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Yeah, I know I'm behind here...
Ok, I admit it. I have been very slow to incorporate flax in my cooking. I have learned of its benefits, but I guess I tend to be a slow adopter when there is so much of a buzz around a particular food. Although it may not save the world, it is a food worthy of honor and I have really neglected to incorporate it into my lifestyle. (I know I have friends shaking their heads in disbelief right now.) I suppose there are other healthy eating goals that I have been working towards, so I haven't really given flax much attention. But tonight things changed...
This evening I got together with Christina to finish some stamping projects (some that I started over 3 years ago) and she made a variation of Toll House cookies. She substituted half the flour with whole wheat and half the butter with flaxseed meal (she also does that with other recipes too). I'm hooked. She said the cookies don't spread out like the original recipe, so she has to flatten them out a bit. The cookies had the perfect chewiness to them and the flax added a nutty taste to them. I have been craving some homemade cookies for about a week but I can't find my oatmeal raisin recipe (my binder is a mess!) and I really wasn't in the mood for oatmeal raisin. These really hit the spot. Best of all, I am getting the benefits from the extra fiber and omega-3 fatty acids, not to mention whatever else they haven't discovered yet. I definitely like them better than the original toll house, but that may be just me.
[update] There is a catch: my husband tried them when they were a day old and said it stuck to the roof of his mouth and didn't seem like it was coming off! I still am hooked on these, I just won't make any leftovers. Besides, you can always freeze the "leftover" cookies before baking them and bake the rest later.
As for the stamping, I was able to almost complete some projects. I picked up a pack of envelopes thinking they were a pack of cards, and I forgot another part to finish the other projects. But now that I am well underway, I think I will have them done soon.
I never thought about substituting flaxmeal for butter! Great idea! But I've heard that you shouldn't buy any type of ground flaxseed because it goes rancid very quickly after it is ground. Is that true and if so, is flaxmeal simply ground flaxseeds that I can do myself?
ReplyDeleteThanks,
Meagan DeLong
Hey Meg, I am glad you brought up those questions.
ReplyDeleteIt's true that the rancidity process begins once the seeds are ground, but I don't know to what extent (I'll have to look into that, as I am really curious now). I certainly don't think it is so much that it should be avoided, but doing it yourself is great if you can. If I recall correctly, I think a friend of ours grinds hers with a good quality coffee grinder (I don't have one). Either way, it is recommended to refrigerate the ground flax to slow down the process(the same principle applies to whole grain flours).
As for flaxmeal, the one I am referring to from Bob's Red Mill appears to be ground flaxseeds, but I did read that in many cases, flaxmeal has some of the oil removed from it (and the oil is what we want).
Hey Renata. It's Jacqueline. My crazy sneek-the-flax in trick is to sprinkle it on pizza (after the sauce, before the cheese). Pizza crust is one of the only things I use white flour in so I tried this one time, and it's basically unidentifiable. That's not always my goal with flax, but sometimes it is! A good cookie recipe is here: http://www.canadianliving.com/food/farmland_flax_cookies.php
ReplyDeleteI use ground flax, not the seeds, though that's what's in the recipe. I cut the sugar and add chocolate chips sometimes too.
Blessings!
Hi Jac!
ReplyDeleteWhat a nice surprise to hear from you and now you have a bakery?
How wonderful! I'll have to try that recipe soon.