Coconut-Seed Cookies, Gluten-Free

I celebrated my birthday while pedaling 400+miles through Idaho-British Columbia-Washington on the International Selkirk Loop. I was desperately seeking a birthday treat that would fit my anti-candida diet (ACD) requirements (low-carb, no sugar). Yeah, it was definitely a bit delusional of me to even think I would find something but it was kind of like someone searching for water in the Sahara Desert. You just keep hoping that the perfect low-carb, no sugar, chocolate-mint brownie will appear out of nowhere. Finally, reality set in and I had to settle for a ripe avocado for my birthday treat. I found it at a convenience store, no less. I was actually pretty grateful since ripe avocadoes are hard to come by. But it was definitely no brownie. I vowed to celebrate with something "decadent" or at least as decadent as eating ACD allows me to be when I returned home. Here's what I came up with:

Coconut-Seed Cookies, Gluten-Free

Ingredients:

1/2 cup shredded, unsweetened coconut

1/4 cup raw sunflower seeds

1/8 cup each ground flax seeds and Chia flour (or skip the mixture and use 1/4 cup flax)

1/4 cup garbanzo bean flour

2 T. carob powder (or baking cocoa which I should avoid.)

1/4 tsp. baking soda

2 T. olive oil

3 T. water

several drop of liquid stevia (alcohol-free)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a cookie sheet with pan spray. Process the flax, chia and sunflower seeds to a fine meal in a food processor. Add the flour, carob powder and soda, and process again to combine. Add the olive oil, water and stevia, and process to form a moist dough.

Place the dough directly on the cookie sheet. Use moist hands to flatten it out to a 7 X 10-inch rectangle. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and cut the large rectangle into smaller rectangles for your cookies. Return the cookies to the oven and bake another 5 minutes until they are crisp and delicious. Cool and enjoy. Store the extras in the fridge. They keep well in the freezer.