This Community Recipe is from Kira Zimmerman, who shares her recipe for Kira’s Almond Butter Oatmeal Cookies. These gooey, chewy cookies are oil-free, refined sugar-free, and made from all natural ingredients. Made with oats and fruits, they are a filling and healthy go-to snack.
Community Recipes is a recurring feature where we share your vegan recipes. If you want to share a recipe in this series, pitch us your idea here.
Kira’s life in Israel
Kira is a twin and grew up outside Boston, USA where her older sister introduced her to plant-based eating. A month after she graduated college from American University in Washington D.C, Kira booked a one-way ticket to Israel in hopes to make a new life for herself outside of America. She now lives in Tel Aviv. When people ask why she moved, Kira used to make up an answer like that she wanted to live in the vegan capital of the world (which was partially true). These days, she answers truthfully: intuition told her to do it.
Kira has now been in Israel for two years and feels blessed with the life she created for herself there. She lives with her partner, who she met at a vegan barbecue on Israeli Independence Day 2019.
A green and calm life
Kira describes herself as a composting fanatic, urban farmer, permaculture geek, and passionate environmental activist. She loves sharing and teaching anyone who’s interested in how to be more sustainable despite the obstacles of modern life. For plenty of permaculture, natural living inspiration, be sure to follow Kira on Instagram.
Kira starts every morning with yoga and meditation. She loves playing guitar, singing, longboard dancing, gardening, writing in her journal, and reading. Right now, she’s re-reading one of her favorite books ”The Fifth Sacred Thing” by Starhawk.
Creativity in the kitchen
Kira often invents recipes and says she feels like a “crafty forest witch” when she throws something together with whatever ingredients are in the fridge and it turns out amazing (which it usually does). For inspiration, Kira looks to Alexa Fueled Naturally and Minimalist Baker for new, healthy ideas.
Make your own plant milk
Homemade almond milk is simple to make and a great way to cut down on packaging. If you can, buy almonds in bulk. Transforming them into almond milk couldn’t be simpler:
- soak them (in water) overnight
- blend them with some water
- strain the blend – don’t throw the pulp away!
- add some date syrup (or maple syrup) a bit of sea salt, cinnamon, and that’s it!
You can improvise on the quantities and flavourings to vary the taste and texture. This is a good starter recipe if you are trying this for the first time. Zero waste almond milk that is so much more tasty than what you can buy at the store. So what do you do with the leftover pulp?
Cookies made from leftovers
The leftover almond pulp from making your own milk is ideal to use in Kira’s Almond Butter Oatmeal Cookie Bites. These amazing, healthy vegan cookies can be served as a healthy snack in between meals, kids love them and they are also great for bringing to parties. People are always surprised to learn how healthy these crowd-pleasing biscuits are!
Almond butter
These days there are endless options available for healthy nut butters, without added ingredients. But if you’ve got almonds in bulk and already liked making almond milk, why not try making your own almond butter? The only things you need are almonds and a powerful blender or food processor. You can roast the nuts first to intensify the flavor. Here is a basic recipe for almond butter made from almonds, and nothing else!
Key ingredients in Kira’s Almond Butter Oatmeal Cookie Bites
- Oats
Dates
Almond Butter – no sugar added, no salt added
More Community Recipes
If you liked hearing from Kira and want to meet more of our Jewish Food Hero healthy food community, take a look at these other contributions (and get in touch to share your vegan recipe too!):
- Lauren’s Shaved Cauliflower Salad with Capers and Raisins Re-constructed from a fine dining experience, this salad has an amazing flavour range and is surprisingly simple to make. It gets better if you make it ahead of time and let the flavours intensify in the fridge.
- Mitten’s Healing Elderberry Syrup A delicious way to spritz up your fluid intake.
- Jessica’s Velvety Vegan Parsnip Pear Soup Simple, sweet and smooth soup recipe, perfect for a weekday lunch or a special supper.
More Kosher Vegan and Plant-Based Recipes
The Jewish Food Hero Cookbook: 50 Simple Plant-Based Recipes for your holiday table. Delicious plant-based vegan menus for 10 Jewish holidays
Feeding Women of the Bible, Feeding Ourselves. Feeding Women of the Bible cookbook features a short compelling narrative of 20 female biblical heroines from the Hebrew bible, paired with two healthy plant-based kosher pareve recipes inspired by the character’s experience. All Jewish Food Hero profits go to a Jewish charity annually.
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Kira’s Almond Butter Oatmeal Cookies
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 25 minutes
- Yield: 10 cookies
- Category: Dessert
Ingredients
2 cups almond pulp leftover from homemade almond milk / store bought almond flour
2 cups quick oats / (or blitzed up whole rolled oats)
3 ripe bananas
1 cup pitted dates
1 cup apple sauce
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup pure almond butter
Instructions
Preheat oven to 250 C
Place almond pulp or almond flour in a large mixing bowl.
Add in mashed bananas, pitted dates, cinnamon, vanilla, apple sauce, and almond butter.
Mix together with your hands (the more fun option, just make sure they are washed!)
Coat baking tray with a thin layer of coconut oil
Roll mixture into balls about the size of a golf ball
Place balls on the baking tray, squashing to flatten them into cookie shape
Put in oven and bake on the first side for 8-10 min
After 8-10 minutes, remove from the oven and flip.
Return the tray to the oven and bake for another 5 minutes.
Take out and cool.
Keywords: oatmeal, cookie, almond, almond butter
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