breakfast+snacks / recipes / sweet+desserts / vegan
Coming back to school this year has been really tough. This thing about getting back to the routine, something that in a way I wanted so much, it is sometimes (always) slower than we desire. Especially when you have children that also remind you that they also need an adaptation period, which doesn´t necessarily matches yours (as usually happens). You also want to get your time back to catch up with many pending issues and start running around because you want to do everything at once when suddenly, your children are the ones who remind you that you need to stop, have patience and do your things one by one. Well, so this was exactly what happened to me once more last week.
I thought that my kid, who was starting his classes in a new school, was already happy and…adapted…but not. Mood swings, dinners and breakfasts halfway unfinished or almost untouched. The mother in me enrages and starts to feel really desperate instead of having patience…what to do? I am also human… But on the third day, after seeing that my son hadn´t eaten anything for breakfast and without knowing if he would eat the food I had prepared for him, my intuition finally showed up. This tension will not help us at all, it will only leads to more confrontation!! I am not getting the signals that clearly say that my son also needs an adaptation period, if he is feeling nervous, he won´t feel like eating! Like it would happen to any adult…
No more confrontation. Let´s respect his rythym and he will start eating again as soon as he calms down, I thought….and especially, when I myself finally calm down
And so, I decided to make some cookies to relax the atmosphere and moreover, I promise myself that I wouldn´t open his tupper to see if he had eaten what I had prepared for him in the morning. I didn´t start making the cookies as a gift for him in case he had eaten it all, but as a sign of peace and love, a way of saying “everything is ok, mum is here”. And what else is better that something sweet to convey these feelings.
I arrived at the school with my cookies (which had sunflower seeds instead of poppy seeds) and to my surprise, before I had time to show them to him, he came running to me shouting that he had eaten absolutely everything during lunch time!…Maybe the smell from home got to his small nose, invaded him and that is how he recovered part of his lost peacefulness?
Or to put it simple, it could be that when we calm down and listen properly, we are able to give everyone whatever they need.
Ingredients (makes 18 )
1 tbsp of chia seeds
3 tbsp of water (if you use the chia seeds)
120 gr of cashews (or almonds, or sunflower seeds)
150 gr of spelt flakes (or oat flakes)
1 1/2 tbsp of arrow root
1 tsp of baking powder
1/4 tsp of salt
75 gr of coconut or olive oil
80 gr of maple syrup (or honey)
1 tbsp of vanilla extract
1/2 tbsp of lemon juice
the zest of half lemon
30 gr of poppy seeds
1/4 pot of your favourite jam
instructions
- Mix in a small bowl the chia seeds with the water and stir it slightly.
- Check out that the coconut oil is at room temperature, it should look like an ointment.
- In a food processor mix the cashews until you have a flour like consistency. Do the same with the spelt flakes. Mix them in a bowl with the rest of the dry ingredients: the arrow root (a root that will help the dough to stay together), the baking powder and the salt.
- In another bowl mix the following ingredients with the dipstick, the coconut oil, the maple syrup, the vanille, the lemon juice and the lemon zest. When all the ingredients have completely blended, add the chia seeds that at this point will have thickened and got the consistency of a jelly.
- Pour the liquid mix over the dry mix and blend them well till the result gets uniform. Put it inside the fridge for about 10 minutes.
- Prepare a bowl with the chia seeds, another one with a little bit of water and a tray with parchment paper.
- Take the dough out of the fridge and getting your hands wet with water, start making little balls with the size of a walnut. Pass them over the seeds. Squash them slightly with the thumb, making a hole where you will throw half spoon of jam. It is fine if they are close together, you will be able to separate them when cooking them.
- Let them cool down for 30 minutes inside the fridge or in the freezer. Heat the oven to 175ºC and cook them separating them, during 20 or 25 minutes until you see that they get a pretty golden color .
- Enjoy!