low sugar – Page 2 – OwlCat Designs

July 10, 2012December 16, 2017

Whole Wheat Animal Crackers

Yes, I know you saw it coming, I mean after the Berry Ice populated with Lions and Giraffes (Ostrich looking, if you ask my boyfriend, but then again, he’s no biologist 😉 there was no question that the rest of the animal kingdom would soon show up on my blog as well. What can I say, they are just too darn cute!

I had searched for the perfect cutters for this recipe for a while, square was just not an option, but plain old animal crackers from the store didn’t cut it either. Do you get that craving for crunchy as well? And I can;t shut it up with a crunchy apple, no it’s a different crunch I am after. So I set out to revamp and recreate animal crackers, surely there would be a better version one could come up with than the store sold ones. Starting with a lot less sugar than any commercial product would contain, I added ground almond and flax meal to boost the nutrient and flavor and whole wheat to give them some substance.

Animal crackers on Very Merry Black Berry Ice are the best!

Ingredients

2 cups stone ground whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup almond meal/ground almonds
1/2 cup palm sugar (dry) or rapadura
1/4 cup millet or oat flower
1/4 cup half & half (or cream or milk)
1/4 cup flax meal
2 lg eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup coconut oil
1/2 tsp salt

Directions

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl, set aside.
Gently soften or melt coconut oil, if it is hard. Mix in the vanilla, eggs and 1/4 cup half and half. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until a cohesive dough forms. If it is too crumbly, add a little more half & half.
Form dough into ball, cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or until dough isn’t soft anymore.
Preheat oven to 350ºF.
Roll out to 1/4″ thickness, press the cookie cutters into the dough (mine have a plunger to stamp the design onto the cookies after they are cut) and place the cookies onto a lined cookie sheet.
Bake for 10-13 minutes, or until slightly browned on the bottom
Let cool on rack before devouring them all 🙂

June 14, 2012

Granola Power Bars

Hiking or kayaking was on my list for the past weekend, but the weather has been a little , shall we say, un-cooperative. Since last night it literally thunderstorms every hour. So I have been limited to moving out onto the deck with book, cookie and tea, then back in, then back out with juice and book, then back in… My poor kitty ‘Einstein’ is terrified of thunderstorms. He runs into the basement and hides. He’s been there pretty much all day 🙁 saw him once, I think I will take some water and food down to his little corner… Poor fellow.

But on the upside of things, being limited to close to the house, I had plenty of time coming up with something that would be yummy (criteria number one), give me some sustained energy (i.e. complex carbs) and would be portable enough to take along, you know on hikes and such. Like a power bar. And since I really, really liked the granola I made recently (and this one), I started there with my ingredient list… And as an added bonus I supplemented with sprouted lentils for protein. To try lentils was an idea I got from Leanne’s Beach Bum Trail Mix Doesn’t that just look awesome? Heck, if they can go into trail mix, imagine how they would be sprouted and put into bars!

Ready for outdoor adventures! If only it stopped pouring…

Even my boyfriend, who’s not all that concerned with healthy eating, loves these!

Sprouted Lentils, before drying

Ingredients

2 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup popped amaranth grain (buy or do it yourself)
3/4 cup sprouted (and dried*) red lentils
3/4 cup date pieces or chopped dates
1/2 cup sweet brown rice flour
1/4 cup flax seed
1/4 cup flax meal
1/4 cup chia seeds
1/4 cup apple sauce
1 cup water
1/4 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup rice syrup
1/4 cup honey or agave nectar

* to dry the lentils after sprouting, preheat oven to 350F and place sprouted lentils out on a baking sheet. Cook for about 25 minutes, until crunchy. Ok, so I got a bit picture happy. Did I mention, it was raining all day?

Directions

Mix oats through brown rice flour in a large bowl, set aside
Mix flax seed, flax meal, chia seed, water and apple sauce, let rest 20 minutes. Then add the sweeteners and the peanut butter and mix until well combined.
Add the wet mixture to the dry ingredients in the bowl and stir until incorporated.
Spread on a lined baking sheet (a US quarter sheet or half of a bigger cookie sheet works well) until about 3/4″ thick
Bake at 350 for 60 to 65 minutes, checking and turning the sheet after 40. Then turn oven off and leave them in the oven overnight.
In the morning, cut into rectangles roughly 1″x 4″, makes about 24

I used one side of a US half sheet size. Spread it out, it won’t go anywhere. And makes for some odd shaped bars at the end, you know, the ones YOU have to eat right away, to make it neat 😉

June 11, 2012

Strawberry Jicama Juice with Mint

In the last couple of weeks, I have re-introduced juices into my days again. No no, not OJ from a box. We all realize by now how not so good that might be for you. If you don’t yet, just think about the fact that diabetics are given orange juice when their blood sugar gets dangerously low, to quickly bring it back up… On some days juicing is an easy way to up my vegetable intake, and at least get to some of the nutrition I really should eat but don’t always have time for.

I will not get up on my soap box about sugar today, waaaaay to hot for climbing, but on hot days like this, eating is sometimes not something I feel like doing, but using my juicer always seems to come in handy. My general rule of thumb would be to use fruit only to sweeten your (green, yellow or red) vegetable juices, unless… unless of course you are making a desert. Well, here is more of a desert version, you know, to balance out the green juices in your life 😉

Ingredients

1/2 lb strawberries
1/2 medium Jicama, brown skin peeled off
1/2 cucumber, peeled
1 Chinese pear, quartered and seeds removed
2 sprigs mint, plus some leaves for garnish

Directions

Per your juicer’s guidelines, juice all the ingredients: I started with the softest things, the strawberries. Don’t push down, or you won’t get much juice from them, gently feed them through. Either juice the mint sprigs, or usig a wooden drink mottler, bruise them in the glass before serving the drink. Then juice the Jicama, the cucumber and the pear.
Pour over ice, garnish with mint leaves and serve!
Save the strawberry pulp for another use, unless you have a super Juicer and there is almost nothing left, you can use the rest for baking, pancakes or pop sicles

I bet this would be awesome spiked with lemon vodka… Tropical Island gettaway, here I come! …

May 28, 2012

Gluten-free Vegan Oatmeal Cacao Nib Cookies

Oh yeah, AND raisins!

These are so ridiculously awesome. The cacao nibs give them a dark chocolate flavor you can smell from the oven all while being gluten-free and low sugar! A quick word on cacao nibs/cacao bean: coming from the Theobroma cacao tree, sometimes wrongly labeled cocoa nibs/cocoa bean, which from my understanding refers only to the extracted butter or powdered stuff. The mayan word is: kakaw, they might be on to something, I mean, they’ve only been using the stuff for ever. Just sayin’

Gosh, you have no idea, but just writing about those cookies makes my mouth water, and of course they are already gone… (I see some more baking coming up in this girl’s future) They are chewy and fragrant and yes, the texture is somewhat different than regular oatmeal cookies, after all there are mostly oats in there (and they are made without gluten flour).

Dark cacao nibs (essentially pieces of cacao bean)

If you are cultivating your sweet tooth, please feel free to use more ‘sweet stuff’. The cookies here are getting some of their sweetness from the raisins, but they would be a perfect treat for my Dad, who doesn’t really like sweets. I am a big believer in flavor over just plain sweet, or salty for that matter; and these cookies fit the bill perfectly.

Ingredients

2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup millet flour*
1/4 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup cacao nibs
1/4 cup flax meal
2 tbsp chia seeds
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup almond or other nut butter
1/4 cup agave nectar, maple syrup or honey**

* I used millet because of its sweet, nutty flavor, but you could most likely use other gluten-free flours

**if using honey, the cookies are no longer vegan

Directions

Preheat oven to 350ºF
In a large bowl, combine first four ingredients (oats through cacao nibs)
In a separate bowl, mix flax meal and chia seeds with the water, set aside and let rest for 10 minutes.Then stir in the agave nectar and almond butter
Stir the flax mix into the bowl with the oats, add up to another 1/4 cup of water if dough looks too dry.
Drop cookies by the rounded tablespoon onto a prepared baking sheet, and bake until golden brown on the bottom and just starting to turn golden on top, about 8 to 11 minutes.

Makes about 30

May 26, 2012December 16, 2017

Apple Raisin Granola

I am back after taking a mini vacation up to a beautiful Bed & Breakfast in New Hampshire. Right on Lake Winnisquam. Sometimes you just need to get away from it all… Ahhh! It’s just the best to have someone make a lavish breakfast for you, and there were always freshly baked cookies. It’s like visiting your favorite Grandma, without having to help out in the kitchen 🙂 More on that soon! But before leaving, I had to make a few things that I could bring, for snacks and since I really did not know about the whole cookie thing they had going until we got there… And besides we were going to be on the road for six or seven hours. So I decided on another granola. Thanks to Heidi over at LightlyCrunchy who made this fantastic Apple Cranberry Granola, I was inspired to add the apple rings to my granola instead of just indiscriminately munching on them. I had never thought of using up my dried apple rings in a granola, what an ingenious idea!

before adding milk or yogurt, can’t decide which I like best…

I go through phases, I find something, love it eat a whole bunch and then, not sure, but forget about it for a while? or get kind of tired of the taste? Anyhow I found myself with a good size bag of dried apple rings living in my cupboard, so now it can find its way into my breakfast and snacks 🙂 Delicious! The only thing I will work on for next time? Portability. Try eating granola while in the car… Not easy!

Ingredients

2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup quinoa flakes
1/2 cup dried apple rings, chopped
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1/4 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup brown rice flour
1/4 cup brown rice syrup
(1/4 cup agave nectar or honey, optional*)
3 tbsp coconut oil, melted
4 tbsp flax meal/ground flax seeds mixed with 6 tbsp water, let rest 5 minutes

* If you are making this for the first time, use the additional sweetener (the honey or agave syrup) especially if you are trying to transition kids or the ‘I don’t have a sweet tooth’ husbands to a lower sugar diet, then over time gradually reduce the amount of sweetener added

Directions

Preheat oven to 275º F
Mix all the flakes, flour and seeds with the raisins and the apple pieces
In a separate bowl, mix the wet ingredients: rice syrup, honey/agave, coconut oil and the flax meal mixed with the water.
Add the wet ingredients to the oat mixture, stir well until evenly distributed, spread on a lined baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes. Stir, bake 10 minutes, stir again and bake for an additional 10 minutes.

May 15, 2012December 16, 2017

Pumpkin & Flax Seed Granola with Almonds

There are many, many versions of granola, and I have made countless of them in the past, but no matter how much I would tinker and change the recipe, I found that they would never get quite like the ones you buy in a box. Lately I was re-inspired to give it another try by seeing such yummilicious recipes as LightlyCrunchy’s chocolate granola (doesn’t that sound super delish?) and I am just intrigued by Leanne’s idea of using sprouted lentils for her granola recipe, on my list to try…

So back to my granola story. In the past they either got REALLY crunchy (and I know there are some at the store you better add to the milk or yogurt a good while before you plan on eating it, tried them too) or they are just flavored roasted rolled oats, yummy, oh yes, but what I am looking for are those clumps or clusters that are crunchy, yet you don’t lose a tooth biting into them if you decide to just grab a handful at random. So crunchy clusters that crunch apart when you bite them, if that makes sense. But I have never been able to replicate that, no matter how much I doctored the recipes, that is, at least not until now! (Maestro, drum roll please!)

See? Got the clusters I wanted!

Yes, I could just go on and buy some every once in a while (which is what I have been doing), when the urge overcomes me, but you see, besides being quite expensive, in my opinion, there are several problems with most granola. They either contain soy (I am staying away from soy, almost all of it in the US is gmo and besides, unfermented soy contains phytoestrogens, which I try to avoid. Phytoestrogens are plant based estrogen like compounds, and a lot of cancers are hormone fueled…) or soybean oil (or vegetable oil, same difference in the end), gluten, (which normally I have no issue with, but for allergy season, I mostly cut it out of my diet, and what do you know? My accupuncturist was right! Shhhht, but I have been with hardly any seasonal allergy symptoms this year!!!! Yes, I am going and knocking on some wood right now… ) So even though I generally am perfectly capable of eating gluten and have no (visible) symptoms or reactions to it, I know a lot of my readers have to watch it.

And lastly the sugar content upsets my apple-cart, (in the spirit of full disclosure, I admittedly have only a vague idea of what an apple-cart looks like… I am gonna have to google that one) I often wonder, why so awfully sweet? But the answer probably lies in the general over use of sugar and the resulting ‘taste immunity’ to the sweetness of it, so they keep having to add more to all the processed food so people buy theirs over the competition. Once you start moving towards eating cleaner, for starters, less stuff in boxes, less sugar (or better no sugar), you will start to notice the natural sweetness in say carrots or red bell peppers again.

Oh boy am I exited about this one! And the possibilities… can’t wait to play some more with it, I already got some trials running and some definite winners on flavor combinations coming up shortly!

And gosh, it smells so good, you’ll totally want to eat some while it is in the oven, but try and wait, totally worth it 🙂

Ingredients

2 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1/2 cup mixed pumpkin, flax and sunflower seeds
1/2 cup brown rice flour
1/4 cup quinoa flakes
2 tbsp coconut oil
1/4 cup rice syrup
2 tbsp honey or agave syrup (you can start with 1/3 cup and transition down to 2 tbsp, if you still like things conventionally sweet)
3 tbsp ground flax seed/flax meal
6 tbsp water
1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 275º F
Mix oats through quinoa flakes in a large bowl.
In a separate bowl, gently heat brown rice syrup, honey and coconut oil until liquid.
Meanwhile stir water into flax meal, let sit 5 minutes.
Add vanilla and flax mixture to rice syrup, stir then add to the big bowl with the oat mixture. Stir until evenly moistened.
Spread on a lined cookie sheet and bake at 275º F for 15 minutes, stir, bake another 10 minutes then stir again, and bake another 10 minutes. Cool on the baking sheet
Let cool completely before storing so it has a chance to crisp up.

The only downside to this is it makes me want to eat some every time I look at it…

April 3, 2012December 16, 2017

Banana Chocolate Raw Pudding

There are days when chocolate is the only thing that will do. And today I had one of those days. To make up for it, there is nothing like treating yourself with something yummy, delicious even decadent! Yay, treat time! Decision made, but good things don’t have to be bad for you. And yes, you can have this even if you don’t eat sugar. The only sweetness comes from the bananas! Let them get nice and ~~ripe~~ ~~over-ripe~~ brown, and you’re in business! Easy to make and guilt free too 🙂

Ingredients

2 over ripe bananas, mashed with a fork
about 1/2 cup milk (dairy or almond)
2 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tbsp ground flax seeds
2 tbsp chia seeds

Directions

Mash the banana with a fork
Add the milk, stir until well blended
Add the cocoa powder, flax seed and chia seed and stir it all together until mixed
Refrigerate overnight

March 13, 2012December 16, 2017

Raspberry White Chocolate Oatmeal Quick ‘Cake’

This chewy little treat can be eaten as much as a quick breakfast, on those gray and cold days, where the snooze button is your BFF and your feet are deadly afraid of the cold floor outside the cozy covers. You could even try to tell yourself it is all healthy by serving it topped with some greek yogurt. Or you can just face the facts that everyone needs a treat sometime, morning or night, and enjoy it as a quick desert or snack bake anytime you need a ‘cheer me up’. Very similar to the Snack Bakes shown here, it uses a ripe banana for sweetness, but I am splurging and adding white chocolate chips and some frozen raspberries that miraculously turned up in my freezer today 🙂 Isn’t is great when you find things you didn’t know you had? Like the $20 bill in the pocket of your winter coat when you take it out of ‘summernation’ (yes, I just made that up) in October

Because heart-shaped things make me happy 🙂

Makes 2

Ingredients

1/2 really ripe banana
1/2 cup rolled oats*
2 tbsp white chocolate chips,
2 tbsp frozen raspberries * you can also use rolled quinoa or other rolled grains

Grease 2 ramekins or other heat proof little bowls/forms
In a larger bowl, mash the ripe banana with a fork, until it doesn’t look dry anymore.
Mix in the rolled oats, then add the chocolate chips and the frozen raspberries.
Divide among prepared ramekins, and microwave for 3-4 minutes, depending on the power of your device, until the top looks no longer moist and the sides pull away from the ramekin. Like in the picture below. (Mine usually take 3 minutes)
Let cool down before quickly eating all enjoying, whoever you are trying to hide these from will smell them anyway 😉

You can flip it over on a plate to serve or just eat with a spoon right out of the bowl after you have given it enough time to cool down a bit.

My ‘sweet seduction’ speed cooking contribution is ready in under 10 minutes! That should be an incentive to enjoy life and have desert, even after a long day or week!

This is my contribution to a blog event over in the German speaking world of food blogs. Every submission has to be prepared in under 30 minutes, or the time it takes the average pizza delivery to get to you. Here is the whole list of all the goodies that can be made super quick! This sweet treat is ultra quick, and I am hoping it will sweeten up many a tired after work meal!

Nachwort auf Deutsch: Leider hatte ich keine Zeit den ganzen Beitrag auf Deutsch zu = Übersetzen, hier nur kurz: Oatmeal/Rolled Oats= Haferflocken, eine ‘1/2 cup/ ist etwa ein Deciliter, white chocolate chips= weisse Schokolade, in kleine Stücke oder Würfelchen geschnitten. Ich hoffe das diese kleine süsse Verführung hier manchen langen Tag erträglicher macht, wenigstens im Rückblick oder aber da man schlauerweise geplant hat, von wegen transportfähig und so 🙂 Einfach einpacken und mitnehmen!

February 27, 2012December 16, 2017

Chocolate Coconut Rounds

There they were, sitting timid in the middle of my fruit basket trying to pretend they were not there. Overripe bananas, like the poor step child in an old fairy tale. Since I only like to eat them when they are still a little green, these brown things in my fruit basket are definitely not my thing. But over time I have come up with various ways to use them up, using them for smoothies, pancakes or baking, after all they do provide a great source of natural sweetness without adding sugar. And yes, I have to admit before I did that, sometimes they would get thrown out. So that’s why they are scared. But fret not bananas, I have something yummy to turn you into 🙂

What do you do with your past prime bananas? Any favorites?

This recipe is grain and sugar free, the only sweetness comes from the banana, so it isn’t your traditional cookie, if you like things sweet, you might want to add 1/4 cup of sugar or some stevia. These are more like a piece of 70% cocoa chocolate, flavorful but just subtly sweet.

And without further ado here is how to make them:

Ingredients

1/2 cup egg whites (about 4)
2 ripe bananas, mashed with a fork
2 cups unsweetened, shredded coconut
1 cup ground almonds, natural not blanched
6 tbsp cocoa powder
1/4 cup almond butter (cashew butter or other nut butter would work as well)
1 tbsp coconut oil
1 tbsp coconut flour
1 dash of salt

Directions

Combine shredded coconut, ground almonds, coconut flour and cocoa powder in a bowl
Add the mashed bananas
Melt the coconut oil together with the almond butter and stir until smooth, add to bowl
Add the egg whites
Mix until everything is fully incorporated
Divide dough into two portions and between wax paper, work each one into a roll of about 1 1/2” to 2″ diameter.
Place in the freezer for about 1 hour or until nice and solid.
Preheat the oven to 350°F
Remove one roll from the freezer, and slice into rounds 1/2″ to 3/4″ thick, place ona lined cookie sheet and bake for 15 to 20 minutes.
In the meantime, repeat the same with the other roll.
Let the rounds cool down on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a cooling rack.

December 2, 2011December 16, 2017

Pear Cranberry Almond Tart

Looking through my collection of recipes, I realize I bake a lot. Well, I do love my oven, so there’s that. It’s nothing fancy or anything but its GAS. And it bakes the best bread, and pies, and tarts, and muffins and lasagna. 🙂 I love baking, did I mention? And since cooking with gas, I will never, ever want to live in any place I cannot cook with gas (alright, if the choice is living in a house with an electric stove or living under a bridge…, but short of that)

And on to another fall/winter treat…

Can you tell I got a good deal on pears recently? After shopping the local farmers market at the end of the day on Saturday, I suddenly found myself with bags of produce that now needs to be eaten. As for pears, it’s a race against time, as they are only at that ‘perfect ripe but not mushy’ state for so long, or should I say, so short. Sometimes it really seems like that window is measured in minutes not hours. So what’s a girl in possession of 12 pears to do? Well I made this, twice. And this deep dish pie uses another 6, so doing pretty good overall.

I also have been on a quest for the perfect pie crust recipe and am trying out different ones to see what to add or subtract from my two standard go to recipes in order to make a perfect and foolproof everyday crust. But more on that after the study has been completed. 😉 Here I used an amazing flaky, slightly sweet, all butter crust.

So for this seasonal recipe besides using the abundance of pears in my kitchen, I used some cranberries. I think that the tartness of the cranberries very nicely offsets the sweetness of the ripe pears, but you could just as well leave the cranberries out. Almond and pear are a natural match and a lot of fancy French pastry draws on that flavor combo, you can do the same here, just easier.

Fresh in the oven

You will need a Deep dish pie plate

Ingredients

Single pie crust (home made or store bought, your choice)
6 medium pears * see note
1 cup cranberries
3/4 ground almond
2 eggs
1 cup almond milk (or dairy, if you prefer)
1/3 cup sugar (i used coconut/palm sugar)
1 tbsp coconut flour (you could use cornstarch instead)
1 tsp almond extract (you could also use vanilla)

* note: I used pear the size of your fist, like the ones that come in 3lb bags at the grocery store; if you use bigger ones, you might need less

Directions

Roll out pie crust about 1-2″ bigger than the pie dish. Fold crust in half and in half again to easily transfer it to the baking dish. Refrigerate
Preheat oven to 400°F
In a bowl or 4 cup measuring cup, mix the eggs, sugar, ground almond and almond milk. Then add the coconut flour and the almond extract. Beat with a fork until well mixed.
Wash pears and cut in half, core and cut each half into 4 slices (you should have 8 slices per pear)
Remove crust from refrigerator, arrange pears in circles into the crust, layering the cranberries in between (or if you almost forget like me, just put them over top the pear before it goes in the oven). You should end up with two layers of sliced pear.
Pour the filling over the pears into the pie pan, doing circles as you pour to distribute evenly
Bake for about 35-40 minutes or until the filling is set and not liquid any longer.
Serve warm or at room temperature!

and that’s light Asparagus Quiche in the background