No Sugar Pumpkin Spice Cookies

I mentioned in my last post, I lost my mind and decided to do a 21 Day Sugar Detox. One part that was
especially hard for me, since I'm used to making sweet treats, was trying to avoid baking. I decided I *needed* to make something and found a Sugar Detox Pumpkin Cookie recipe. I read through some of the comments and saw that others had made some modifications to make them tastier, so I decided to come up with some of my own (on top of the high altitude adjustments).

They tasted good enough, but I felt like they were missing something, so I decided pair them with icing from a scone recipe in the 21-Day Sugar Detox Cookbook.

Obviously, they are still technically missing something (SUGAR), but I think they were pretty good, all things considered. They are definitely great if you decide to take the plunge and do the sugar detox. As an added bonus, they are gluten-free as well ;)

No Sugar Pumpkin Spice Cookies

3/4 cup pumpkin puree

2 teaspoons coconut oil

2 eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon coconut flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

Icing 

(optional)

1/2 cup coconut butter, melted

1 tablespoon coconut oil, chilled and chopped 

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 teaspoons cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350.

In a mixer, whisk together pumpkin, oil, eggs and vanilla until well blended. Sift spices and coconut flour into the mixture and mix until fully combined. Stir in the coconut until mixed in thoroughly. Roll into 1-inch size balls and flatten slightly onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes or until browned on edges. Let cool on parchment paper or cooling rack. Drizzle icing on top or dip as desired (if desired, I don't want to seem like I'm pushing an agenda or something).

For the icing: Combine coconut butter and coconut oil and stir until oil is completely melted. Add vanilla and cinnamon until fully mixed. Drizzle over the cookies or use as a dip.

Kiwi Strawberry Smoothie

"Quartered" kiwis. You probs don't need to do this

Kiwis were on sale so I decided to stock up on them for the sole purpose of putting them into a smoothie. The strawberry kiwi combo is nothing new by any stretch of the imagination, so I apologize for my lack of creativity. Also, this was a total pain in my ass to do. Thinking back, kiwis are soft enough that I probably didn't need to peel, slice and quarter the kiwis. The process was extremely time consuming but the results were tasty!

Kiwi Strawberry Smoothie

1 1/4 cups kiwis, peeled, sliced and quartered
1 1/4 cups strawberries, quartered
1 1/4 cups white grape juice

Clean and cut strawberries. Peel and cut kiwi. Place into blender with white grape juice. Blend until smooth. Pour into a glass.

Apple Spice Cookies

Conversations between my husband and me yesterday went a little something like this:

Husband: so I have this thing for work tomorrow
Me: uh-huh...[knowing full well where this is going]
Husband: and I need to bring something
Me: ...like a baked good?
Husband: yeah! that would be great. could you make something?
Husband: oh, there was a request for blueberry and pecans
Me: ...you're getting something from whatever we already have in the kitchen

I almost made plain old chocolate chips (and I swear I'll do so one of these days!) but I flipped quickly through my cookbooks and saw a recipe for these cookies in my High Altitude Baking book. I have a ton of
apples and  typically they end up going bad because I don't manage to eat the quickly enough so I thought it would be a great way to get some use out of them.

The directions call for "finely chopped peeled" apples, which I took to mean "as long as it isn't bigger than the size of a chocolate chip it's probably okay."

Looks fine to me. Heh.

On a side note, I just got cooling racks for the first time in my life and they are so super awesome.

Apple Spice Cookies

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

2/3 cup shortening

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup peeled and chopped apple

Preheat oven to 375. In a medium bowl, combine flour, salt, baking powder, nutmeg and cinnamon. In a large bowl, cream sugars and shortening. Add eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth. Add flour mixture slowly and thoroughly, a little at a time. Stir in apples. Drop cookies, about an inch around, onto an ungreased cookie sheet about an inch apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove cookies from the cookie sheet immediately and place on a cooling rack or wax paper.

Blueberry Watermelon Strawberry Smoothie

I learned this morning that it is National Blueberry Muffin Day. I actually don't have a blueberry muffin recipe nor do I have the time to make any today, so instead, I will give you this picture of a blueberry muffin

and then will proceed with posting another smoothie recipe (that contains blueberries!) even though I just posted one a few days ago.

I originally intended to make another Watermelon Strawberry Smoothie, but I didn't have much watermelon left. But I did have plenty of leftover strawberries and blueberries from the American Flag Cake from July 4th. I substituted blueberries to cover the amount of watermelon I was missing.

I really enjoyed the end result, especially with the addition of some leftover whipped topping, also because of the American Flag Cake.

This is what a "quartered" strawberry looks like.

Blueberry Watermelon Strawberry Smoothie

1/4 cup watermelon, sliced, no rind
1 1/2 cups blueberries
3/4 cup strawberries, quartered
1 1/4 cups white grape juice
whipped topping, if desired

Clean and cut watermelon and strawberries. Rinse blueberries. Place into blender with white grape juice. Blend until smooth. Pour into a glass and top with whipped topping and blueberries (but only if you want to - I don't want to seem bossy or anything).

Watermelon and Strawberry Smoothie

When the weather gets hot there is nothing better than a cold smoothie. The problem for me though, is that I am super picky when it comes to fruit juices (and to an extent, fruit). I do not like orange or apple juice, which are the two most common types of juice (from my extensive research). I also cannot stand bananas, which seems to make regular appearances in smoothies (again, from my own extensive research). I was delighted when I found this recipe which doesn't contain any of the aforementioned atrocities. I decided to give it a go and was delighted with the results.

Watermelon and Strawberry Smoothie

1 3/4 cups watermelon, sliced, no rind
3/4 cup strawberries, quartered
1 1/4 cups white grape juice

Clean and cut watermelon and strawberries. Place into blender with white grape juice. Blend until smooth.

1 3/4 cups watermelon, sliced and rind removed

3/4 cup strawberries, cleaned and quartered

1 1/4 cups white grape juice

- See more at: http://www.foodfanatic.com/recipes/watermelon-strawberry-smoothie-recipe/#sthash.n6Ck1gIK.dpuf

1 3/4 cups watermelon, sliced and rind removed

3/4 cup strawberries, cleaned and quartered

1 1/4 cups white grape juice

- See more at: http://www.foodfanatic.com/recipes/watermelon-strawberry-smoothie-recipe/#sthash.n6Ck1gIK.dpuf

1 3/4 cups watermelon, sliced and rind removed

3/4 cup strawberries, cleaned and quartered

1 1/4 cups white grape juice

- See more at: http://www.foodfanatic.com/recipes/watermelon-strawberry-smoothie-recipe/#sthash.n6Ck1gIK.dpuf

American Flag Cake

Happy 4th of July everybody! I have many fond memories of Independence Days growing up. Every year my neighborhood (actually, to be fair, it was actually the neighborhood next to mine but we "crashed" it every year) would hold a parade. One of my neighbors had a flatbed trailer that we would decorate the night before. The day of the parade we would climb into the flatbed, decked out in as much red, white and blue as possible and throw candy and sing and shout to the parade watchers. After, we would gather at my godmother's house for a swim and a BBQ with all our neighbors. We'd then head home to change and regrouped to walk to the mall where would would set up our towels on a hill to watch the fireworks display. After the trek home we'd stop at my next door neighbors for ice cream sundaes. We'd top off the night with some night swimming with the pool lights on at my best friend's house. So yes, I totally love the 4th of July!

This flag cake became a yearly tradition for me. It is super easy and I admit I made it even easier by cheating and using a box cake mix (oh the horror!).

I decided this year I wouldn't cheat and I found a white cake recipe on this website. It wasn't complicated and was pretty simple to follow.



American Flag Cake

2 1/2 cups sifted cake flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups + 1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoon shortening (room temperature)
1 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup + 3 tablespoons milk (refrigerator temperature)
5 egg whites (refrigerator temperature)
1 container of whipped topping
1 container blueberries
1 container strawberries

 Preheat oven to 375.

Mix and sift flour, baking powder, salt and sugar into mixer bowl. Add shortening, vanilla, milk and egg whites. Beat 30 seconds on low speed, scraping frequently. Beat 7 1/2 minutes on high speed. Scrape twice during this beating.

Bake for 30-35 minutes (until toothpick inserted comes out clean).

Once completely cooled completely, cover cake with whipped topping. Place blueberries in the top left corner to make the blue square of the American flag. Halve the strawberries and place end to end in rows. Leave an equal amount of space between the next row to make the stripes of the flag.

Honey Spice Cookies

I'd actually set out to make chocolate chip cookies (I swear I was actually planning on making something normal) but as I started getting the ingredients together I realized I was out of brown sugar. I thought about trekking down to the grocery store to get some more, but then I got lazy and instead started to look for something else to make with what I had.

I came upon the Honey Spice Cookies in my High Altitude Baking cookbook and was happy to see that I had everything needed for them. I resumed mixing in the ingredients when I realized that although I did have clove, I had whole clove and not ground clove. I decided to improvise and ground it on my own. I don't have a mortar and pestle (cause really, when does someone ever actually need that?), so I had to use the method I used to crush pills before I learned to swallow them like a normal person (which wasn't until I was in high school). Yup, the tried and true "two spoons" method.

It took a bit of time and effort but I think I got it fairly well crushed.

The dough will be really sticky so you may want to cover your hands with flour before handling it. Also, the cookies spread quite a but, so make sure to place them pretty well apart on the cookie sheet or else they will run into each other (which happens to be a huge pet peeve of mine).

Honey Spice Cookies

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 cup sugar

2/3 cup butter

2 eggs

1/3 cup honey

Preheat oven to 350.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, salt and baking powder. In a large bowl, cream sugar and butter. Add eggs and honey and beat until smooth. Add flour mixture slowly and thoroughly, a little at a time. Drop cookies, about an inch around, onto an ungreased cookie sheet about 1 1/2 or 2 inches apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove cookies from the cookie sheet immediately (they will stick to the cookie sheet if you wait) and place on a cooling rack or wax paper.

Chocolate Chip Potato Chip Cookies

There was a gathering at my husband's workplace last night and I wanted to bring something to the event. I asked my husband for some inspiration and without skipping a beat he tells me a story about how one day he and his former roommate ate raw cookie dough and potato chips and how amazing the combination was. At first I thought he was suggesting I serve raw cookie dough and I was like, "Yeah...no, I'm not comfortable with that" but then I realized he just thought I should put potato chips into chocolate chip cookies. And this I could totally get behind because I love salty and sweet combinations.

I did a quick search on the Googles and realized that this was actually a thing and there were quite a few recipes out there (none for high altitude, of course). Many of the recipes called for potato chips and pretzels, but I decided to just add potato chips.

Rather than mess with a good thing, I used the standard drop cookie recipe from my High Altitude Baking book that I've used for my Caramel Bacon White Chocolate Chip Cookies and my Maple Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Per my usual, there was no way that my baking experience was going to be flawless. This time, when I grabbed the brown sugar, I realized it had gotten hard.

Luckily, this was an easy fix. I put the brown sugar in a bowl and popped it into the microwave for 10 seconds and it softened enough for me to measure it. Once it was creamed with the sugar and shortening it was like there was never even an issue in the first place.

There was one more moment of panic when my guinea pig/husband did the taste test. He stood there for a few moments with the strangest and (and from what I perceived) non-positive expression on his face. I thought, "Oh no! They are terrible!" but it turns out they weren't and then he proceeded to eat 10 more.

Chocolate Chip Potato Chip Cookies

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar

2/3 cup shortening

2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 cups crushed potato chips

Preheat oven to 375.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, salt and baking powder. In a large bowl, cream sugars and shortening. Add eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth. Add flour mixture slowly and thoroughly, a little at a time. Stir in chocolate chips and potato chips. Drop cookies, about an inch around, onto an ungreased cookie sheet about an inch apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove cookies from the cookie sheet immediately and place on a cooling rack or wax paper.