Marble Shortbread Cookies

1 stick of butter

1/2 cup coconut oil

2 cups flour

1 Tb Stevia*

1/4 cup Agave Nectar

1 Tb Vanilla

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large mixing bowl cream butter and coconut oil with a pastry blender. Blend in Stevia, Agave Nectar, Vanilla and salt. Cut in flour one cup at a time. Batter should be a soft dough. Smooth half the batter into a 9x9 baking pan. Blend cocoa powder into remaining batter. I get the marbled effect by dropping smallish chunks of the chocolate batter onto the batter already in the pan, then pressing it all smooth. Poke dough lightly with a fork, be careful not to damage your pan if using non-stick. Bake at 350 for 12 - 18 minutes or until edges start to look golden, cut in pan while still hot but don't remove them from the pan until cooled.

*Stevia- I usually use a bulk brand of Stevia called, NuStevia by NuNaturals. This is not bulked up with fillers. If you are using a more commercially available brand like the Truvia packets, you will probably need around 10-16 packets depending on your sweetness preference.

Tips and Tricks

Here is where I will post anything I figure out that makes life easier (at least when it comes to creating non-white sugar deserts). Seriously, if I had the answer to life the universe and everything, do you think I'd be worrying about sugar? Probably not.

Stevia and Sweetness:

Stevia has a sweetness that catches the taste buds after other foods have made their flavors known. This presents some quandaries when attempting to make a scrumptious desert. If you taste the bitter of the cocoa before the sweet of the stevia your brain rebels. At least mine does. I have found one way to counter this is by adding a bit of another type of sweetener to catch your taste buds at the beginning of the flavor ride so you have sweet from the get-go. My most commonly used sweetener for that purpose is Agave Nectar. From what I understand (insert requisite disclaimers here) this is a low-glycemic sweetener, so while not being as calorie friendly as Stevia it is still much more healthy than white sugar.

A Note on Measurements:

I tend to estimate. I am approaching 40 years old, have been cooking for at least 34 of those years and have been making up recipes since I was around 9. Not all of those were successful, but you cannot have wins if you don't have fails every now and then can you? I do my best to convert my findings into more traditionally recreate-able guides, but please bear with me if the concoction does not come out as you like. Take control. Own it. Make it yours- modify to your hearts content and let me know if you find something that works well. After all, I am sharing, shouldn't you?

Super Easy Chocolate Mousse

Ingredients:

2 cups Heavy Cream

1/4 cup Cocoa Powder

1 Tb Vanilla

1-2 Tb Stevia*

1/4 or so Flour

dash of salt

Squeeze of Agave Nectar (1-2 Tbs. usually)

I totally stumbled on this by accident. I don't even remember what I was trying to make at the time this was discovered. I think I was working on a pudding base, but hadn't introduced heat yet, anyway...

Mix heavy cream with vanilla, Stevia, Agave and dash of salt, I usually use a whisk to blend ingredients in this recipe. Add cocoa and check taste, modify to your preference for sweetness, or chocolate intensity. Then, here comes the really cool part. This is almost as good as blowing soap bubbles outside when it's below freezing, trust me, it's really that cool. I don't know what it is that does this, but when you mix white flour with the above liquid concoction, at just the right combination the flour makes the chocolate creamy goodness stiffen up into a lovely moussey cloud like confection. It's amazing. Here's how you do it, take your 1/4 cup of flour and add it gradually by sprinkling it over the top of your mixture whisking it in periodically. When you have the right mix it will thicken and you can stop, or add more if you want it thicker. It will thicken a bit more as it stands. Remember, cooking is an art, recipes are guidelines and screwing up is perfectly normal, you can always scrap it all and start again. Nobody will ever know.

Serving- You can eat it just as it is, or serve with fresh fruit, use it as a chocolate cream pie filling... The options are virtually endless. We LUV it, and it's wicked easy. I brought it to a potluck party one evening, big old bowlful of it and a bowl of fresh strawberries, served family style. Grab a strawberry, dip and oh the yum. It was a big hit.

*Stevia- I usually use a bulk brand of Stevia called, NuStevia by NuNaturals. This is not bulked up with fillers. If you are using a more commercially available brand like the Truvia packets, you will probably need around 10-16 packets depending on your sweetness preference.

Introduction

Welcome to my blog! There's room for you to come right in!

I am on a mission, it's a mission to help my family and I become more healthy. One of the ways I am attempting this is to reduce the amount of sugar we consume. I have two children, 7 and 6, so you can imagine how tricky this can be. I played around with Stevia several years ago but was very disappointed by the bitter taste. With the recent changes in how the FDA rates Stevia there have been vast improvements to it's flavor. These improvements have made Stevia much more palatable, however, there is still a serious shortage of decent recipes for its use. In this blog I will document some of my experiences, findings, and creations. I hope you find them useful.