Author Archives: Jess

Nourishment Lately 1.10.21

Cranberry Ginger Oatmeal Cookies

A gift for you in the new year – wholesome, warming, nourishing cranberry, ginger + oatmeal snack cookies.

These are not traditional cookies – instead of being made with butter, sugar or flour, they’re made with oats, walnuts, almond flour, flax seeds, coconut oil, pure maple syrup, plus cinnamon, ginger and dried cranberries – making them naturally vegan, gluten free, and delicious.

Texturally, these cookies are dense, yet very soft and chewy. There’s a lot of texture in every bite – crunch from the walnuts, plumpness from the cranberries, chew from the oats. Taste-wise, they are ginger and cinnamon heavy, making them spicy and warming. They’re just sweet enough – they taste like a cookie, but not one loaded with sugar. There’s a toasty, nutty taste from the walnuts, a sweet tartness from the cranberries and an earthiness from the oats.

Here’s a little more about the nourishing ingredients that go into them:

Oats: Oats make up the majority of the base of these cookies, because well, they’re oatmeal cookies. 🙂 The oats in these make them hearty and filling – they make a wonderful mid-day snack.
Walnuts: I love the taste and texture of walnuts in baked goods, especially when they’re lightly toasted beforehand, as I do in this recipe.
Almond flour: Adding a bit of almond flour brings a softness to the texture of these, and makes them more cookie like. I like using almond flour in baking for that reason, as well as it’s a one-ingredient naturally gluten free flour.
Flax: Ground flax seed mixed with water is an excellent egg substitute in vegan baking. When mixed, the flax and water ‘gels’ and acts as a great binder in place of egg. I use the flax in this recipe for that reason, but I’m happy anytime that flax makes it into what I eat because of its nutritional value.
Coconut oil: Coconut oil is my fat of choice for these cookies, as well as for almost all of the baking that I do.
Pure maple syrup: Just as above, pure maple syrup is my sweetener of choice for almost all of the baking that I do. Be sure to use pure maple syrup rather than table/pancake syrup.
Cinnamon and ginger: I am obsessed with both cinnamon and ginger right now, and I do not skimp on the amounts in these cookies. I love the warm, grounding nature of these spices. They make these cookies feel comforting to eat.
Apple juice sweetened dried cranberries: I love the taste and texture of dried cranberries. I like to buy ones sweetened with apple juice only, like the ones linked here, but use whatever you have access to.

These cookies are made to warm you, make you feel good and nourish your mind, body and soul. I hope that they are able to bring you a taste of comfort and joy to your day, as they’ve been bringing to mine.

Cranberry Ginger Oat Cookies

Naturally gluten free, vegan, and delicious, these healthified cranberry ginger oatmeal cookies are meant to nourish your mind, body, and soul!

Course Breakfast, Dessert, Snack

Cuisine American

Keyword cookie, gluten free, healthy, vegan

Ingredients

2 tablespoons ground flax
4 tablespoons water
3/4 cup walnuts
1/3 cup coconut oil, melted and cooled
1/3 cup pure maple syrup
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups rolled oats
1 cup almond flour
3 teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup apple juice sweetened dried cranberries

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
Make your flax "egg." In a small bowl, mix ground flax and water. Set aside.
To toast the walnuts, add walnuts to a skillet over medium heat Stir frequently, until lightly toasted and fragrant. Set aside.
Add melted coconut oil and maple syrup to a food processor. Process until well combined. Alternatively, you can just mix the cookies together in a bowl.
Add flax mixture and vanilla extract to the food processor. Pulse until just combined.
Add toasted walnuts, rolled oats, almond flour, ground ginger, cinnamon and salt to the food processor and process until mixture just comes together.
Add dried cranberries to the food processor and continue processing until cookie dough is formed.
Using a spoon and your hands, form dough into cookies and place on the parchment paper lined baking sheet. The dough will be sticky but will form easily into cookies. I use approximately 2 tablespoons of dough per cookie and get about 10 cookies from the recipe.
Bake in the preheated oven for 12-15 minutes. When done, cookies will be lightly browned with a crust; still soft but no longer sticky. They will harden a bit as they cool.
Enjoy! These are delicious straight from the oven, soft and warm, but are just as good kept over several days as well.

Nourishment Lately – Food, Intention, Love, Gratitude

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I am back, to posting here on the blog, as well as to Instagram, and I couldn’t be more excited about it! Over the last weeks, a Dreaming Foodie fire has been ignited in me and I am more passionate than ever about creating and sharing content on this site. My vision and intention has never been more clear for what I want to share and why I want to share it, and I can’t wait to be bringing more recipes to all of you in 2021 and beyond.

I’m also excited about bringing back Nourishment Lately posts! I started these posts years ago, as a way to share things the that bring me nourishment – both food and non-food releated. I believe that there’s always room for a little more nourishment in our lives, so I’m super excited to be bringing these posts back. I thought that today’s Nourishment Lately post could just be a little life update and re-introduction of The Dreaming Foodie!

Over the last year or so, I have been doing a lot of work around thinking about what it is that I want to do, how I want to spend my time, what is important to me, why I do the things I do, etc. All the life things.

There are a lot of things that interest me, but one thing that has been a constant in my life, something that I come back to again and again and again is my love for food. I’ve thought a lot about that in the last year and have asked myself a lot of questions like:
– Why do I like cooking so much?
– What does it really mean to me?
– I spend so much time cooking and thinking about cooking – is that what I really want to do with my time?
– Is sharing recipes what I really want to do with my time?
– And if so, why?
– What’s my intention?

Not that I have it all figured out, but I’ve come to realize that for me, food is about more than just survival. It’s an opportunity every single day to express gratitude and love for all of life. That may sound a bit crazy to some, but for me, it’s so true. Cooking is definitely a ritual for me in my every day life, and one that I have come to associate with gratitude. It’s the act of starting with whole foods – fruits, vegetable, seeds, nuts, legumes – and taking the time to prepare and turn them into a meal that not only tastes good, but makes me feel good and nourishes my mind, body, and soul. It’s one of the biggest acts of love that I can show myself and those who I can cook for. It’s a way to express gratitude to everything and everybody that helped bring that food to my plate. Cooking and eating gives me an opportunity every single day to pause and be grateful.

Additionally, I just love to cook! I’ve been helping out in the kitchen my entire life, and started taking it seriously in my early teens. I was sprinkling flax seed on my yogurt and spreading hummus on my sandwiches before I was even in high school. I was trying to master the perfect cheesecake from scratch at 16. My love of cooking has only expanded and grown every day since, and now, I’m more confident than ever about how I eat and nourish myself. Cooking and working with food is just fun for me, it makes me feel alive, and it’s a way in which I can express creativity. There’s a quote that I love from Howard Thurman:
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

The Dreaming Foodie is my attempt to share that love, gratitude, nourishment, aliveness and creativity that I feel with the world. It’s my way to share the recipes and ideas that inspire and nourish me, so that maybe they will inspire and nourish you as well. That’s my intention here, and going forward, I hope that you are able to feel some of that love and gratitude that goes into each recipe and post on The Dreaming Foodie. 🙂

Last, but certainly not least, I care about food and what I consume because I truly believe that what we eat is a huge factor in how we feel, or as Dr. Mark Hyman, a physician and leader in Functional Medicine, says, “Food is our number one tool for creating the vibrant health we deserve.” He also says, “We often don’t connect the dots between what’s on our plate and our mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.” Those two things inspire me greatly and are core beliefs behind everything you will see on The Dreaming Foodie.

I do not believe in calling food good or bad, and I don’t believe there is a right or wrong way to eat. But I do believe in creating a consciousness around the food that we eat. Rather than calling food good or bad, I think the focus should be on questions like:
– How does the food that we’re eating make us feel?
– What is it doing to and for our body, mind and spirit?
– Why are we eating it?
– Does it taste good? Does it bring us joy?

The recipes that I share here will be created with those questions in mind. I will share recipes using ingredients that I consider health supportive, ingredients that have purpose, and I will give the how and why I use the ingredients that I do. The recipes that I share will be ones that support my mental, physical, emotional and spiritual well-being, so that maybe they can support yours, too.

I also want to note that I have noticed that when I do consciously consume in a way that supports the health of my mind, body and soul, the gratitude and love that I talk about above flows more easily and abundantly. It’s all connected and I’ll do anything I can to (literally and figuratively) feed that flow of gratitude.

And as far as a life update, I’m currently living, cooking and nourishing out of a tiny motor home. That’s a photo of my kitchen at the start of this post. If you’d like, you can follow along on that adventure here. 🙂

In love, gratitude and nourishment//
The Dreaming Foodie

4 Ingredient Sesame Dressing

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We love salads! We often have meal-sized salads for dinner, especially right now with all of the locally-grown greens we’re getting our hands on, but I’ve got to say – we’re pretty particular about our salads. They have to fill us up! They have to be hearty and include a variety of textures and nutrients so that we can feel satisfied after having a salad for dinner. Here are some of my favorite salad tips:

– Include both fresh and roasted veggies. I love raw cucumber and tomato, but I also love adding leftover roasted veggies to our salads. Roasted broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, or potatoes are favorites.
– Add a grain. I love adding a couple of spoonfuls of cooked rice or quinoa to our salads.
– Add toasted nuts and or seeds. This is a non-negotiable for us. I love a little crunch throughout the salad and toasted nuts or seeds are the way to go. We usually do sunflower seeds, walnuts, pecans, almonds, or pumpkin seeds. This will also add some healthy fats to your salad as well, which will help to make you feel satiated.
– Don’t forget the protein. This is also a non-negotiable for meal salads. We have been loving beans lately – raw or roasted chickpeas, red beans, black beans, lentils – but use any protein that you please!
– Don’t be afraid to season your salad. When I dress our salads with just a drizzle of olive oil and red wine vinegar, I always liberally season the entire salad. I mostly do salt, pepper, garlic powder, and dried oregano but it’s fun to get creative with dried herbs as well.
– Use fresh herbs. I love chopping and adding fresh herbs to our salads when I can. Any that you have on hand will do. They add such a complexity of flavor to salads.
– Make homemade dressing. Another non-negotiable for us. Like I said above, sometimes I do just a drizzle of olive oil and red wine vinegar, but oftentimes I make a small batch of homemade dressing. The honey dijon dressing in this post is one of our favorites, or this hemp dressing. Lately, we’ve been obsessed with this 4 ingredient sesame dressing that I’m sharing today. It is so easy to make and has a rich, Asian-inspired flavor. Homemade salad dressing is so easy to make, and I always say that once you start, you’ll never go back to the store-bought bottles.

The amounts listed below make enough dressing for 2 large meal-sized salads. Adjust as needed. Here’s the recipe:

4 Ingredient Sesame Dressing
3 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
2 tablespoons tahini
1 tablespoon coconut aminos
1 tablespoon fresh lemon or lime juice

Add ingredients to a bowl and whisk until the dressing comes together. Toss with greens, veggies, nuts, seeds, protein, etc. Enjoy your tasty salad!

Notes: I linked the toasted sesame oil and coconut aminos that I use in the recipe above for reference. If you’re curious about coconut aminos, check out this article. You could use soy sauce in place of the coconut aminos if you’d like.

The salad pictured below was our lunch on the day I took the photos and was delicious! It had mixed greens, toasted sunflower seeds, raw tomato and cucumber, chickpeas and the sesame dressing. Happy salad eating!