As the weekend winds down, I like to relax by baking. Cooking practically all of our meals, I take great pride in what goes into our food, and if I don’t make it myself, I make sure by checking what ingredients are in it. Especially snacks.
Have you read about Pepperidge Farms and how they use GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) in their snacks? I was pretty appalled when I saw this post about it, because I used to let my son Ricky eat Goldfish crackers all the time. Even their cookies are made the same way, probably to help cut costs.
For me, I rather bake my own cookies, so here is the recipe I use to make chocolate chip cookies (made vegan!)
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients:
1/4 cup + 2 tbsp organic light brown sugar
1/3 cup canola oil (or vegetable oil)
3 tbsp almond milk (or any non dairy milk will work)
2 tsp corn starch
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 vegan chocolate chips
Instructions:
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
- Combine sugar, oil, milk, corn starch and vanilla extract into a bowl and whisk using a fork until it has a somewhat caramel consistency.
- Add flour, baking soda, and salt into the mixture and mix to combine, then fold in chocolate chips cookies.
- Grease a cookie sheet and using a tbsp spoon, scoop the cookie dough, roll and flatten into a cookie and place on the cookie sheet. Repeat until all the dough is used.
- Bake for about 8-10 minutes.
I also found that some of the plant based milks contain an ingredient called carrageenan. This seaweed derived ingredient is used in many foods such as yogurt, ice cream and milk. This ingredient can cause inflammation and stomach issues, so it’s best for people who regularly suffer from these types of symptoms – like IBS for example to avoid foods with carrageenan.
I’ve noticed that in most almond milk I’ve found at Whole Foods to have this ingredient, except their 365 brand, but unfortunately they don’t currently carry it because of “shipping issues” – at least at the stores here in India.
So, I decided I’d just make my own almond milk for now – and it wasn’t so bad for the first try!
Homemade Almond Milk
Ingredients:
1 cup of unsalted, whole almonds – organic is best
Instructions:
- Soak almonds in water for about 10-12 hours
- Drain the water, and place into a blender. Combine 4 cups of filtered water and blend. It will look like milk, but you’re not done yet!
- Using a strainer (or cheese cloth or nut milk bag – which will make sure there aren’t any almond bits in the milk) pour into a bowl.
- Pat down the ground almond to get more of the milk out. Place the ground almond on a cookie tray and bake for about 15 minutes at 350 degrees – save in a plastic bag and freeze to use for any recipes that require almond meal!
- I kept the almond milk in a container with a tight lid and refrigerated right away. The almond milk should be good for about 5 days.
- To sweeten you can use agave or honey, with a touch of vanilla extract if you want. I kept mine plain, but put a batch aside to sweetened to drink alone.
I will be using this method going forward as I feel there aren’t any options for carrageenan-free almond milk right now. The homemade consistency isn’t as creamy, but it’s still good! I used this batch of milk to add to smoothies or baked goods that use almond milk. Hopefully I can find a more creamier version that can be enjoyable alone!