Grain-Free Sandwich Cookies With Pumpkin Butter

I have been on a kick, going back to old Foraged Dish recipes and taking new photos. It is insanely satisfying to compare the old ones to the new. Progress is difficult to measure day-by-day, but all of those days add up! I’m sure, in three years, I’ll look back at my photos from 2018 and roll my eyes. C'est la vie.

These sandwich cookies were one of my recent victims, and since it is the season for baking and pumpkin, I thought it would be a good opportunity to update the whole post. That means a few updates to the recipe, too:

• Simplified. The original asked for both almond flour and coconut flour, but since 2015 I’ve discovered a much simpler grain-free shortbread cookie using just almond flour. I quite like the texture of the cookies, too! They are a bit chewy, stay together well, and have great almond and honey flavor.

• Drizzled with chocolate. How can you make a boring cookie look a little fancier? Maybe you’re thinking frosting, which is true, but since this cookie is a sandwich I wanted the filling to shine. I drizzled each cookie with chocolate, which was just the right touch!

• Doubled it. More is better right? In this case, there’s no doubt: the original recipe made about 6 sandwich cookies… what was 2015-me thinking?!?! A dozen is much more reasonable (but you still may want to double that if you’re cooking for a crowd).

Once baked, these cookies are stuffed with pumpkin butter, so the end result tastes a bit like pumpkin pie. Perfect match with a cappuccino! But I also experimented with filling the cookies with salted caramel. Oh. My. Goodness. Now that’s a treat! A bit like an alfajore, if you are familiar. I am definitely going to need to make an alfajore recipe now (Foraged Dish style, of course!).

Grain-Free Sandwich Cookies with Pumpkin Butter

Published October 26, 2015 by Caitlin Sherwood

Yield: 12-24, depending on size   |    Active Time: 60 minutes

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Ingredients:

2 cups finely ground almond flour

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 cup butter or coconut oil, melted

1/4 cup honey

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup pumpkin butter

1/4 cup dark chocolate

Directions:

1. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the almond flour, salt, and baking soda. Whisk until incorporated. Add the melted butter or coconut oil, honey, and vanilla, and stir until a dough forms. Shape dough into a disc (about 1 inch thick), wrap in plastic wrap, and place in fridge for 30 minutes to 1 hour to chill.
2. Preheat oven to 325°F. After dough has chilled, remove from fridge. Cut a piece of parchment paper to fit your baking pan.
3. On a separate piece of parchment, use a rolling pin to roll dough out to 1/4-inch thickness. Use cookie cutters to cut circles out of dough and place on baking sheet, with at least 1/2 inch between each cookie. Bake for 9 minutes, until golden. Allow to cool.
4. Once cookies are fully cooled, spread pumpkin butter on one cookie, and then use another to create a sandwich. Set aside, and then continue until all of the cookies are sandwiched.
5. Heat the chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl for 30-second intervals (string between each!) until chocolate is glossy and smooth. You can also do this in a double boiler (stir frequently). Drizzle melted chocolate over sandwich cookies. Allow chocolate to set before serving cookies.
6. Tip: You can use any sort of jam to fill these cookies! I also made a few with salted caramel sauce and they were SO. GOOD.

Swiss Chard Frittata

Once I learned to flip, there was no going back. Life was truly never the same, as gymnastics suddenly became the grounding element in my life. And then one day, sometime in college, it all came to halt. I stopped coaching (I got a different job), and with that I also stopped having a reason to be a gym rat daily (this gave way to me trying many other sports, some of which I still love, but none as much as gymnastics).

Two weeks ago I went to my old gym for an adult gymnastics class, something that never fails to make me feel old and weak and also young and nostalgic at the same time. We did bars (which was always my least favorite event) but sure enough my muscle memory held on: glide, toes to the bar— Kip. Switch kip. Free hip, cut kip. I found myself in the air again, older sure— but the muscle memory was there. In a way nothing had changed and in others everything had. 

About 15 minutes in, I spun around the bar and felt a familiar and unpleasant sensation: a rip. My palm cut open (like a popped blister, but almost and inch across). Damn does that sting! At 15 years old, a rip was nothing: a causality at most. You got back up and kept going. Man I was strong then. And that’s how it goes: a mixture of rediscovering why I loved the sport in the first place — reinforcing what I always have known, which is that I simply love gymnastics, all of it - and learning how I have changed. 

Gymnastics was the first sport that I loved — before that I just wasn’t into most of what we did in gym class - and it taught me to care. To care about results and to try hard, sure, but also to care about my body and what I ate. I love gymnastics so much that anything that might help me be a better gymnast was worth doing.

Somewhere along this road I moved from breakfast-skipper to breakfast lover. More specifically, high protein breakfast lover. Eggs! I love eggs, and they’re a great way to get some protein in your body, which you need in order to rebuild (or just build) between work outs. This swiss chard parmesan frittata is a quick one — sauté the greens in an oven-safe skillet, add the adds, pop it in the oven under the broiler, and boom! High protein breakfast (with veggies) (and cheese!) is ready. Eat up!

Swiss Chard Frittata

Published August 21, 2018 by Caitlin Sherwood

Serves: 4   |    Active Time: 20 minutes

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Ingredients:

6 eggs 

1 shallot, sliced thin

4 swiss chard leaves 

1 teaspoon coconut oil

1/4 cup milk of choice

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon pepper

1/2-3/4 cup parmesan

Directions:

1. In a 10-inch skillet, heat coconut oil over medium-high heat.
2. When oil glistens, sauté shallots until translucent.
3. Cut the swiss chard: cut out the stems, and chop them. Add stems to the pan. Then, roughly chop the leafy green parts. Add the leafy green parts to the skillet once the stems begin to soften. Place lid on skill, and allow greens to cook until dark green.
4. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, salt and pepper. Once yellow and frothy, pour egg mixture into skillet. You may want to use a fork or spoon to move the swiss chard into an even layer if it is in clumps. Sprinkle parmesan on top.
5. Turn oven to a high broil. Place skillet on top rack in oven, and cook for 5-10 minutes, until eggs are puffed, golden on top, and set through. Remove from oven, and allow to cool 3-5 minutes.
6. Slice and serve.

Roasted Trout with Lemon & Rosemary

My first (and maybe my last?) fishing pole was a Mickey Mouse fishing pole.

With a conviction to teach his daughter where food came from, my dad took me fishing when I was young. I remember catching a fish just once, but remember at least several meals while camping that my dad had caught on a hook.

In Colorado our fishing access is limited to creeks and reservoirs (there are a few lakes, but they are tiny, some would call them ponds). It seems it is always trout, though I really know nothing about fishing, so I could be wrong. But what I know is that many a meal was served to me as a kid, where a whole trout was seasoned and roasted. I struggled to learned how to separate the meat from the bones in one fell swoop, usually picking them out one by one. 

I know that seeing the whole fish is off putting to some— I don’t blame you. But to me, it’s part of the experience. It says something about that dish; makes it feel “more,” like maybe your dad caught the fish himself.

Fresh, trout can have a quite mild flavor. It’s meat is flakey and delicate, and pairs well with a spritz of lemon, a side of potatoes, and fresh herbs. 

It feels like a hallmark of summer to me: a sign that the creeks are gushing and full of life, a part of camping season, and best enjoyed with other fresh summer finds, like rosemary. 

Roasted Trout with Lemon & Rosemary

Published June 26, 2018 by Caitlin Sherwood

Yields: 2-4   |    Active Time: 45 minutes

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Ingredients:

2 whole trout, dedressed 

1 lemon, sliced

1/4 teaspoon ground pepper

2 springs rosemary 

2 tablespoons avocado oil

3 cups diced red potatoes

2 cloves garlic, minced

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Toss diced potatoes and minced garlic in olive oil. Spread out on a sheet pan, and sprinkle with half of the salt and pepper. Then, bake for 30 minutes, until potatoes are just starting to turn golden on the outside.
2. Meanwhile, season each fish with the remaining salt & pepper. Then, place half of the lemon slices and 1 sprig of rosemary in the cavity of each fish. If desired, tie the fish closed with twine.
3. After the potatoes have cooked for 30 minutes, push them to either side of the baking sheet to make room for the fish. Place each fish on the pan, and return pan to oven for 20 minutes, or until meat is opaque and easily flakes when pricked with a fork. Potatoes should also be tender all the way through when pricked with a fork. Serve hot.