Cookies!

No, seriously, COOKIES! That I can eat without blowing my food plan!

I have 2 recipes for you. One is for pumpkin cookies from Everyday Paleo and the other is for raw macaroons courtesy of Charlotte at The Great Fitness Experiment (whose name I will forever praise because of these cookies).

Paleo Pumpkin Cookies

1 C. almond meal
1/2 C. finely chopped pecans (the original recipe calls for walnuts, but I'm not a big walnut fan and I LOVE pecans)
1/2 t. baking soda
1 T. cinnamon
1 egg
1 C. cooked and mashed pumpkin, sweet potato or butternut squash (I used pumpkin and it still tasted like Thanksgiving sweet potatoes. Go figure.)
1/4 C. coconut milk
2-4 T. maple syrup (I admit it, I used all 4. I could see using less if I used sweet potatoes or a sweet squash instead of pumpkin.)

Preheat oven to 400. In a mixing bowl, stir together all the dry ingredients. In another small mixing bowl whick together the egg, coconut milk, and maple syrup. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well. Add the mashed sweet potato/pumpkin/squash to the dough and mix well. Grease a baking sheet (or use a Silpat) and scoop about one heaping tablespoon per cookie onto the baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes. Makes approximately 15 cookies.


Raw Macaroons

2 C. raw, unsweetened coconut
1/2 C. almond meal
1/4 C. maple syrup
1/4 C. coconut oil (the recipe called for coconut butter, but I didn't have any. Coconut oil works great, though maybe the cookies would have a bit more structural integrity when they get warmer with the coconut butter. Must experiment (and make more cookies))
1/8 t. vanilla
pinch salt

Mix everything together, roll into balls and chill in refrigerator for a half hour or longer. (Try not to eat all the dough right then and there when you give it a little taste.) Made about 30.

The macaroons taste like heaven. And I discovered this morning that a couple of them are a great little pre-workout snack.