Alright I cannot take credit for this great recipe. My Mom has a neighbor (you know who you are;) who has obviously learned well the art of healthifying. She took one of their favorite recipes and healthified it! And I just have to tell you it's perfect! I liked it even better then the no bake cookies I have tried before! Oh they are sure Tasty! Not to mention Simple and Healthy! Thanks Mom's Neighbor!!!!
Enjoy!
No Bake Cookies
2 cups sucanat
1/4 cup carob powder (optional)
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup rice milk
1/2 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup peanut butter
3 cups quick oats (I acutally used regular oats
they turned out great)
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut
1 tsp. vanilla
Place first 6 ingredients in a large saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Remove from heat and cool 1 minute. Add remaining ingredients. Stir well and drop by teaspoonfuls onto waxed paper.
29 comments:
Yummy, I may have to whip up a batch for mutual tonight! I forget about this recipe sometimes, thanks for the reminder!
Maile: Oh THANK YOU! ;)
Wow! I just jumped on here to see if you had a no-bake cookie recipe and low and behold here it is...it's fate!! Thanks! I'm trying it right now!
Where do you buy carob powder?
Melanie: You can get carob powder at most any health food store.
And how is carob powder different from or better than normal cocoa powder? And is normal cocoa bad, even if it is inferior? I'm new to this healthy treats idea! : )
HOORAY for Maile's delicious cookies!!!
Tina: I usually buy raw carob powder and it is a lot less money then raw cocoa powder. Regular cocoa powder from the store is highly processed. From what I understand the raw stuff is touted as really good for you but I feel like A LOT of that is hype. It probably does have some good qualities. But it also does contain caffeine and I have found that most any kind of chocolate (I have not tried the over-priced over-hyped kind yet;) causes me to break out.
Carob is much less expensive, I don't have any reaction to it, it has health benefits (people don't love it like they do chocolate, or it's not addicting like chocolate,(It doesn't have caffeine) so I think that's why you don't hear as much about it. Anyway it's the one I prefer and in my opinion it's healthier. Just for fun here are a few of the benefits of carob.
1.Improves digestion.
2.Lowers cholesterol level in the blood. Carob seeds don’t have a cholesterol agent.
3.It acts as an antioxidant.
4.It can be used to treat diarrhea in children and adults.
5.It contains an active substance that is effective against asthma. Carob is also used for asthma problems caused by allergies.
6.It is a good expectorant. If the smokers use it for a few days, they will see how to expectorate.
7.It doesn’t contain caffeine. It works nicely for patients that have high blood pressure.
8.It can help to prevent lung cancer, if used regularly.
9.It contains vitamins E and is used for the treatment of cough, flu, anemia and osteoclasis.
10.Carob tannins have Gallic acid. Gallic acid is analgesic, anti allergic and antibacterial. It is also antioxidant, antiviral and antiseptic.
11.It is used for the treatment of polio in children, as the Gallic acid in carob tannins helps to prevent polio.
12.It is rich in phosphor and calcium. For this reason, it is used in the fight against osteoporosis.*
*source http://healthmad.com/nutrition/12-great-benefits-of-carob/
Although this recipe doesn't have carob chips in it, I was wondering what kind of carob chips you buy. I've seen several varieties at the store: sweetened, unsweetened, malted? And, of course, why do you use the variety you do?
Thanks!
~Stephanie
Stephanie: The ones I get are whole grain barley malt sweetened. I get these because I like them a little bit sweet. (although they are not as sweet as milk chocolate chips probably more bitter then semisweet chocolate)
And most of the others contain milk, whey or both and I try to stay away from that especially from unknown sources.
Hey Tammie :) These look yummy! Question - did you ever get heartburn from Carob while pregnant? Our birthmom has bad heartburn, and I know chocolate can make it worse, so I was just wondering if this with carob would be a good treat when having our birthparents over for dinner on Sunday. You're amazing!
Risa: I always had some heartburn while preganant. Although when I changed my diet I had A LOT less heartburn while pregnant. It's kind of how it goes when you have something squishing your insides. ;) I didn't notice though that carob gave me heartburn. Anything really sweet like honey seemed to or if I ate too fast. I have found Be Young essential oil Di-Gest to work better on heartburn then anything else I have tried! www.beyoungeo.com/4050 Although apple cider vinegar helps too and I found Kid-E-Calc does too.
Hey Tammie, I am wanted to make Chocolate ice cream using the Vanilla ice cream recipe and I thought of just adding a few tablespoons of carob powder. Do you think that would work or would you try something different or have you tried something different?
Vanessa: I honsetly have never liked chocolate ice cream. But I do like chocolate syrup over vanilla Ice cream I have a carob "chocolate" sauce that's really good. http://simplehealthytasty.blogspot.com/2008/04/carob-chocolate-sauce.html
I do wonder about the carob being kind of grainy if you just add it to the ice cream. I would be sure to blend it up well if you try that. I think it might be better though to make the sauce so the carob dissolves well then add that to the ice cream and freeze in your ice cream maker. That would probably be the closest to Chocolate Ice Cream.
Whatever you try let me know how it turns out!
Yip, those cookies are delicious. And I might mention that Maile has several other healtified treats that are equally yummy. Being her neighbor definitely has many benefits. Love, Mom
Vanessa, I have tried the carob powder in smoothies and it makes for a yummy chocolate smoothie...so I would definitely try it in the ice cream....just remember a little bit goes a long way when it comes to carob powder.
These cookies are delicious. BTW you can make them even healthier and lower fat by using pureed white beans in place of the coconut oil. Yummy and you would never taste the difference!
Courtney: Does that really work? You don't taste the beans? I know it works with Peanut Butter cookies. But you have tried it and they still have a nice firm chewy texture and don't taste like beans?
Your blog is wonderful. Do you have any food storage ideas and I would love to know how you incorporate these menus into your food storage. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated thanks for sharing
Anonymous: I do have some food storage ideas. I have had plans to blog about them for a while but sitting down and getting all my thoughts together is not near as fun as posting yummy recipes. But I plan to post more about food storage because I think it's very important.
We use our food storage everyday in our cooking. Be sure to look at my Pantry post maybe you can get some ideas there until I get around to posting more.
http://simplehealthytasty.blogspot.com/2008/08/my-list-of-staples-and-my-pantry.html
Thank you for the healthified recipes...I have really enjoyed them. I was wondering if you have any great ideas to send for school lunch. I'm struggling with that. Thanks!
Amy: Hummm I actually homeschool my kids so I have not thought about that one. But I will think on it. It's a great idea for a post! For something right now quick I'm thinking all natural peanut butter and honey sandwiches on whole grain healthy bread with veggie sticks and my ranch dressing for some dip!
I have tried it with the beans and we loved it. Have you read the blog greenereating.blogspot.com? They have a ton of good recipes and they try to be fat free and use white beans in salad dressings and treats.
Courtney: No I have not read that blog but I just went and looked at it! Thanks for sharing I will for sure be reading it now! ;) But why do they try to be fat free? I have found that only bad fats are bad and that we really do need fat. I was stuck on that totally fat free thing for a long time in the 90's but the more I did it the fatter I got. Hummm go figure. I do not think that totally fat free is healthy although I'm sure you can overdo but fat fills you up and if it's good your body knows how to use it. I actually go around look for ways to add more fat into my diet. Thus the onion rings ;) I put flax oil in my green smoothies coconut oil in lots of stuff and even on my skin. Okay now I'm rambling you get the picture I'm not opposed to some fats!
Oh, I LOVE no bake cookies so I'll have to give these a try. Maile is a great resource for healthified foods. :)
I agree that greener eating eating is a little to fat free for us, BUT so far all the recipes are amazing. We especially love the spaghetti recipe that has a sauce made from cashews! and a ton of others are good to, now that I am done printing your whole blog and have printed theirs and it makes for an awesome cookbook.
Tammie I am going to post here and also in an email just so other readers can benefit from your answer but I'll be more likely to catch it in my email.
I was looking at your yummy chocolate parfait and by the way thank you for your summer meal/dessert and drink posts they are so inspiring, I've appreciated the beautiful pictures and it encourages me to keep on in my healthy journey.
Anyway the chocolate mousse dish made me wonder to myself if I am ready to make the chocolate to carob leap. Was it hard for you to do? I LOVE chocolate! I have used carob in recipes but generally I add some carob WITH the chocolate...chocolate is such an indulgence I love, but then I wonder if it could be better for me to not sometimes indulge in it as I do now. It would be a huge choice for me. One of the qualms I have is that would mean I'd have to start buying the carob chips and while the carob powder is amazingly economical, (and my children like hot carob drink in the winter as much or more than hot chocolate!!! We tend to have it all winter and hot chocolate on one special occasion per year but just for your basic I've been in the snow, lets make a warm treat...its carob every time! )...conversely the carob chips are quite pricey! I was amazed reading over your comment of all the health benefits that carob has, but mainly I realize how addictive chocolate is for me...I don't eat it or need it all the time, but that doesn't mean its not addictive feeling to me. I wonder if I'd like feeling that much more free from the enticements of the holidays or the occasional splurge. (Like when I made a great home made fudge sauce because it sounded so good on those rainy cold lingering winter days we had this year in MN) I made it with honey and wheat flour as a thickener and pure butter, which for me is a healthy choice as I don't have the same qualms about dairy and feel good about natural occurring animal fats like you feel toward plant fats...but could I do that as a carob sauce? Plus I note your sis Emily says a little carob goes a long way and I really wouldn't know how to translate a chocolate cocoa powder recipe to carob...
Thanks for humoring me with such a long email. I do have the spark of inspiration in me, but we'll see what happens I guess. Feel free to give me any thoughts you may have.
Emily: Hello there! Thanks for your kind words. My main goal with this blog is to help inspire others.
I'm just going to share a few random thoughts about your comment hopefully you will find it helpful.
I found having to totally give up chocolate and other things I loved that I knew I was addicted to for a while helped me to use them in a more healthy manner. I went without any short of chocolate and dairy (just another example I'm choosing to use because you brought it up with the butter in the fudge sauce) for 4 or 5 years.
Not saying that one would need to go for that long but let me tell you necessity truly is the mother of invention.
By doing that I was able to break free of emotional and/or physical addictions to such things. I feel more in control and able to choose things based on health and what they can give me and my family.
For example I have chosen to buy good organic chocolate chips at times for those once in a while chocolate chip cookies. Because mainly they have a better texture when cooked most of the time I still prefer the taste of the carob chips. Notice that I buy only the best ingredient chocolate chips these cost every bit as much as carob chips. Just FYI. ;) It's not a big deal though because we don't use carob chips all that often and we use chocolate chips even less.
They are just fun treats once in a while not cravings to curb or addictions to satisfy. I think they are even more enjoyable that way too.
Similar experience with animal fats in my world too. Since I am so used to cooking without them and not needing to use them I find that when I do use them it is a very clear choice that I make and we never overdo that way.
I do think that although it wasn't an easy thing at first getting over my addictions so I could be in control was a huge thing in helping me along in a healthier lifestyle.
I hope you find that helpful. Know that it is just my experience and what I have found worked for me and my family. More than likely what will work for you will be different.
In Health, Tammie
P.S.
With carob powder I find that it is sweeter naturally than chocolate but I basically use the same amount. If a recipe calls for 1 Tablespoon coca I will use 1 Tablespoon carob. Once in a while I adjust the amount after trying it the first time. But it usually is just fine.
Oh by the way I prefer these No Bake Cookies without the carob. I usually just leave it out.
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