A Healthy Version of Milk and Cookies

This is my untraditional take on milk and cookies. The"milk" is a nut milk sweetened with medjool dates. The cookies are almonds, oats and dark chocolate chips. Both are tasty and good for you.

Here is how you do it.

Nut Milk:

1 cup of mixed almonds, cashews and brazil nuts, soaked overnight in water. 

5 medjool dates soaked overnight in water (make sure to take the pits out)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

4 cups of water

a dash of salt

Rinse the nuts until the water is clear.

Put all of the ingredients, including the water that the dates were soaked in,  in a blender and blend until smooth.

Strain the almond milk either through a cheesecloth, a strainer with a paper towel, or a nut bag . That gets out all of the nut and date bits, so it has the consistency of milk.

Chocolate Chip Cookies:

You will need:
2/3 cup garbanzo bean flour
1/4 teaspoon Xantham gum
1/3 cup chia powder

1/3 cup hemp seeds (ground to a fine flour)

1 cup rolled oats (ground to a fine flour)

1 cup raw almonds (ground to a fine flour)

1/3 cup shredded coconut

1/2 cup maple syrup

1/2 cup unrefined coconut oil 

Pinch of salt

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350•

Grind the almonds, oats and hemp seeds. I find that a coffee grinder works very well. You can also use a blender.

Combine all the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl.  Heat the coconut oil until liquid. At room temperature it has the consistency of margarine. Add the syrup and the oil to the dry ingredients. Mix well.

Mold the dough into cookie size shapes. This dough does no act like traditional chocolate chip cookie dough that 'melts' into a cookie shape. These will come out of the oven in the same size and shape they went in...

Bake 15 minutes on parchment lined baking tray. Don't overcook them. They will turn into rocks.

We should all limit our sugar. As recent studies show, sugar, in large amounts, can be very damaging to our health. Sugar gives pleasure, so cutting it out altogether is no fun. Instead, we should spend our sugar dollars wisely. Eat sugars in small amounts and eat ones that have additional health benefits, like the vitamins and minerals in maple syrup and dates, and the antioxidants in dark chocolate.