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Almond butter chia balls

This is a simple and tasty way to get your fill of almonds and chia seeds. But any nut butter should work, as will flaxseed meal in the place of chia seeds.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons almond butter
• 3 tablespoons chia seeds
• Optional: 2 tablespoons raw cacao powder

Directions

1. Stir until everything is mixed.

Avocado and sweet potato

This one (image) is fully described by its name. It's just sweet potatoes and avocado, mixed together. It's a pleasant combination, and also healthy: the avocado helps you absorb the vitamin A in the sweet potatoes. I came up with this recipe all by myself. Some accomplishment, huh?

Ingredients

• 2 cups cubed sweet potatoes (I use the Stahlbush Island Farms frozen variety)
• 1 medium or large avocado

Directions

1. Steam sweet potatoes.
2. Mix in avocado.
3. Salt to taste.

Avocado, fried

Sweet potatoes, avocado, and oil fried up make for a good, simple meal. Trouble is, sometimes you'd rather forego the sweet potato's carbs. In that case, simply fry up your avocado in a skillet (image).

Ingredients

• 1 avocado
• 1 tablespoon coconut oil or other oil

Directions

1. Quarter the avocado, remove peel.
2. Fry avocado in oil for around 5 minutes. Turn as desired.
3. Salt to taste.

Baked kale chips

Kale is good for your body, but bad for your taste buds. But it doesn't have to be. If you coat kale in fat and bake it to a crisp, it's actually quite tasty.

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon (50g) avocado oil or olive oil
• .33 cups (50g) baby kale
• A pinch of salt

Directions

1. In some kind of mixing bowl, stir up the oil and kale leaves so that most every leaf has some oil on it. Salt to taste.
2. Place the oiled leaves on parchment paper and bake for about 11 minutes in a 350 F oven.

Brownies

A simple brownie recipe. Bake in a pan that's 9x13 (or so). Some say that this should all be mixed by hand, to prevent beating into too much air. But I very rarely do that, and only if the butter is very soft before starting. Based on the Mmm-Mmm Better Brownies Recipe on Allrecipes.

I typically also add to the batter an 11.5 ounce bag of milk chocolate baking chips. Another twist -- whether you use chips or not -- is to pour half the batter into the pan, put in a layer of Dove Caramel and Milk Chocolate Promises (or similar), and add the remaining batter on top. This adds a layer of caramel and milk chocolate to the middle of the brownies. For an even richer brownie, frost with walnut butter.

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter
• 2 cups (440g) white sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup (120g) flour
• .66 cups (85g) cocoa powder
• .5 teaspoons baking powder
• .5 teaspoons salt

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 F and grease pan.
2. Mix butter, sugar, and vanilla.
3. Mix in eggs.
4. In a separate bowl, combine flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt.
5. Add dry and wet ingredients and mix.
6. Bake 20-25 minutes or until brownies pull away from the edge of the pan.

Brownies, paleo

Ok, so I'm skeptical that these are really "paleo," or much healthier than any other brownie recipe. Still, these taste okay and are easy to make. The ingredients below include measurements for a full batch as well as a smaller, 1/4th-size batch that I like to eat as batter. About 390 calories for the single serving, or 1600 for the full batch.

Ingredients

• 4 eggs (1 egg)
• 1 cup cocoa powder (4 tablespoons)
• .25 or .33 cups maple syrup (1 tablespoons)
• .33 cups (75g) extra virgin coconut oil (1.33 tablespoons)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla (.5 teaspoons)

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 F.
2. Mix ingredients.
3. Pour batter into 4x8 pan (or, better yet, just eat it raw).
4. Bake for 22-25 minutes.

Cookies, brownie

These cookies (image) are not healthy, but are at least dairy-free. They are also delicious, with some saying they are the best cookies they've ever had. Of course, I can't take any credit for that -- I only followed the directions from Allrecipes.

Ingredients

• .66 cups (128g) vegetable shortening
• 1.5 cups light brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1.5 cups all purpose flour
• .33 cups cocoa powder
• .25 teaspoons baking soda
• .5 teaspoons salt
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 375 F.
2. Beat shortening and sugar until smooth.
3. Beat in one egg.
4. Beat in second egg, with vanilla and water.
5. In a separate bowl, combine flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.
6. Stir the dry ingredients into wet ingredients until lightly blended.
7. Fold in chocolate chips.
8. Make spoonful-sized cookies and bake for 7-9 minutes.

Cookies, chocolate chip

I found this one on Allrecipes as "best chocolate chip cookies". They are that. I like eating them a lot (image). Makes about 48 cookies, or four cookie sheets.

A slight tweak on this recipe is to double the eggs and to use more chocolate chips. In line with the measurements below, you could use four eggs and four cups (or two bags) of chocolate chips. The end result is a flatter, chewier cookie.

Ingredients

• 1 cup (16 tablespoons) butter
• 1 cup (230g) white sugar
• 1 cup (215g) brown sugar, packed
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons hot water
• .5 teaspoons salt
• 3 cups (480g) all-purpose flour
• 3 cups (about 1.5 bags or 500g) semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

1. Pre-heat over to 350 F.
2. Cream butter and sugars until smooth.
3. Beat in eggs one at a time.
4. Stir in vanilla.
5. Mix in baking soda (dissolved in hot water).
6. Mix in salt.
7. Stir in flour.
8. Stir in chocolate chips.
9. Bake for 8-9 minutes, being very careful to remove cookies as soon as they become even slightly brown at the edges.

Cookies, gluten-free sugar

I'm don't eat a gluten-free diet but these are still my favorite sugar cookies. This recipe covers the cookies and a frosting for them. Via Allrecipes.

Ingredients

Cookies

• 2.5 cups (338g) gluten-free flour (I used King Arthur brand)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• .5 teaspoons salt
• 1 cup sugar
• .75 cups butter, softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 eggs

Frosting

• .25 cups cream cheese, softened
• .25 cups butter, softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1.5 cups confectioners' sugar

Directions

Cookies

1. Mix flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.
2. In a separate bowl, mix sugar, butter, and vanilla. Beat in eggs one at a time and mix until smooth.
3. Combine dry and wet ingredients and mix until the ingredients are combined and can take on a ball form.
4. Wrap dough ball in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.
5. Preheat oven to 350 F.
6. Roll out dough on a floured surface. Cut out shapes.
7. Bake on cookie sheet for about 10 minutes or until edges begin to brown. Cool on sheet for 2 minutes before moving to a wire cooling rack.

Frosting

1. Combine cream cheese, butter, and vanilla extract and mix until smooth.
2. Beat in confectioner's sugar and mix until smooth.
3. Spread frosting onto cookies.

Cookies, peanut butter oat bran

Just what the recipe says. Cookies made out of healthy oat bran and peanut butter -- plus butter, sugar, flour, and other poisons.

Ingredients

• .5 cups butter
• .75 cups (143g) brown sugar
• 1 egg
• .5 cups (96g) peanut butter
• .5 teaspoons (2g) vanilla
• 1 cup (157g) flour
• 1.5 cups (180g) oat bran
• .75 teaspoons baking powder
• .25 teaspoons baking soda

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Mix butter and sugar in mixing bowl.
3. Mix in egg. Mix well.
4. Mix in peanut butter and vanilla. Mix until smooth.
5. Mix in dry ingredients. Mix well.
6. Place small cookie dough balls onto ungreased cookie sheet.
7. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Let cool on pan for 2-3 minutes, then transfer to wire cooling rack.

Cookies, peppermint chocolate crackle

A classy holiday cookie that my coworkers and friends really enjoyed. The recipe comes from the Anchorage Daily News. You can double this recipe and still fit it into a standard stand mixer. You should probably double it, in fact -- the recipe below makes only about 15 cookies.

Ingredients

• 2 ounces (57g) unsweetened chocolate baking bar
• 3 tablespoons (38g) butter
• 2 eggs
• .75 teaspoons peppermint extract
• .75 cups (105g) flour
• 3 tablespoons (20g) cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon (5g) baking powder
• 1.5 cups powdered sugar (180g), plus another .5 cups for rolling out the cookies

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. In a bowl, melt together chocolate and butter. An easy way to do this is to microwave at 20% for a minute or two, then stir any remaining chocolate bits in with the hot butter.
3. In a separate bowl, beat eggs and then add peppermint extract.
4. Mix eggs and peppermint with the butter and chocolate.
5. In yet another bowl, stir together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and powdered sugar.
6. Combine wet and dry ingredients and stir until you have a soft dough.
7. Use a cookie scoop to make small balls of dough. Use your hands (coated in powdered sugar) to roll these balls in a bowl that you have filled with about .5 cups of powdered sugar.
8. Place cookie dough on a parchment paper-lined (or good non-stick) cookie sheet and cook for 7-8 minutes.
9. Let cookies to cool on cookie sheet for 5 minutes before moving to a wire cooling rack.

Cookies, quinoa and peanut butter no-bake

Here is a somewhat healthy cookie that won't make you turn on the oven. My audience found these palatable but did not come back for thirds. Not sweet enough? I liked them. So did some people eating gluten-free. Based on a recipe from a random blog.

Ingredients

• .5 cups (125g) maple syrup
• .25 cups (57g) coconut oil
• .25 cups cocoa powder
• .5 cups (128g) creamy peanut butter
• .5 teaspoons vanilla
• 0.125 (1/8th) teaspoons salt
• 3 cups cooked quinoa (one cup quinoa, two cups water)

Directions

1. In a large pan cook 3 cups quinoa and set aside. Don't let it get cold, though.
2. In a small pan over medium heat, combine maple syrup, coconut oil, and cocoa powder. Stir well. Bring to a boil for one minute, then remove from heat.
3. Stir the peanut butter, vanilla, and salt into the small pan.
4. Pour the contents of the small pan onto the quinoa and stir till everything is blended.
5. Drop small scoops of batter onto parchment paper and place in the fridge for at least 1 hour. Leave these cookies in the fridge except when you are serving them (they tend to dry out at room temperature).

Gingerbread men, Li'l Honest Abe's

This is a recipe for gingerbread men the likes of which a young Abe Lincoln enjoyed. The recipe is online here and comes from Rae Katherine Eighmey's book about the food of Lincoln's time.

Ingredients

• 3.33 cups (550g) all purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons (24g) packed brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon (6g) ground ginger
• .5 teaspoons baking soda
• .5 cups cold butter
• .5 cups milk
• .5 cups sorghum or molasses

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Combine dry ingredients and stir in butter that has been cut into small pieces. Stir until the mix has the texture of coarse cornmeal.
3. Combine milk and molasses in a measuring cup.
4. Combine dry ingredients and butter with the milk and molasses, stir, and knead until smooth.
5. Using your hands, roll out balls of gingerbread weighing about 60g (or golf ball-sized) into 12-inch strips about the circumference of a pencil. Pull off a 4-inch section.
6. Fold the 8-inch section into a shape resembling an upside-down V. Pinch this V together about an inch below the top so that there is a circular head-shape at the top. Place 4-inch section underneath this to form the gingerbread man's arms (image).
7. Bake on lightly greased (or good non-stick) cookie sheets for about 12-13 minutes.

Hello dolly bars

These are delicious. The recipe seems based on this one or maybe this one.

Ingredients

• .5 cups butter
• 1.5 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 1 cup shredded coconut
• 1 cup chocolate chips
• 1 cup walnuts
• 1 cup condensed milk

Directions

1. Heat oven to 350 F.
2. Mix butter and graham cracker crumbs.
3. Place butter and graham cracker crumbs in lightly greased pan.
4. Layer in order coconut, chocolate chips, and walnuts on top of graham crackers and butter.
5. Pour condensed milk over mix.
6. Bake for 30 minutes.

Hot cocoa

This is a recipe I found on a Martha Stewart website. A website I found through Google. I do not read Martha Stewart websites. Anyway, it's very simple.

Ingredients

• 3.5 cups white sugar
• .75 cups cocoa powder
• 1 tablespoon salt

Directions

1. Add two scoops of hot cocoa powder to one cup of almond milk.

Leafy green berry smoothie

Here is a smoothie that I make every day (image). It has several virtues. It's easy to make. It's nutritious. It's low in sugar. The ingredients are easy to come by. And since it doesn't taste good to begin with, you can easily substitute or add in ingredients (e.g., cacao powder, flaxseed meal, fruit). Note that I use just enough berries to keep the drink palatable. You may use more.

Ingredients

• 1 cup leafy greens (e.g., kale, spinach, various leafy green mixes)
• .5 cups mixed berries
• Water

Directions

1. Mix ingredients in blender.

Lemon bars

These lemon bars (image) are easy to make and taste good. They're based on Chef John's Lemon Bars. Bake the crust, then pour the filling on it and bake again. The amounts provided here are enough to bake slightly thinner bars in a 9x13 pan; you could also halve the recipe and make the bars in a 7x7 pan. Note that my baking times are a little less than what Chef John recommends. Also note that some people recommend adding .5 teaspoons baking powder to the crust and the filling. (I don't do this.)

If you work at a good pace, you should be able to do the baking and clean-up in around 90 minutes. Also note two good-sized lemons should provide enough juice and zest.

Ingredients

Crust

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup unsalted butter
• .5 cups powdered sugar
• .5 teaspoons vanilla
• .5 teaspoons salt

Filling

• 4 eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• 2 cups white sugar
• 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• .5 cups lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons lemon zest
• Optional: 2 teaspoons powdered sugar

Directions

Crust

1. Heat oven to 350 F.
2. Mix butter and flour.
3. Mix in powdered sugar, vanilla, and salt. Stir until the crust resembles a crumbly cookie dough.
4. Press dough into a greased 9x13 pan. (If using a smaller pan, and you have a thick crust, now is the time to use a fork to poke rows of holes in the crust. Otherwise wait until after baking.)
5. Bake crust for 18-20 minutes on center rack; edges should be barely golden brown. After removing from the oven, use a fork to poke rows of holes in the crust.

Filling

1. Briefly whisk eggs and yolk.
2. Mix in flour and sugar. Whisk till smooth.
3. Mix in lemon juice and lemon zest. Whisk for 2 minutes.
4. Pour filling over crust and bake at 350 F for about 20 minutes.
5. After removing bars and letting cool, take a butter knife and run it around the edge of the pan to separate the bars from the pan.
6. Optional: Sprinkle powdered sugar on top of finished bars.

Pasteli

I once read that Roman soldiers in the field ate a mixture of honey and sesame seeds in ball form. Later, I tried to find where I read that. The closest thing I came across was a recipe on celtnet.org for something called "itrion," which the author of the site says is an authentic ancient Roman food. I soon learned that it is still consumed in the region as a treat called pasteli. It is a good snack for sure.

Ingredients

• 100g sesame seeds
• 60-70g honey
• A little bit of olive oil

Directions

1. Heat the honey until it begins to bubble, then turn down to low and heat a little more for a few minutes.
2. When the honey is hot, stir in sesame seeds. Keep on flame and continue to stir the mixture for another 5 minutes or so.
3. Remove the pasteli from the pan onto a plate coated in olive oil. Flatten the pasteli into a fairly thin sheet.
4. Now either wait for the pasteli to harden (a few hours or more) or just eat it as soon as it cools down -- the choice is yours!

Pistachio butter

This is a delicious and healthy nut butter. What more do you need me to say?

Ingredients

• 510g pistachios
• .5 cups oil (e.g., sunflower oil). No oil required if using roasted pistachios

Directions

1. Add pistachios and oil to blender.
2. Blend ingredients by starting blender at slowest speed and ramping up to its highest speed. Tamp ingredients down as necessary.
3. Blend ingredients until smooth. This may take several minutes.

Pizza dough, almond flour

This (image) is a simple low-carb pizza crust. It takes all of two minutes to make. If you are lazy, you can just eat the dough uncooked. It won't make you miserably ill like that time you ran out of pizza sauce and cheese and so instead ate a mixing bowl full of yeasty pizza dough. 830 calories per batch of dough. Add another 90 calories for 3 servings -- half a jar -- of pizza sauce.

Ingredients

• 1 cup (112g) almond flour
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon (12g) olive oil
• .5 teaspoons salt

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 F.
2. Mix ingredients well.
3. Lightly oil two sheets of parchment paper. Place the dough between these and press it out. You can also use a rolling pin. Leave the dough on one of the pieces of parchment paper to bake.
4. Bake for maybe 10 minutes or until desired crispiness.
5. Remove crust from oven and put on desired toppings.
6. Return to oven for a bit more until the toppings are as you want them.

Pizza dough, whole wheat

This is a very basic, quick pizza dough. There are probably better doughs out there, but this one is easy and reasonably healthy. You can leave out the flaxseed (just use a little more flour) or even substitute beer for the water if you want a beer-bread taste.

Ingredients

• 1 cup warm water
• 2.25 teaspoons yeast
• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• .25 teaspoons salt
• 6 tablespoons ground flaxseed meal
• ~3 cups flour (2 cups whole wheat pastry, 1 cup white is good)

Directions

1. Put water, yeast, olive oil, and salt into mixing bowl.
2. Add flaxseed meal to the mixing bowl.
3. Add the first cup of flour and mix. (I like to use at least one cup of white flour since this has more gluten in it. Gluten is good for doughs.)
4. Add the second cup of flour and mix.
5. Slowly add in the third cup of flour, while mixing. It is easy to add too much flour so be careful and take this step slowly.
6. Once you have a firm but workable dough, knead it for 8 minutes.
7. You can use the dough soon if you cover it and let it rise. Otherwise, cover and let it rise in the fridge (for hours or days).

Sunflower seed butter

Another very simple nut butter recipe. I put this here mainly so I can remember how much oil to use.

Ingredients

• 4 cups (454g) Sunflower seeds (e.g., Go Raw salted sunflower seeds)
• .33 cups oil (e.g., sunflower oil)

Directions

1. Add sunflower seeds and oil to blender.
2. Blend ingredients by starting blender at slowest speed and ramping up to its highest speed. Tamp ingredients down as necessary.
3. Blend ingredients until smooth. This may take several minutes.

Tahini

This is a pretty adequate alternative to store-bought tahini. I make it in my Vitamix blender.

Ingredients

• 4 cups (576g) raw unhulled sesame seeds
• .66 cups oil (e.g., sunflower oil)

Directions

1. Add sesame seeds and oil to blender.
2. Blend ingredients by starting blender at slowest speed and ramping up to its highest speed. Tamp ingredients down as necessary.
3. Blend ingredients until smooth. This may take several minutes.

Waffles, vegan

This one (image), unlike most waffle mixes sold in stores, doesn't have dairy or white flour. The flavor doesn't suffer for it. Just one word of caution, though. These can be sticky even in a good nonstick waffle iron. 740 calories per batch.

Ingredients

• .75 cups whole wheat flour
• .25 cups flaxseed meal
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• .5 teaspoons cinnamon
• .25 teaspoons salt
• 1 cup almond milk
• .5 cups applesauce

Directions

1. Mix dry ingredients.
2. Mix wet ingredients, being careful not to stir together too good.
3. Combine wet and dry ingredients and stir together lightly. You should still see lumps when done stirring.
4. Cook and then eat!

Walnut butter

The walnut butter I see at the store is misnamed -- cheap cashews are the second ingredient. Even so, this "walnut" butter is really expensive. I've never bought it. Instead, I make my own pure walnut butter at a rather lower cost.

Ingredients

• 4 cups (448g) walnuts
• .5 cups (125 mL) walnut oil

Directions

1. Add walnuts and oil to blender.
2. Blend ingredients by starting blender at slowest speed and ramping up to its highest speed. Tamp ingredients down as necessary.
3. Blend ingredients until smooth. This may take several minutes.