pinterest.  The link will take you to my page and I have 6 or 7 different Keto Boards filled with recipes that I have saved.  You are welcome to take a look and see what looks good to you.  I will be sharing different recipes that I have tried with all of you and I hope you like them.

Anyway, back to my delicious Grain Free / Sugar Free / Coconut Flour / Low Carb Chocolate Chip Cookies.  These have a little bit more texture then the original recipe.  This is a soft cookie, not a crunch cookie, so if you are looking for crunchy cookies you will have to wait a week or two.  I have a recipe that I have been working on, but it still isn't quite right yet.  Once I have it down, I'll post the recipe with pictures.



Low Carb Chocolate Chip Cookies - GF/SF

Ingredients:

1/3 cup coconut flour
2/3 cup almond flour
1 tsp xanthan gum
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 TB butter (I use kerigold, pasture raised)
2 large egg whites, room temperature
1 large egg
1 TB vanilla extract
1 TB Sweetleaf stevia powder
3 TB granulated Stevia (Stevia in the Raw or Truvia)
2 TB erythritol (You can get this at a health food store)
6 TB unsweetened almond milk, coconut milk, or heavy whipping cream (the difference in the recipe of you use heavy whipping cream are the calories, just don't use regular milk)
5 TB Lily's Sugar Free Chocolate Chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a cookie sheet with a silicon lining or parchment paper.

Mix the coconut flour, almond flour, xanthan gum, baking soda, and salt together with a whisk.

In a separate bowl whisk together butter, egg whites, egg, and vanilla.  

Then whisk in the Sweetleaf stevia powder, the granulated stevia, and the erythritol.

Next, add the almond milk, or whatever type of milk you are using.

Add your egg mixture into the dry ingredients, mixing until just mixed.

Next add the chocolate chips.

Roll your dough into 12 to 15 balls and then shape them and flatten them.  These cookies will not spread out, so you will need to shape them the way you want them.  Lay them on your lined cookie sheet.

Cook them for 12 to 15 minutes.  Keep and eye on them, because the almond flour can burn, so start watching them at about 12 minutes.

Let them cool for 10 minutes on the cookie sheet and then move them to a rack to finish cooling.  I store them in a plastic container in the refrigerator.  They are ok out for a few days, but I find that they last longer in the fridge.

I hope that you enjoy this recipe.  The cookies are delicious and pretty easy to make.
Have a great week.
Debi