Perfect Paleo Chocolate Chip Cookies

Raise your hand if you're in favor of chewy cookies vs. crunchy cookies! Good. Because I found the recipe for the PERFECTLY chewy, delicious, sweet yet salty, paleo chocolate chip cookie. And I'm even going to claim that these are better than the original flour, butter, crisco, filled chocolate chip cookies that your grandma made. Yea, they're THAT good.

My pictures aren't all that great because I made these at night and took the photos immediately since I was so excited, but trust me, they taste 100 times better than they look. Plus, I have to add of course, that they're grain free, refined sugar free, gluten free, paleo, and all that jazz. I just cannot get over how good they tasted either - blew me away!

As you can see, it's been a while since I've baked cookies, and I forgot the whole "make sure you leave space between each blob you place on the tray", but even though I pretty much baked one large cookie, they still tasted just as delicious.

And guys, these are simple to make. I promise. You will need to have a good amount of almond butter, paleo flours (I ALWAYS have coconut and almond flours in my pantry) and of course chocolate chips on hand, but those are things you should be keeping in your pantry anyway! I mean, who can live without almond butter and chocolate chips!? I chose this dark chocolate option from my favorite Thrive Market, but you can grab any brand you'd like. I actually get ALL my baking ingredients from Thrive, but I provided some other great alternatives from Amazon below too, especially if you've got that Amazon prime membership like I do.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup almond flour
• 1/4 cup coconut flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp Himalayan pink salt
• 6 tbsp coconut oil or unsalted butter (room temperature). Coconut oil should be a softened butter consistency - not liquid. Throw it in the fridge for a bit if it is. 
• 3/4 cup coconut sugar
• 6 tbsp almond butter (room temperature) 
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 large egg (room temperature) 
• 1 cup (or more) chocolate chips (I use the Thrive Market brand)

Directions:

1. Preheat the over to 350 degrees, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Stir all the dry ingredients (almond flour, coconut flour, baking soda & salt) together in a medium bowl.
3. Using an electric hand mixer in a larger bowl, beat together the coconut oil and coconut sugar for about 1 minute. If you don't have an electric mixer, you could use your hands, but it needs to be mixed very well.
4. Add the almond butter and vanilla extract to the wet ingredients, and mix until well combined. Add the egg and beat for about 1 minute.
5. Stir in the flour mixture until everything is mixed well and forms a dough like texture. Fold in the chocolate chips.
6. Roll the dough into small balls and place on the baking sheet. Press down slightly with your hand. You can also add more chocolate chips to the tops of the balls.
7. Bake for about 12-14 minutes or until the cookies are nicely browned and the surface no longer appears wet.
8. Let cool completely before storing!

Gluten Free Blueberry Breakfast Oatmeal Bake

Now I'm not usually a huge fan of sweet breakfasts - I like to start my day with smoothie, and/or eggs and avocado. I'm a savory over sweet kind of girl early in the morning. But when I saw an oatmeal type breakfast bake online, I got some inspiration to create my own. I also just bought some Monk Fruit sweetener that I've been dying to use, so thought, why not test it out in a new recipe?! 

Monk fruit is a newer sweetener that is becoming popular quite quickly. This is due to the fact that it's natural, has high antioxidant levels, is sweeter tasting than regular sugar, and yet it has no calories and no effect on blood sugar. Sounds pretty darn awesome, right? It also substitutes 1:1 with regular sugars in any recipe, so just use it in place of sugar. This is the first recipe I used it in, but I've got all kinds of ideas I plan to use it for in the future.

So I also take every opportunity I can to add extra protein to a recipe, especially breakfast. I try to get about 30 grams of protein in at every meal (about an average of 100 grams per day). Yes it sounds like a lot, but I'm super active and having protein in your diet is extremely important, but we'll save that discussion for another post. I added some collagen peptides to this recipe since they're tasteless and a great source of protein, plus they strengthen your hair, skin and nails. For more on that, visit my post here.

Check out the recipe below - hope you guys love it!

Ingredients:

• 2 cups rolled oats
• 1/4 cup almond meal (or flour)
• 3 scoops collagen peptides
• 2 tbsp ghee (or coconut oil)j
• 1/4 cup monk fruit sweetener (or coconut sugar)
• 2 cups cashew milk (or pretty much any kind of nut milk)
• 1/4 cup greek yogurt
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 2 cups frozen blueberries (or any type of berry)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a large baking dish with ghee or coconut oil.
2. In one bowl, combine all the dry ingredients: oats, almond meal, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, salt, monk fruit, and collagen peptides.
3. Melt the ghee or coconut oil in a separate bowl. Once it's melted, add the milk to the ghee while whisking the mixture.
4. Add greek yogurt, eggs, and vanilla to the ghee/milk, and whisk until well combined.
5. Combine the wet and dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.
6. Fold the blueberries into the mixture and stir gently.
7. Pour into the greased baking pan and throw in the oven at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes (top of the oatmeal should look brown/crispy when it's done).
8. Serve warm with a little bit of syrup poured over it or just eat it alone!