Healthy(ish) Christmas Cookies: Part 3

'Twas two nights before Christmas and I just finished assembling my final recipe redo of the year. I'll be bringing all of my Christmas cookies down to the fam on Thursday so we'll see how everyone appreciates (?) these new takes on my grandma's classic cookies.

So finally we come to the simple butter cookie. My grandma would use her cookie gun to create shapes, then match them together as sandwiches filled with jelly. Then the sandwiches were dipped into chocolate and sprinkles and were just delicious and super professional looking. At least I always thought so!

My recipe conversion went like this:

1. Replace. White flour got the boot in favor of whole wheat pastry and spelt flour. Goodbye margarine and white sugar, hello organic butter, maple syrup and Sucanat. And instead of the notion that if you are 'just baking with it' to get the cheapest ingredients, I got quality plum fruit spread sweetened only with fruit juice.

2. Eliminate. Since there's plenty of sugar in the recipe I simply ditched the chocolate and sprinkles. If I were catering more towards kids I would have kept it, but for me this time of year, cookies tend to be breakfast so I went chocolate-free.

3. Add value. In perhaps my trickiest move yet, I mixed ground flax seed into the plum spread. You can't even tell it's there but your colon can. I mean, in a good way.

Perhaps a bit plain, these are still stunning because of my grandmother's hardworking cookie gun I'm lucky enough to have snagged.



Butter Cookie Sandwiches
1 lb. butter
1/2 cup maple syrup
3/4 cup Sucanat (a non-refined cane sugar)
2 organic/free range eggs
2 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
2 cups spelt flour
1 tsp. aluminum free baking powder
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1-2 cups naturally sweetened fruit spread of your choice
5 Tbl. ground flax seed

Cream butter with sugar in a large bowl. Add maple syrup, eggs and vanilla. Mix well. Add all dry ingredients and blend. Use cookie gun to create shapes on cookie sheets. You may need to bake in two batches as this recipe made enough to fill two sheets twice. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. They are thin and can burn easily to keep a close eye on 'em! Let cool on baking racks. In a bowl, mix fruit spread with flax seed. When cool, assemble into sandwiches with a small amount of fruit between the butter cookies.

Happy, healthy holidays to everyone!

Healthy(ish) Christmas Cookies: Part 2

Moving on to another of my grandma's recipes! Her Italian Sesame Seed Cookies always had a really understated elegance. It's as if to say, who needs chocolate? Who needs icing? They sort of fall in that Stella D'oro category of cookies that seem perfectly acceptable for breakfast and are excellent with a cup of coffee. (And when I say coffee I mean organic green tea...ok, maybe coffee but just 1 cup!)

Following my patented (not really) 3-step method I converted this white sugar/white flour recipe to something that tastes even better and feels like real food:

1. Replace. Instead of 3 cups of white flour, I used 2 cups of whole wheat flour and 1 cup of rye flour. The wheat flour is necessary for gluten. I think. I'm no scientist. The rye flour I thought would complement the seed theme. Mostly it was a guess. As for sugar, I ditched white sugar for a combination of raw unfiltered honey and date sugar. (The date sugar was a surprising and happy find – pure ground dates!) Then, the baking soda became aluminum free and the eggs organic/free range. Finally, instead of regular sesame seeds I chose the unhulled variety for extra fiber. So lots of replacements here.

2. Eliminate. I got rid of 100% of the white sugar and flour in this recipe. Enough said!

3. Add value. I added poppy, chia and caraway seeds. Together these seeds are a powerhouse of calcium, copper, manganese, zinc, fiber and more. I'm sorry, what was that? Calcium in a non-dairy product? YES, yes that's right.

They came out fantastic. Reminiscent of my grandma's cookies, absolutely. But with way more full bodied flavor from all of the quality ingredients. I'm in love.

Toothdigger Seed Cookies
Considering all the seeds, you should have floss handy :-)
1 cup unsalted organic butter, softened
1/2 cup raw unfiltered honey
1/2 cup date sugar
2 organic eggs
1 tsp. organic vanilla extract
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/8 tsp. salt
1 cup rye flour
1 cup of seeds, poured into a shallow bowl (Combination is up to you, I had a mixture of unhulled sesame, poppy, chia and caraway)

Cream together butter, honey, and date sugar. Add eggs and vanilla and mix well. Add flour and baking powder. Blend to create dough. Shape with hands into 1.5" long log shapes, about 1/2" wide. Roll cookies in seeds. Bake 10-15 minutes at 350 degrees until lightly browned.

I'm entering these into Food Blogga's Eat Christmas Cookies (enter here).

Healthy(ish) Christmas Cookies: Part 1

One of my favorite Christmas cookies is a recipe my grandma used to make every year. She called them Christmas Nut Balls and they are a simple combination of chocolate, nuts and plenty of sugar.

The thing is, I'd like to say, oh it's Christmastime, eat whatever, 'tis the season blah blah blah. But Max and I are going to Puerto Rico in a few weeks! So I'm really extra not interested in gaining holiday weight. And anyway, I've been cooking so much healthy stuff for us the past year, I'm just going to convert my favorite cookie recipes to something I'm willing to actually eat! Not that they'll be low fat or actually turn into magical health food, but... Anyway, here was the 3 step process I used to convert the recipe.

1. Replace. Whole grain flours replaced 100% of the white flour in this recipe. I just guessed with the spelt flour but it totally worked. And I replaced all of the brown sugar with pure maple syrup. The original recipe was always a little too dry so this 1:1 substitution actually improved things.

2. Eliminate. I cut the amount of white sugar and chocolate chips in half because there was enough sweetness in this recipe. Why overdo it?

3. Add value. I added fresh, healthy cranberries.

My grandma's Christmas Nut Ball have now successfully morphed into:
Christmas Cranberry Nut Balls
1 1/2 cups chopped pecans
6 oz. organic chocolate chips
6 oz. fresh cranberries, chopped
1 1/2 cups organic butter
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2/3 cup pure organic maple syrup
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
2 cups spelt flour
about 1/3 cup organic cane sugar or other granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Let butter softened in large mixing bowl.
Add maple syrup and vanilla, blend well. Mix in flours, one cup at a
time. Add chocolate chips, pecans and cranberries. At this point I
usuallly use my hands to mix everything evenly. Roll dough into small
balls, about 1" in diameter. Bake for 45 minutes on ungreased cookie
sheets. When cool, roll tops of cookies into a small bowl of
granulated sugar to coat.

I'm entering these into The Nourishing Gourmet's Nourishing Sweets and Treats Carnival and Food Blogga's Eat Christmas Cookies (enter here).

Solving dinner and your sweet tooth

In January I'm starting school at the Institute of Integrative Nutrition. Have I mentioned this before? I'm pretty psyched. Anyway, one of the things that has come across in my warm-up classes is the topic of cravings. For most of us, it's that hauntingly familiar sweet tooth that says "Hey, honey, look! Oreos are on sale!" or "Please, a plain dark chocolate bar is practically healthy..."

Anyway, I'm reading about a method to curb a sweet tooth with naturally sweet foods, like sweet potatoes or pumpkin or something like that. Hmphh. Tell THAT to a carton of Ben and Jerry's. But it's worth a try.

I found this recipe in Veganomicon. It's really easy and seems to beg for innovatative modifications. It takes about an hour, but most of that time is hands-off so you can get a little Netflix watching in while it bakes.

Sweet Potato-Pear Tzimmes with Pecans and Raisins
You essentially take sweet potatoes, pears, pecans and raisins, mix 'em together with some seasoning and bake. Super easy! Makes 4-6 side dishes.

In the spirit of avoiding sugar

I heart Zico.

My heart went pitter patter at the first sight of it in the deli's drink case. Coconut water after all is one of the few sugar-free alternatives to juice or soda when you are eating out, but most places don't carry it. Zico actually one-upped the other coconut waters I've had because they have different yummy flavors. Mango coconut water was definitely a happy, happy find. All natural, 60 calories per drink box, and 100% recyclable packaging. It just occurred to me that while I was excited about this packaging, I did actually throw it away in a trash can after lunch... shoot.

Anyway, it's not widely available but you can buy online.

Fun Game!

It's called Find The Sugar and it's a lot like hide-and-seek except more often than not, you're going to find it! Sounds fun, right?

So what are you looking for? Obviously, sugar. But also a number of other ingredient names which are actually just sugar...
Barley malt syrup
Beet sugar
Brown sugar
Cane juice syrup
Chicory syrup
Corn sweetener
Corn syrup solids
Dextrose
Evaporated cane juice
High Fructose Corn Syrup
Honey
Inulin syrup
Juice concentrate
Maltodextrin
Maltose
Maple syrup
Molasses
Natural sweeteners
Raw sugar
Rice syrup
Sucrose
Turbinado sugar
...to name a few.

So I'm not going to get into why sugar is bad for you, or which sugars are better than others, though those are areas ripe for discussion. My main point is, do you know how much sugar you are consuming in your coffee, your cereal, your Hot Pockets, Lean Pockets, Powerbars, etc.?

Where have you found sugar hiding undercover?

Six Saturday Sins and The Winner is

The milkshake. Wait, I'll back up. I've been off dairy and white flour products for a year. Off sugar and meat for about 6 months. I've been making valiant attempts to eat organic produce and avoid alkaloid-ridden nightshade vegetables. All in the name of health, mostly. Saving the planet maybe a little too.

But all my efforts did not keep away my yearly sinus infection. After 2 weeks of living in a congested, antibioticized daze I deserved a reward. Yes, that's it! Something to congratulate myself on finally feeling better. Something comforting and indulgent. Suddenly an undeniable image appeared in my mind: Bartley's Burgers. The smell that wafts down Mass Ave and lures pedestrians in off the street reached me, two towns away. In my mind I knew this was the reward I deserved so very much.

So we went. We ordered! I am an American! I deserve this. I sank my teeth into that burger and pulled away and unsatisfying bite of mostly bun. I tried again, teeth grazing the beef. I pushed away thoughts of feedlots, stun guns, and methane. The burger was...ok. I couldn't enjoy it. The fries were ok too. The satisfaction just wasn't there. The taste didn't draw me in and drive me to consume every last bite like I remembered.

But then, there was the milkshake, of which I drank down to the bottom of the glass with glee. After months of limited dairy and sugar, it was pure heaven. Delicious. And worth every sip. Until 20 minutes later when I was staggering around Harvard Square, my blood sugar exhausted. But in that moment...the milkshake definitely, definitely won.

Cookies for Breakfast

I think my mom let me buy a box of this stuff once as a kid. Oh, heavenly cookies for breakfast! When Christmas rolled around I also got to eat cookies in the morning, since as my mom put it, she made them and there was nothing bad in them. I assume she meant preservatives and had a memory lapse about the sugar.

Cookies for breakfast still sounds like a great idea though, IF it wouldn't put me into a hypoglycemic fit within minutes. Enter Delicious Wisdom and her delicious idea for making whole grain cookies specifically and nutritionally for breakfast. Awesome.

Breaking your fast, gently

I think this question comes up a lot for people: What is a healthy breakfast? A recent message string on yelp.com answered this question with suggestions like yogurt smoothies, berries with maple syrup, and skim lattes.

Well, anything is better that Frosted Flakes.

But after a night of no food, it's best to break your fast without shocking your system. That makes sense, right? So, sugar? That's extreme to introduce to your system first thing in the morning. Caffeine? Same thing. You may think your little Yoplait yogurt is a good idea but check out how much sugar is in that container, not to mention chemicals. You'd be better off eating nothing. That's true you know – eating sugar is worse than eating nothing. If you are ever stranded on an island with a 10 lb. bag of sugar, remember this.

For breakfast, do what the Chinese (or is it Japanese?) have been doing for centuries: eat rice. Remember, brown rice. Cook it the night before, then let soak in more water, and cook again in the morning, you'll get a real nice soft porridge. Add tamari, sesame seeds, anything you like. Miso soup is also traditional morning food – almost like a warm drink you'd have with your meal.

Not into rice and miso? Get some whole oat groats or steel cut oats. Steel cut are minimally processed and cook much faster. Whole oat groats are for the hardcore among us. Adding some amaranth is a tasty variation. Sprinkle on top: toasted wheat germ, ground flax seeds, nuts, raisins, chopped fruit, or cinnamon.

The truth is I don't have time for this 'cooking' crap on weekday mornings! If you are like me, find a boxed cereal that has zero sugar and whole grains. Two to try are Uncle Sam's and Ezekial sprouted grain cereal. Eat with unsweetened soymilk made with no genetically modified soy. (Eden brand, for one)

Coffee is a trap for more sugar and dairy in your diet. Plus that caffeine jolt is not a nice way to say good morning to your body. Go for green tea (which has a little caffeine) or herbal instead.

Your office's Friday morning bagels are worth resisting. Promise.

Break 'em hard

It's the holidays, so if you're gonna break diet rules, break 'em hard and nourish yourself with traditions, smiles and um, yule? For me, Christmas means Strufoli–a traditional italian treat of honeyed fried dough. As I kid I'd devour these, especially savoring the pieces at the bottom of the bowl sitting entirely in a pool of thick, vanilla flavored honey. Mmmmmmm This is a sugar spike I'll endure in the name of feeling like a kid again.

Strufoli
2 cups flour
3 eggs
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
colored non-pareil type sprinkles
1 cup honey
1 teaspoon vanilla

Beat eggs in large mixing bowl. Add all dry ingredients. Mix with your clean, bare hands until dough forms a ball. With floured rolling pin, roll dough onto a well-floured surface to 1/2" thick. This takes some effort! Using butterknife, slice into 1/2" grid. Allowing dough to dry for an hour or so makes the next step easier.

Heat oil in dutch oven on medium heat. Transfer dough pieces into oil, lowering with a slotted spoon. Deep fry one spoonful at a time. Make sure to flip each piece to cook evenly. Cook until pieces are light golden brown, then use slotted spoon to transfer to a brown paper bag from the grocery store. Repeat, one spoonful at a time, until all the fried dough is in the bag.

The brown bags will absorb the excess grease from the strufoli. My mom used to do the frying while I would shake the bags. Then, transfer to a new brown bag and repeat. Store strufoli in bags, preferably near a radiator, for at least 24 hours with regular shaking to keep well mixed. Change bags as they show oil stains on the outside.

Finally, heat honey and vanilla in a large pot over low/med heat. When melted, add strufoli and stir with wooden spoon to coat evenly. Pile into a bowl, including all the honey. Sprinkle with non-pareils. Cover with foil.

What's in your sugar bowl?

If you read "Sugar Blues" or just listen to me long enough, you'll know that sugar is essentially poison. And everyone knows that sugar=calories=fat. Sometimes sugar=mood swings or diabetic reactions. Enough said for now--sugar's got to go.

Enter Equal, stage right. Enter Splenda, stage left. Cut to close up of Sweet-n-Low.

The goal (my goal anyway) is to purify our bodies--not make them more complicated with chemicals and processed foodstuffs. Some less refined sugar options are honey and molasses. But these are still gonna give your blood sugar (and moods) a spike...with the inevitable fall.

We want a naturally occuring sweetener that has a low glycemic index (that's a measure of blood glucose levels). There is an herbal solution called Stevia, which is known for it's slightly metallic flavor. It's ok for some things though, so give it a try--it's got 0 calories. But the best sugar alternative I've found is Agave Nectar.

Agave looks a little like honey and they say it's twice as sweet as sugar per teaspoon. When I first tried it, I started off by adding it to drinks. That tasted ok, so then I tried adding it to sauces or glazes instead of sugar. Now I use it for just about anything, even baking. But the real sweet spot (hehe) is that the more I shift my diet towards whole, plant-based foods, the less sweetener I desire, period. The lesson here is, start small. You don't have to throw out your sugar bowl today.