We Should Be Folding Laundry

I love adding spinach to smoothies, juices, soups, sauces, casseroles and so many other things. I prefer to buy fresh or bagged spinach because my daughter likes to snack on the leaves and I can add them to salads to bulk up the nutritional value.

Before I wised up and started freezing it, I would often find that a bag of spinach would go bad before I could use it all up. I really hate throwing away food so I looked for ways to keep it fresh longer. Hence the freezing of the spinach.

Freezing spinach or any greens for that matter is crazy simple. I don’t know why it took me so long to figure this out.

I like to freeze mine in two ways. The easiest way is to just toss the spinach leaves into a freezer bag and stick them in the freezer. You can also put the original bag that the spinach came in right into the freezer if it hasn’t been opened.

For the cubes, I just add spinach & a little water, just enough to get it going, to my blender. Then I give it a whirl until smooth, pour it into ice cube trays, pop them out when frozen, and store in the freezer in a plastic freezer bag.

Both methods work equally well. One thing to note is that after freezing, spinach can become soggy so I portion out the amount that I know we’ll eat fresh in salads or on sandwiches. Then I make cubes for smoothies or juice and I freeze the leaves whole that I plan to use in cooked or baked dishes like casseroles, stews, sauces, etc.

I burned my mouth on these cookies more than once. Not because I’m a slow learner but because I really really like caramel, and I’m impatient, and o.k. maybe because it’s possible that I might be a slow learner and also a bit of a glutton.

Moving on…

Hot caramel is no joke folks. I’m speaking from personal experience here. Let these cookies cool for a few minutes before you pop them in your mouth.

You may have noticed (if you’ve skipped ahead of all my rambling to the list of  ingredients) that these cookies are very similar to the other flourless cookies I’ve made before and you’d be right. This recipe uses the same basic ingredients with a slight twist.

My recipe calls for almond butter which is a cinch to make at home if you have a food processor. Just use 8 oz. of raw almonds to get about 1 cup of the finished product. Toast the almonds at 350 for 8-10 minutes. Then grind the almonds in your food processor for about 10 minutes until the oils are released. Yes, that is a long time to have to listen to your food processor chop nuts, but it really does take about that long for the nuts to release their oils so that you get nut butter and not nut dust.

Sprinkle in a pinch of salt and a little honey and/or cinnamon if you want, grind a bit more to combine & voila! Almond butter.

If your finished almond butter is still a little too dry for your taste, you can add a little vegetable oil & blend again until smooth.

Store your butter in an air tight container in the fridge.

Now that you’ve got almond butter, spread it on fruit, toast, biscuits, sandwiches, or do like I do & make cookies. Just don’t burn your mouth.

Ingredients

1 cup almond butter

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla or almond extract

1 tsp baking soda

1 egg

caramels – individually wrapped or chips

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 and line baking sheet with silpat, or parchment paper. Or spray with non stick spray.

Using your stand or hand mixer, blend almond butter and sugars until combined. Add, baking soda, egg and vanilla and mix again to combine.

There are three ways to add the caramel to your cookies. The first is to mix the caramel pieces into your dough so that the cookies are baked with caramel chips throughout. If you are using the individually wrapped square caramels, you’ll need to cut them into quarters if you want to use them this way. The second way is to add the caramel pieces to your cookies halfway through baking. The third way is to stuff the caramel in the middle of the cookie. I’ve included pics below to show you the difference.

Roll the cookies into small balls, flatten a bit & bake for about 10 minutes or until light golden brown.

Cookies will be soft right out of the oven. Let them sit for a couple of minutes on their baking sheet to firm up so you can move them to a cooling rack.

The caramels on the left were added halfway through baking. The melty pool of caramel on the right was achieved by mixing the chopped caramel pieces into the batter before baking.

Caramel stuffed in the middle.

So which method is best? Good question. The answer (as usual) comes down to personal preference. I prefer the caramels mixed into the dough before baking. Adding them before baking gives them time to melt slowly throughout the cookie so that you get gooey caramel and equal caramel/cookie ratio in every bite.