Finally some nut free parent friendly, I mean, CHILD friendly cookies. You know, ones that they can take to daycare and your children actually enjoy. The bonus is, that you have your 7.03pm (healthy) chocolate snack ready and waiting for you, too, once all children have gone to bed. To be honest, we could all more than likely do with eating less nuts and more seeds. They tend to be less inflammatory and easier on your digestive system, however they are even better when activated - but lets not get too complex, keep it simple, and enjoy the fact that we have nut free, protein rich, EXCEPTIONALLY delicious cookies at our fingertips in 10-15 minutes. If you are into activated nuts and seeds, thankfully you can buy them done for you now, so scout your health food shop if you want to supercharge nutrient absorption from these cookies so your children are slightly happier due to being even more nourished.
You can choose to skip through to the recipe, or peruse the following for some more nut free lunchbox (for you, or your little one).
Nut free lunchbox ideas:
1. Do I need to mention fruits and vegetables - I think not?2. The following delectable Chocolate Brookies or Crownies?
3. Homemade gummies of all kinds (we have some on our website and Instagram feed. We will always spike ours with The Children's or The Mothers Blend.
4. Seed crackers, bought or homemade, with your little ones choice of dip or otherwise alone.
5. Leftover sausages.
6. Frittatas, quiches or egg muffins.
7. Cassava flour fritters/pancakes.
8. Nasty free meat sticks.
9. Seed and date based bliss balls.
10. Hemp seed banana muffins.
11. Yogurt of choice, with the Children's Blend mixed through and served in a silicone pouch or leak proof lunchbox container.
12. Cheese that suits your little one.
13. Smoked salmon or other quality, nasty free cured meats. These should be cured with salt only and you can always check or ask for the ingredients.
14. For main meals, we love things like bolognese, lamb cutlets, slow cooked meat leftovers, paleo sausages, cassava wraps with any chosen fillings and more.
The Chocolate Brookies
If you were yet to put two and two together, Brookies is a combination of a cookie and a brownie, and possibly my favourite version of a cookie yet.
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups sunflower seeds (ground down to as fine as you can make it)
2 1/2 Tbsp coconut oil
1 egg
4 Tbsp cacao powder
4-5 Tbsp of granulated sweetener or part granulated and part other, such as maple syrup. If you are on a current sugar free journey, Monk fruit sweetener, granulated or not, is okay as well.
1/2 cup collagen
2 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup chocolate chips or chunks of choice. We use either chopped up homemade chocolate, Loco Love, Gevity, or Carob Bears.
Method:
1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees celcius.
2. Using a clean blender, if you haven't already, grind down the sunflower seeds to as fine as you can make it. It should resemble as closely as possible to an almond meal/flour.
3. Add in the remaining ingredients, and continue to blend. You will need to scrape down the sides and blend a few times.
4. Taste the mixture and ensure it is sweet enough for you or your audience.
5. Line a baking tray with baking paper, roll small handfuls of the cookies into a ball (around 1-2 tbsp of the mixture), then with your fingers flatten it into a slightly raised cookie shape then top with your chocolate pieces.
6. Bake for 8-10 minutes (we want them slightly soft!), remove from the oven and then let them sit until they are cool to enough to consume. Best consumed at room temperature however all is delicious. If you have hungry cookie monsters, pop them in the fridge or freezer to cool down faster.
7. Enjoy!