oats

Pretend

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If the weather is going to act like it’s Spring than damnit so am I!

And I’m going to pretend like it’s Sunday, even though I have to work all afternoon.   Spring cleaning, houseplant transplanting, and kitchen catch up were on the agenda this morning.  About once a week I love to spend an hour or two in the kitchen brewing, cooking, and culturing.  This mornings projects included making yogurt, kombucha, and cookies!

No bake cookies, because who wants to turn on the oven when the weather turns warm!?

 

 

It doesn’t get much easier than this, literally, it really doesn’t.

If I baby-sat I’d make these all the time with my charges, lots of stirring and no raw eggs so eating the ‘dough’ is recommended!

No Bake Cookies 

{simple name for a simple recipe!}

Makes about 20 small cookies

Unlike traditional no bake cookies these are free of refined sugar and are easily made gluten-free and/or vegan.

  • 3 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate
  • 1-2 tablespoons nut butter (sugar free to keep the cookies sugar free!)
  • 1-2 tablespoons raw, local honey (brown rice syrup or maple syrup for vegan)
  • 1 cup oats (gf if you want)
  • pinch of salt

Optional add-ins: unsweetened shredded coconut, cinnamon, ground ginger, vanilla, chopped nuts, raisins

Melt chocolate in microwave or double boiler.  Mix in nut butter and honey.

 

 

Add in oats, salt, and any optional ingredients you want and  stir until the melted chocolate mixture is evenly distributed.  Use your fingers or a spoon to form about 20 cookie balls.  You don’t want to squish it together, just enough to hold the shape.  Place cookies on a cookie sheet covered in parchment or a silpat and set in the fridge for at least 10 minutes before eating.

 

 

 

You can store in the fridge or cabinet but I prefer the texture from the fridge, the oats have a nice crunch!

 

 

Time to pretend like it’s Monday morning and get to work!

Phytic Acid Breakdown

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Oats.

They’re good stuff.  Insoluble and soluble fiber, complex carbs, b vitamins, phytic acid.

Wait, what was that last one?

Phytic acid…isn’t that an anti-nutrient that blocks the bodies ability to absorb certain minerals?

Yep.

Oats, like most beans, grains, nuts, and seeds, have phytic acid.  This anti-nutrient binds to calcium, magnesium, iron, and zinc (and other minerals in lesser degrees) and makes them unabsorbable to the digestive system.

 

I’m a nutritarian and while I get a whole lot of pleasure out of the act of eating, I’m also interested in getting maximum nutrition from my food.  This means that if I can make my morning oats more nutrient dense and still delicious than I’m all for it.

So I soak ’em.

Soaking grains, beans, seeds, and nuts in warm water and a little acid (from yogurt, kefir, lemon juice, whey, or apple cider vinegar) for several hours breaks down much of the phytic acid and voila-the minerals are now available for your digestive system to utilize!

At night I put my oats, warm water, and a teaspoon or two of acid (usually yogurt) into a pot with a lid and let it sit on the (turned off) stove overnight.  In the morning I cook the oats as usual except that they don’t take as long because they’ve been absorbing water all night.

I do this with other grains too; quinoa, rice, amaranth and all of my beans.

There are lots of times that I forget to soak my grains and just cook them the regular way but the majority of the time they are soaked first.  [still working on how to incorporate soaked oats into my dessert crust!]

Many of you are probably already getting the benefits of soaking oats without knowing it by eating Overnight Oats, as long as you add a little yogurt or kefir to the mix.

Soaking grains may also make them easier to digest by neutralizing the enzyme inhibitors so if you have noticed mild digestive problems you may want to give it a try.

You can soak flour too!  Here’s an awesome recipe for soaked English Muffins.

Are beans, grains, seeds, and nuts bad for you if they’re not soaked?  In my opinion, no.  But I do believe that soaking is an easy way to make them even better for you.