After the third or fourth night in a row of having vivid Salvador Dali-esque dreams about baking cookies I knew something needed to be done. I ceded to my subconscious and scoured the internet for a cookie recipe, any cookie recipe I could eat. No flour, very little starch and no sugar puts most recipes out of the running. After looking through enough gluten free vegan blogs I found cookies I could make with what I had on hand without much trouble and gleefully went about doing so.

The great thing about these cookies is that since they are vegan and therefore egg less there is really no reason to cook them. You could very easily mix this up and eat it raw to satisfy a cookie dough craving. With my new found ice cream obsession Im thinking of making this batter again and tossing it raw into vanilla custard. The decadence of such a thing is grin worthy and obviously something I will try very soon.

For the first time around however I resisted the urge to eat all the dough raw (though a couple spoonfuls were sacrificed before the oven got turned on) to see how these would turn out. Substituting in the agave nectar caused a strange reaction in the oven, browning the bottom of the cookies heavily without burning them. There was a bit of smoke in the kitchen and the cookies werent very pretty but otherwise they were great little treats.

Believe the recipe when it says that super creamy more expensive peanut butter is best. I used the cheap natural peanut butter I had on hand and ended up with gritty cookies. If taste is more important to you than texture use whatever nut butter you have, your cookies will just look odd.

Also the original recipe involved sugar and corn starch so switching that out for agave nectar and arrowroot caused interesting problems. You may have to play with amounts of sweetness and starch to get a good consistency. I would suggest putting in too little agave and then adding the arrowroot bit by bit until you get the dough to firm up. I made the mistake of tossing in all the agave and then adding too much arrowroot to compensate. If youve never tasted raw arrowroot I wouldnt suggest it as it isnt pleasant. Almost like a gritty fermented yam or something along those lines. Not something you want your cookies to taste like. So use the arrowroot sparingly.

Ive yet to find sugar free chocolate chips so I used a meat hammer to break up baking chocolate. This was extremely satisfying and worked out well. The uneven bits of bitter chocolate worked out well in my overly gritty cookies

Apparently these cookies did a good job imitating real cookies because I havent had cookie lust dreams since making them.

Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies

1 1/2 tablespoons flax seed meal
3 tablespoons water

1 c. creamy peanut butter (the kind that does not separate into oil and nuts is best)
scant 3/4 cup agave nectar

1 tablespoon arrow root
1/2 cup chocolate chips

In a small bowl or ramekin, use a fork to whisk together the flax meal and water. Allow to sit 3-4 minutes or until it gels.

In a mixing bowl, combine the peanut butter and agave nectar. When the flax seed egg replacer has gelled, add it to the mix. Add the arrowroot and mix well. The mixture should be pretty stiff. Add more arrowroot if the mixture is too soft to hold peaks when you lift the spoon out of it.

Stir in the chocolate chips as gently as you can.

Refrigerate the cookie dough for 15-30 minutes. Turn the oven to 350 degrees to preheat during this time.

Scoop the chilled cookie dough into small balls using a normal eating-sized spoon. Place the cookie dough balls onto a baking sheet about 2 inches apart from each other.

Bake cookies at 350 degrees for around 15 minutes. You want to take them out once the tops are getting brown. The cookies may still seem soft at this point, but they will harden as they cool.

Original recipe from the Aprovechar healthy cooking blog.

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Find more clean eating ideas at CLEAN GREEN EATS by Candice Kumai

Over 100 clean eating recipes to improve your life!

Click here for details!!!!!!!!

Clean Eating Weight Loss Meal Plan 113

Breakfast

Organic Sweet Italian Chicken Sausage, Banana Slices and Scrambled Eggs with Organic Ketchup

Mid Morning Snack

Fresh Blackberries

Lunch

Toasted Tofu in Homemade Teriyaki Sauce Over Organic Quinoa

Afternoon Snack

Cucumber Slices, Egg White Haves, Craisins and Coconut Chips

Dinner

Green Onion, Egg and Mushroom Stir Fry

Its a simple clean eating dinner but its tasty. Get recipe at easy healthy dinner recipe.

Thanks for visiting todays Clean Eating Weight Loss Meal Plan!

Hope you liked the choices above.

Happy Friday!

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This crockpot pork goodness is highly addictive. Then again whats not to love about dinner that makes itself, is fall apart tender and involves peanut butter. Did I mention there is peanut butter? Thats really the most important part of this whole recipe. Saute some veggies to serve this over to take the place of the carb unfriendly rice and you have got yourself a nice treat for dinner.

Next time I would probably prop the pork up on the meat tray for the crockpot to keep it from stewing in its own fat so much. It was a bit greasy but I guess I was expecting that from pork so I wasnt too troubled about it. Other than that the sauce is a highly edible drug. Its simple but perfect.

We opened a bottle of Saint Gabriels Gewürztraminer with this, a bottle we bought specifically because Gabriel is the patron saint of the fellas congregation within the Apostolic Johannite Church (yeah I live with a priest, I probably havent mentioned that yet.) It was decent but definitely in your face with the sugar and not a whole lot else. There was some citrus and a wee bit of cinnamon that made it work with the spicy pork. We were rather pleased with the whole meal even though the wine didnt live up to what we hoped for.

The best part of this meal is it is the gift that keeps giving. Im looking forward to my second day of munching on the left overs for lunch tomorrow. Thats saying a lot seeing as a have a strict policy about not wanting to eat something more than two days in a row. Of course you could put peanut butter on pretty much anything and I would look forward to eating it. This may not apply to Brussels sprouts but Id be willing to give it a try.

Crockpot Asian Peanut Pork

2 lbs pork tenderloin or roast
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons fructose
1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon Asian hot chili sauce (if you cant find one thats sweetener free Tabasco works fine)
1/2 cup peanut butter

1 tablespoon oil
1 red pepper, cored and sliced
1 yellow pepper, cored and sliced
2 cups green beans


Place pork in crockpot. Add soy sauce, brown sugar, water, rice wine vinegar, hot chili sauce and peanut butter. Set on low, cover and cook for 6-8 hours.

Just before serving, in a large frying pan sauté peppers and green beans over medium high heat in the oil until tender. Stir peanut sauce until smooth and shred pork roast with a fork. Serve the pork over the vegetables.

Original recipe from Deborahs Culinary Confections blog.

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Finding high protein meals for this diet has been simple. Those meals allow fat and any fruits and vegetables with a GI of 35 or lower. The only big restriction is keeping the meal carb and root vegetable free. We have fun cooking these nights and they usually allow us to dabble in the Indian food and spice we miss so much.

The high fiber/low fat meal however have started to get tedious. These meals are heavily restrictive as to what is allowed and have to be eaten for dinner 3 to 4 times a week. They require a whole wheat pasta, brown rice or low GI bean as a base and are complimented with low GI veggies and can only have enough fat added as is required for cooking. Its getting old finding new and interesting things. We can only have lentil stew, stir fry or pasta with tomato paste and grilled vegetables so many times before going nutty.

Thankfully the fella stumbled on a new source of low fat whole food cooking. Meals Matter is like the healthy cooking version of Epicurious from what I can tell in that it has user submitted recipes that are reviewed and easily searchable. It has nutritional information for the recipes too so that helped us make up a more exciting menu this week full of high fiber food without repeating our three go to dishes once again.

This combo of crispy broccoli and tangy roasted red pepper was delicious. I am confused about the amount of pasta the original recipe calls for however as the sauce was just barely enough to make two servings and now we have a ton of extra pasta awaiting usage in the fridge. So if youre a sauce whore like I am you might want to double the delicious pureed red pepper sauce. Next time I would also up the spices especially the red pepper flakes to give it more of a kick. Even on the bland side I loved it. Not to mention it practically cooks itself.

Broccoli and Roasted Red Pepper Pasta

2 roasted red peppers (you can make them yourself, I use canned)
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

2 cups broccoli florets
8 oz whole wheat penne (original recipe called for 16 oz but there isnt enough sauce to cover all that pasta)
1 tablespoon oil
1 clove garlic, finely diced
2 tomatoes, seeded and diced
2 teaspoon dried basil
4 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese

Slice open peppers and wash out seeds. Place the peppers in a food processor with balsamic vinegar, crushed red pepper flakes, salt and pepper to taste. Puree until smooth.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add broccoli florets and cook for 1 minute. Scoop out the broccoli with a slotted spoon and set aside. Bring the water back to a boil.

Cook pasta until al dente, about 8 minutes.

Meanwhile place a large skillet over medium-low heat and add the oil. Cook garlic, stirring, for 30 seconds. Stir in tomatoes and increase the heat to medium. When the tomatoes begin to simmer, stir in pepper puree and broccoli; cook for 2 minutes. Stir in basil and remove from the heat.

Drain the pasta and add to the skillet, stirring to coat. Spoon into shallow bowls and garnish each with grated Parmesan.

Original recipe from Meals Matter site.

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These were a lovely and perfectly salty accompaniment to the sweet beef dish that was the main dish of dinner.  Everyone was as shocked as I was at how good these tomatoes were.  Even the fella dug into his, and we all know how he feels about tomatoes.  And the big meaty Chilean Cab from Cousino-Macul Antiguas Reservas that we drank while enjoying dinner was a nice contrast to the acidic and salty stuffing in the tomatoes.

 All the wonderful wines that we paired with dinner.  Full tasting notes of all the wines over at Forkful of News.

I could see making these again with more tuna and less capers to cut down the salt and make them more substantial.  For some reason Ive never been a fan of stuffed peppers but these really did it for me.  It could have had something to do with the deeply satisfying and meditative scraping out of the juicy delicate tomato centers.  Not that Im creepy and sometimes like to de-seed squishy fruits every once in a while or anything. 

I even saved all the juicy bits from the inside of my tomatoes and used them instead of diced tomatoes in a soup later on in the week, so this meal helped out in later recipes.  How can you not love a recipe that leaves you with left overs that hint at what you should cook next?

Also included in this meal:

Sundried Tomato Tapenade

Orange, Olive and Argan Oil Salad

Crockpot Beef Tagine

Red Quinoa with Roasted Vegetables

Rice Crepes and Amlou

Salty Stuffed Tomatoes

6 large tomatoes
4 red peppers

salt, to taste
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 7-ounce can tuna
2 tablespoons capers
4 tablespoons chopped black olives
1 lemon, zested
2 tablespoons, chopped parsley

Cut a small circle around the stalk of each tomato and cut out a cap in the top of each.  Using a grapefruit spoon, scoop out the seeds and flesh inside the tomato.  (Save the insides for later when you have a recipe that calls for a can of diced tomatoes.)

Roast the pepper yourself under the broiler or buy good quality pre-roasted red peppers in a jar.  If roasting them yourself, peel, de-seed and chop into strips.

Put the strips of red pepper in a large mixing bowl along with all the remaining ingredients.  Gently fold everything together.  Fill the cavities of the tomatoes with this filling.

Arrange the tomatoes on a shallow baking dish and bake in a 350 degree oven for about 20 to 30 minutes.  Check on them fairly often so that the tomatoes never get to the point where that explode or fall apart in the pan.  They are done when the filling is warmed through. 

From Claudia Rodens Arabesque. 

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Another day another failed soufflé  I shouldnt be surprised but I still am every time.  And yet Ive been lucky enough that of my four recent unfluffy unimpressive soufflés they have all been at least tasty, making up in flavor for what they lack in beauty.  And this one worked out exactly that same way.  Le sigh.

Pistachio cake with rose water syrup sounded like a recipe too good to pass up.  And the fella is a freak for pistachios so I knew I would get points for making a dessert he would go crazy for.  Perhaps next time I cook something that requires him wash every dish in the kitchen twice he wont curse me so much.  When I told him what I was making it also got me help shelling about a pound of nuts which otherwise could have taken me hours going at it alone.

The rest of the baking didnt go so smoothly.  It was nearly impossible to fold fluffy egg whites into a sugary pistachio paste.  Im still not quite sure how that was supposed to work out but I did the best I could and ended up with a cake that alternately had chunks of nuts or areas of egg white when it was cooked.  Which sounds kind of unattractive but youd be surprised how good it is when covered in rose water syrup.

Also I didnt realize fructose would react so differently than sugar to being baked.  The original recipe called for baking the cake for 45 minutes but after about 20 minutes mine started smelling burnt.  So I had to do the biggest soufflé no no and open my horrible windowless oven and see what was going on in there.  Turns out I had a very very brown cake that had fallen from  fluffiness long ago.  Im not sure what I should have done differently to prevent this failure but it tasted just fine so Ill take the hit for the sugarless team and let the world know that fructose in a soufflé is not a good idea.  If you figure out how to make this work let me know.

Regardless of what it looked like the fella and I had no problem eating this sweet, gooey creation all last week.  It was worth the work.

Pistachio Cake

SYRUP:

1/2 cup fructose (or 1 1/ 2 cups sugar)

3/4 cup water

1 tablespoon lemon juice

2 tablespoons rose water

CAKE:

5 eggs, separated

1/3 cup fructose (or 1 cup powdered sugar)

1 1/2 cups pistachios, finely ground

1/3 cup pistachios, chopped coarsely

Make the syrup first.  Bring fructose, water and lemon juice to a boil and simmer just until fructose is dissolved.  The syrup will be very thin and will not reduce.  Remove from heat and stir in rose water.  Let syrup cool to room temperature and then put in refrigerator to chill.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease and flour a 9 or 10 inch diameter nonstick round cake pan.

In a large bowl beat the egg yolks and the fructose until it is a pale creamy texture.  Add the finely ground pistachios and mix very well.  Beat the egg whites until stiff in a small bowl using a standing mixer(read Julia Childs advice in Mastering the Art of French Cooking on egg whites for more in depth tips on how to make it work) and then fold them gently into the pistachio mixture.

Pour the mixture into the prepared cake pan, sprinkling with the course chopped pistachios and cook for about 25 minutes (45 if using sugar.)  The cake will poof up slightly like a soufflé and will pass the toothpick test when finish.  Immediately turn the cake over onto a deep serving dish.  Using a tooth pick make holes over the top of the cake then pour the syrup over it.  The cake will taste best after 2 hours when the syrup has had time to soak into the cake.

Made Montignac friendly from a recipe by Claudia Roden in Arabesque.

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This is my attempt at modifying another recipe from the Lisas Kitchen blog to make it gluten and sugar free.  I was hoping to make it 100% Montignac friendly as well but I couldnt justify putting almond flour in something with a cup of peanut butter in it so I used brown rice flour instead.  That means this is a decent treat for dessert on the maintenance phase since it just has a hint of carby goodness in it instead of a refined flour.

My version isnt perfect as its a little dry so feel free to play around with the ingrediants and let me know if you could up with a different flour ratio.  Besides slightly dry baked goods are an excuse to have ice cream along side it and ice cream makes everything better.  And we all know how well peanut butter and chocolate go together so there really isnt anything else I should have to say to sell you on these yummy bars.

Peanut Butter Brownies with Chocolate Chips

7 tablespoons of melted vegan shortening (I used Earth Balance butter flavor spread)
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons agave nectar
1 cup crunchy peanut butter (divided use)
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
scant 3/4 cup chickpea flour
scant 1/2 cup brown rice flour
2 tablespoons arrowroot powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
2 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate finely chopped (or 1/2 cup chocolate chips)

Grease an 8 inch square pan with shortening. Line with parchment paper, leaving some overlap. Grease the paper in the bottom of the pan with more shortening.

In a large bowl, combine the melted shortening, agave nectar and 1/2 cup of the peanut butter until smooth. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Gently beat in the flours, arrowroot, baking soda and cream of tartar. Stir in the chocolate and remaining peanut butter.

Spread evenly into the prepared pan and bake at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes or until it passes the tooth pick test.

Modified from a recipe on the Lisas Kitchen Blog.

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