Morning tea time. It’s important and can be easy if you take 1o minutes to prepare it. Most of us go to a cafe and navigate through a mine field of sugar laden cakes, banana bread (with no banana), friands and brioche. But it can be easy and delicious with a bit of determination.

Cookies are my favourite morning tea. There are so many flavour variables, they take 15 minutes to make and you can cook in bulk for a full week. Most of all they’re amazing with a cup of tea. 

Day 3 of 7 easy ways to detox without having to detox – Walnut and Apricot Cookies

In this recipe I’ve used walnut meal, but you can substitute for any nut you wish.  If you’re allergic to nuts you could use sunflower seeds.  If you don’t have a blender you can buy almond meal from any supermarket in the cooking or nut section. Walnut or nut meal is a great substitution to flour in baking. It has similar properties and I find it adds a nice layer of crispy flavour that you cannot achieve from flour alone. Removing flour makes this cookie gluten free and gives our body a well needed break from gluten overload. 

Walnuts are high in:

• Monounsaturated fats – keeping you full and satisfied for longer

• Omega 3

• Plant based protein

• Vitamin E

• B Vitamins

• Fibre

There has been extensive research over the past 10 years on the benefits of walnuts  and their effect on reducing heart disease by increasing blood vessel elasticity. And effects of lowering levels of BAD CHOLESTEROL.

Walnut and Apricot Cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup of walnuts

• 2 tbsp coconut oil, melted

• 1/4 cup dried apricots (you can use another dried fruit too, chopped dates would be nice)

• 2 tbsp raw honey/maple syrup/yacon syrup

• 1 tsp vanilla extract/vanilla powder

• 1 tsp cinnamon

• 1/4 tsp baking powder

Process

• Preheat oven to 160 degrees

• Blend walnuts to a fine meal (makes 1.5 cups), add to bowl

• Add melted coconut oil to bowl

• Chop apricots into small pieces, add to bowl

• Add remaining ingredients to bowl and mix together until well combined

• Scoop onto lined baking tray with a tablespoon – will make 8 cookiesI like to flatten them, but you can keep them a little raised too

• Bake for 10 minutesFor a crunchier cookie bake for 15 minutes

• Store in an airtight container for 6 days

Other flavours you could try

• Almond and chocolate (replace walnuts for almonds, replace apricots for Cacao)

• Walnut, date and poppyseed

• Pecan and coconut

So far in the 7 easy ways to detox without having to detox…