Another healthy recipe from Kardena at Easy Veggie Meal Plans. I give you these to show the quality of her program. She shares various item with me and I pass them on for you to get glimpse and hopefully try her system.

With the holidays here I thought it would be fun to make Cranberry Scones with a sweet spread for Thanksgiving dinner last week. I have to admit I do like traditional foods around the holidays, so learning how to enjoy the flavors and foods is where I have to get creative.

What I love about these scones is that there is no wheat or grain flour!

What’s so cool about that? That means they are low glycemic which means the scones don’t spike your blood sugar and cause you to store excess fat on your belly or thighs or where ever it goes on your body.

I made two videos. The first one shows how the make the cranberry scones and the second one shows how to make the spread, my favorite.

How to make the Cranberry Scones:
The first step is to buy or make almond meal as the base for this recipe. Although you can buy it, it’s easy and fun to make it yourself. All you’ll need is raw almonds, water,  a nut milk bag which you’ll see on the video and a powerful blender like a Total Blender or Vitamix.

Almond flour is great to use because it’s not bleached and processed to death, contains fiber, vitamin E, calcium, magnesium and it’s low glycemic. Here are the steps below…

Instructions for making the almond flour/ meal
Make 4 1/2 cups almond flour/meal from raw almonds

Only use about 2 cups of almonds at a time in the blender and fill the rest of the blender with water.  You’ll need to do two batches in the blender.

1.    Blend until almonds are as fine as you can make them.
2.    Use a fine mesh nut milk bag (or a paint bag from Home Depot) to strain the almond meal from the almond milk. Pour the liquid into mesh bag and squeeze almond milk into jar or bowl.  Make sure to squeeze all the liquid out through the strainer so you’re left with what will be a dry and crumbly almond meal.  Place the almond meal in a bowl.

*** Don’t throw the almond milk away!  You can always use the almond milk to make other things and it will stay good for up to a week in your refrigerator. You can use the almond milk in smoothies or in a chocolate drink, it’s a great snack, or on cereal, or for breakfast foods even some soups!

Ingredients for Scones
4 1/2 cups almond meal
1 cup dried cranberries (apple juice sweetened) or other dried fruit bits
1 cup raw coconut oil
1 cup flaxseeds ground into meal (1 1/2 cups meal)
½ cup date paste, honey, agave, or maple syrup
2 tsp. orange zest
1-2 tsp. cinnamon
1-2 tsp. salt

Directions
1.    Place your raw almond meal in a large mixing bowl and combine with ground flaxseed, coconut oil, cranberries, orange zest, dates cinnamon and salt and mix together with your hands.
2.    Once all the elements are mixed well, cut the mixture in half and form 2, 1 inch thick tubular logs.

3.  Take a pastry scraper and flatten the loaf to the desired thickness. Remember, the mixture itself will not rise when baked, so flatten it to your desired “scone thickness.”
4.    Cut the scone loaf into triangular shapes, place on dehydrator tray or baking sheet and place in dehydrator or oven on low for up to 2 hours.

5.  Dehydrator takes longer.  Mine dried in about 12 hours.

This recipe will yield between 16-18 scones. Enjoy!

Yummy Sweet Spread like Honey Butter

Ingredients:

1/2 cup coconut oil
2 Tbs. honey or agave nectar
dash of salt
dash of turmeric for color (optional)

Mix by hand in a small bowl with a fork.  Store at room temperature in a glass container.  Now it’s ready to spread on the Scones!

I hope you like them as much as I do!

I would love to hear recipes you make that are a healthy twist on highly processed traditional foods. How do you change up traditional favorites to make them healthy?

Kardena Pauza,
Author of Easy Veggie Meal Plans