"Inspiralized" by Ali Maffucci

For the past few years, our family has been eating more healthfully, which includes minimizing wheat and other glutinous foods from our diet.  So when I had the opportunity to review "Inspiralized" by Ali Maffucci, I was a little more than intrigued.

First of all, the book includes beautiful pictures of almost every recipe, which I find incredibly helpful.  If you are already eating "clean", most of the ingredients you should easily find in your kitchen already.  This book is not gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan, or pigeon-holed in any other way.  There are all types of different recipes, all packed with beautiful vegetables.  There is even a small section including a few dessert recipes. 

I have had a spiralizer in my Amazon.com wishlist for several months, but now do feel inspired to make that purchase.  If you already have one and don't know what to do with it, I would recommend this book.

On a quirky note, all through the book the author mentions her boyfriend, Lu.  In the Introduction, though, Ali mentions Lu and that he was her boyfriend at the time.  Ali, what happened to Lu? ;)

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I was provided a free copy of this book by Blogging for Books in exchange for my honest opinion.  

Healthy Golden Flax Breakfast Cookies

Working with my honey and homeschooling our gems doesn't leave much time for anything else. 

This recipe, though, I just had to share.  It is based on one shared by Martha at A Family Feast.  It is really a great base recipe, with so many fabulous ways to customize it! Martha has a lot of other fabulous recipes, too.  Everything I have tried so far has been a hit!

The original recipe for these breakfast cookies  calls for 3/4 C coconut sugar in addition to the 3/4 C agave, which I choose not to use.  We found these cookies to be pleasantly sweet with only 1/4 C sucanat (that's what I had on hand) added to Grade B maple syrup, but really could have done without it all.  I guess it just depends on how sensitive to "sweet" you are.

Healthy Golden Flax Breakfast Cookies

Makes 48 cookies ~ based on this recipe from afamilyfeast.com

• 3/4 C almond butter or other nut butter*
• 3/4 C grade B maple syrup or honey
• 1/4 C coconut sugar or sucanat (omit if using honey)
• 1/3 C milk (cow's, buttermilk, coconut, or other)
• 1 egg from a pastured hen
• 2 t vanilla extract
• 1/2 C golden flax seed, ground in coffee/spice grinder
• 3 C rolled oats
• 1-1/2 C sprouted whole wheat pastry (soft) flour
• 1 t baking soda
• 1/2 t salt
• 1 C currants, raisins, golden raisins

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees.
2. To make nut butter, process 1-1/2 C nuts in food processor or high-speed blender until smooth, scraping sides of bowl occasionally.  (I normally add a few teaspoons of high quality olive oil to help with the smoothness.)  This will yield the 3/4 C nut butter you need.
3. In the food processor bowl with the nut butter, add syrup, coconut sugar, milk, egg, and vanilla.  Process until combined and creamy looking, about 30-60 seconds.
4. In a separate bowl, combine ground flax, rolled oats, flour, baking soda and salt.
5. Add wet mixture to dry, mixing with a Danish dough hook or heavy wooden spoon just until a thick cookie dough batter forms, similar in texture to oatmeal cookie dough.
6. Stir in currants/raisins by hand.
7. Scoop one ounce balls, 12 per pan, onto Silpat or parchment lined sheet pans and bake for 10 minutes.
8. Cool on pans for about 5 minutes to set then transfer to cooling racks.
9. May freeze if they last that long!