The past few days our home has been filled with friends as we celebrate the release of Beyond Bacon. We love to party and accordingly have happily hosted many house guests and enjoyed filling the bellies of each of them as we get to sit around and take the rare opportunity to chat and laugh together, face to face.
If you haven’t been following along on Instagram (why not? it’s the BEST social media!) we’ve had the pleasure of visiting with Bill & Hayley of Primal Palate, Lea from Paleo Spirit, our bud & photog Aimee and family, and the adorable Brent and Heather from Virginia is for Hunter Gatherers (who happen to be this month’s USWM Featured Chefs and if you don’t already like and follow them, you should!). And on Friday morning, the morning of our big release party (post coming soon, check out these photos while you wait), we had Russ from The Domestic Man, Sarah from The Paleo Mom and George from Civilized Caveman Cooking Creations all roaming the kitchen with empty bellies awaiting magic to happen.
So, I sat down with my best underage kitchen helpers and roamed the internet for a recipe of something that met all of our individual dietary needs that we also had all the ingredients for. Of course, we didn’t find exactly what we wanted… So what do recipe developers do when they want something specific? We make it of course!
This recipe is adapted from the autoimmune protocol. It is specifically almond-free because Sarah cannot have almonds. The egg could easily be left out if subbed for a flax egg or applesauce, but since ours were from Polyface the high quality doesn’t bother us in baked goods.
I wasn’t planning on blogging it until George informed me today that he’d eaten the last of the batch and told me I needed to edit photos and make this post for you all. I told him I was thinking maybe it wasn’t blog worthy and he became a bit insistent, and if you know George you know better than to argue with him. He even took his own photo (with our camera) of the cookies to ensure we could post them. So, here it is.
Ingredients
- 1 C sunflower seeds, raw
- 1/2 C cashews, raw
- 1/2 C walnuts, raw
- 1/3 C cold lard, butter or palm shortening
- 1/4 C maple sugar, granulated
- 1/2 t salt
- 1 egg
- zest and juice of 1 lemon (about 2 tablespoons)
- 2 T tapioca flour
- 1 t baking soda
- 1/2 t cream of tartar
- 1 C blueberries
Instructions
- *Create a fine nut flour with the sunflower seeds, cashews and walnuts. If you don't have a high-powered blender or food processor and don't have an issue with it almond flour would be a suitable substitute.
- *In a separate bowl, cream together the wet ingredients (lard, maple sugar, egg and lemon).
- *Add the nut flour, tapioca flour, baking soda and cream of tartar to wet ingredients and beat until just combined.
- *Gently fold in the blueberries to the mixed batter.
- *Drop the dough onto a greased or lined cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 13-15 minutes, or until golden brown on top.
- *Allow to rest for a few minutes before transferring, which will allow the cookies to set-up a bit.
Notes
Note, these are soft, chewy cookies. The dough will be loose but they bake up with a bit of a fluff to have a fresh, summery flavor and are best enjoyed warm out of the oven. If you have leftovers room temperature for a day or two is OK but otherwise should be chilled. Also, don't forget that the chlorophyll in sunflower seeds will react a bit and perhaps cause a slightly green hue to your cookie - as you seen, ours were normal.
We served ours with a veggie-rich egg scramble and pounds (yes, plural) of bacon. One cookie for each of us was just the right finish!