Foodie Pen Pals July

Well it's that time again.  My wonderful foodie pen pal this month was the lovely Myra and what a delightful package she sent me.  She listened to my likes/dislikes and (self-imposed) food restrictions and sent me a very thoughtful box of goodies. 

 This is a peek at what the box looked like when I opened the lid

 And all the goodies laid out

 I got a coconut almond bar (my Mum's absolute favourite, so she'll probably be profiting from this box too :))

 Yummy Simply Protein Chips and the spicy ones too, which are my favourite

 A couple of handy little packages of almond butter for a snack on-the-go

 Dark chocolate!!!

 And these bison bites, which look really intriguing.  Can't wait to try them.

 I love Sahale snacks.  Haven't tried this flavour, but balsamic vinegar and cayenne sounds fantastic to me!!

 Potato chips...my occasional guilty pleasure.  Myra mentioned she liked this brand when she was a kid.  

 Some fancy David's Tea!

 Mangosteen soap!  Wow, it smells wonderful.

 And one of Myra's favourite recipes from when she did a paleo boot camp...how cool is that!?

 Last but not least, she included this beautiful card.  I love the handwritten note and her handwriting is so neat!! :)  Thanks again Myra for this lovely box of treats!!

Gluten-Free 'White Chocolate' Strawberry Muffins

I happened upon this recipe yesterday and knew right away that I wanted to try it.  The first thing that drew me to it was that it called for fresh strawberries and I had just bought some.  Secondly, it called for raw cacao butter in place of white chocolate and how could that not be delicious?  I made these muffins today with only minor changes, which I'll note below.

Here's what I did...

 I melted (on very low heat) 1/4 cup raw cacao butter and 1/4 cup coconut oil

 This is what the raw cacao butter looks like

 Meanwhile, I put a fairly ripe banana in my stand mixer

 And mixed until it was well-mashed

 Then I added 1/4 cup coconut nectar

This is the coconut nectar

 And I mixed this with the banana.  Then added in the melted butters.

 Then I added 2 organic eggs and beat it again

Then I added 1 tsp. vanilla extract, 1 1/2 cups almond flour, 1/4 cup coconut flour, 2/3 tsp. Celtic sea salt and 1 tsp. baking soda and mixed it again

 Lastly, I mixed in 1 cup of small-diced fresh strawberries.

I dolloped it into muffin liners (13 of them) and baked at 350 for 28 minutes.

 So delicious!!!

Gluten-free Ginger Oat Crisps

I have been a big fan of this blog for a few years now and was excited when I saw this recipe (clearly their photography isn't done with an iPhone lol).  I knew it would be a winner, so I decided to give it a try today.  I doubled the recipe because I wanted to share the cookies.  They took all of 5 minutes to put together, so this is definitely one of those recipes you can whip up at the last minute when you're craving a sweet treat.  The only change I made was to 'up' the amount of ginger and sub. cinnamon for the cloves (Perry is not a fan of cloves).  They are absolutely scrumptious.

Here's what I did...

 

 I mixed together  1/2 cup coconut oil and 6 tbsp. of maple syrup.

 Added 1/4 cup buckwheat flour (I ground the whole buckwheat in my Vitamix first)

 Added 1/4 cup coconut milk (from a can, shaken to mix the thick and thin milk)

 I mixed all that together then added 1 1/3 cups large flake oats

 And 1/2 tsp. Celtic sea salt, 1 tbsp. ground ginger and 2 tsp. ground cinnamon

Dolloed it onto 2 parchment-lined cookie sheets (made 24 dollops, so 12 per sheet)

 Then flattened them out with my hand

 Baked them at 350F for 16 minutes, rotating the trays after 8 minutes.  Then left them on the trays for 5 minutes before removing to a wire cooling tray.