A few months back I turned vegan. So part of my time and entertainment involves looking for recipes that fit my new lifestyle habit. I found some store-bought a-mazing Quinoa. They are pretty healthy, super tasty and pricy! So I decided to try and make my own version of delicious vegan quinoa cookies.
My friends have often complimented me on my animal training abilities – my cooking, well not so much. However, I decided that I was not going to rely on a particular recipe for my cookies, but instead apply what I have learned by reading cook books and blogs about eating and cooking vegan.
I did my first batch of cookies and let’s say that the result where interesting – I’ll leave it at that. But I did finish that batch. After giving it some thought I decided to try a new batch and in the process adding some new ingredients. The result…. drum-roll please…
Pretty delicious cookies!
I shared bits of them with the dogs and they really liked them. Of course, all ingredients are dog friendly. However, if you decide to share them with your pup I suggest just giving tidbits or come to think of it, you can use them as training treats by cutting very small pieces.
Here is my recipe of the second batch. Now, in cooking I don’t strive for a lot of precision, so all the quantities for the ingredients on this recipe are on the “more-or-less” basis. As such, you can try adding different ingredients or remove what you don’t like, except of the Quinoa, of course, otherwise they will not be Quinoa cookies right?
If you do make this and you like the results, please share on the comment section of the blog.
Happy baking & happy sharing with your pup!
Quinoa & Coconut (Vegan) Cookies:
1 cup of Quinoa (white I think works best, but you might try the multi-color)
1 cup Almond flour
½ cup of Coconut flakes
Pit-free dates to taste (these are used for moisture as well as a sweetener
Vanilla extract – to taste
Dash of Cardamom (one of the most imp. ingredients I found out)
Dash of Nutmeg
Fresh ground Ginger – to taste
Chia seeds – couple of tablespoons
Plant-based “milk”- enough to achieve a “gooey” dough consistency that you can either turn into a ball or flatten to form a cookie shape.
Low-glycemic Coconut syrup or Maple syrup – to taste as sweetener
The Method:
Mix the Quinoa with some of the “plant” milk or some water and blend either in a food processor or Vitamix to make flour out of the Quinoa. Again, to taste, you might like more crunch so play around with it.
Once the Quinoa has turned into flour, add the Almond flour and combine well.
Add all the rest of the ingredients above and mix well.
NOTE:
Because there are no raw ingredients that can potentially result in salmonella, if ingested, I suggest trying the mix as you go along so that you can decide to add more of a given ingredient. I love walnuts and I guess they would go great in this recipe. However, walnuts are not good for dogs so skip them if you plan on sharing.
Make some balls out of the mix or flatten them as cookies.
Bake at 350 degrees until they are not gooey and golden-brown.
Let them cool before removing from baking sheet.
Recipe above will make a bunch of cookies or smallish balls.