Holiday Recipe Reinvention

Pie Crust Grain free!

Ingredients
1 cup dried unsweetened shredded coconut
1 cup dry walnuts (not soaked)
1/2 cup dates
1/4 teaspoon sea salt (do not omit!)
Directions
Place all raw pie crust ingredients in a food processor or food chopper and blend until well processed but still a bit chunky.
Press down into your pie plate!
Fill with your desired filling and refrigerate for at least two hours to allow crust to firm up.
After refrigerating, garnish your crust with berries, other cut up fruit or some dark chocolate and nuts.

Gingerbread Cookies

Ingredients
3 cups almond meal
1 tbs. ground ginger ( You can use freshly grated if you like)
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
½ tsp. baking powder (gluten free)
1/4 cup coconut oil melted
2 tbs. raw honey
1 tsp. 100% pure vanilla extract
1 egg
(spices can be adjusted to suit taste)

Directions
Preheat oven to 325 degrees
In a large bowl mix the almond meal, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, baking powder. Leave this in the bowl for now.
In a food processor or a super great blender, and mix the coconut oil, raw honey, vanilla extract and egg until well combined.
Add the dry ingredients to the food processor and process to form a dough (the mixture will be quite wet)
Take out the mixture knead to form a ball.
Place the mixture between 2 pieces of baking paper and roll out to 3 mm thickness.
Place this into the refrigerator for 30 minutes or freezer for 15 if you are pressed for time
Once refrigerated, cookie-cut into desired shapes gingerbread men, snowmen, or stars!
Place into the preheated oven + bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown.

Sweet Shortbread

Ingredients
1/4 cup coconut oil ( you may need more if the coconut flour dries up the batter)
1/2 cup coconut flour
2 Tbs. arrowroot flour
1/4 cup superfine coconut sugar created by putting in the blender first! It will not get to the consistency of powdered sugar.
Pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, optional

Instructions
First, make the superfine coconut sugar by blending the coconut sugar in a high-powered blender.This ensures that the coconut sugar is not crunchy.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
To properly measure the coconut flour for this recipe, don’t pack the flour into the measuring cup. Stir the flour with a fork, dip the measuring cup into the flour, then level the top. Coconut flour is very dry!
Melt the coconut oil in a saucepan over low heat. Remove from heat and stir in the remaining ingredients.
Use a tablespoon measure to drop the cookie dough onto the baking sheet, making slightly flattened balls (the cookie dough will be malleable)
Bake for 6-8 minutes, until just golden. The key is watching the cookies carefully as they brown very quickly. Remove the tray from the oven and let cool for at least 15 minutes before removing from the baking sheet, or they will crumble.
The cookies will be very delicate at room temperature. For a crunchier and sturdier cookie, place in the freezer for at least 5 hours and enjoy from the freezer. Store the cookies in the freezer.