Mmmmmm....Santa would approve

Eat these in moderation!  Although they are gluten-free/dairy-free, they still contain sugar and should not be part of your regular Paleo/Primal diet.

I’ve been presented with a fantastic opportunity….to contribute 20 recipes (along with Aimee who is an amazing chef!) to a Paleo Cookbook that will be published through my friends at Crossfit Quantum.  I am SO thrilled about this!  The challenge is that a) I don’t often work directly from a recipe, rather I refer to them as inspiration and then throw similar ingredients together to see what happens. And b) I’m a perfectionist and wouldn’t want to submit something that I don’t love.  So,  I will be making all of my recipes over the next few weeks and perfecting the ingredients/instructions so that they’re ready for publication.  As I work through these recipes, I’ll be posting some of them to the site and looking for taste-testers.

With Christmas around the corner, I thought I’d better come up with some festive recipes.  Gingerbread is one of my favourite things to binge on so I wanted to come up with a Gingerbread recipe that would even please the big guy in red.  Voila:

Ingredients (Makes 12 Cookies)
–  1/2 Cup Medjool Dates (you can sub a portion of this with Prunes to reduce GI – tip courtesy of Sio)
–  1 1/2 Cup Almond Flour or Finely Ground Almonds
– 1/4 Cup of Macadamia Nut Butter – you could use ground macadamia nuts, but the butter makes it chewier
– 1 1/2 Tbsp Coconut Oil
– 4 tsp Ground Ginger
– 1/2 tsp Nutmeg
– 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
– 1 Tbsp Lemon Zest
– 1 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
– 1/8 Cup Agave Syrup (I don’t normally use this stuff because it has a high GI, but it adds the right amount of sweetness)
– 1 Egg

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350
  2. Remove pits from the dates and send them through the food processor until they form a paste
  3. Mix all ingredients together in a bowl (you can use a mixer if you have one) – make sure dates are evenly distributed
  4. Using a Tablespoon, scoop the dough onto your cookie sheet to form cookies.  I tried to use a Gingerbread Man shape, but the dough was too gooey to maintain the form.
  5. Bake for ~10 minutes or until cooked.  Remove and cool.
  6. Try not to eat them all at once

 

These are seriously one of my best Primal creations to date.  They are ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS and I inhaled 2 of them immediately and then forced one down my Husband’s throat because i was so happy with the result.  They came out rather chewy, but I like them like that.  I’m not sure how to make them crisp and if i could figure this out, then I could probably use my Gingerbread Man cut-out.  Sadly, he had to sit out of this experiment (as the picture to the left indicates)…sorry little buddy.

My Semi-Primal Husband’s testimonial: “These are really good!  You should bring these on Christmas for my family and they would love them.”

Nutritional Info (fitday.com):

Batch Per Cookie
Calories 2,181 182
Fat 158 13
Carbs 172 14
Protein 57 5