I’ve been playing around with a few little ideas for Christmas and asked what everyone was after over on my Facebook page. Shortbread was one suggestion. These aren’t quite shortbread but they fill the house with the sweet smell of baking, all the same. Even better, because they don’t contain any butter, they’ll keep for much longer, making them the perfect sugar-free gift to tuck inside a Christmas card.

 Cashew Finger Cookies

•  90g (¾ cup) cashews
• 2 egg whites, from fresh eggs
• ¼ tsp cream of tartare
• ⅓ cup sweetener (I used Natvia, you could use raw castor sugar, Splenda. Xylitol doesn’t work in my experience)

1.  Preheat an oven to 120ºC/250ºF. Line a large, flat baking tray with baking paper.
2.  Place the cashews in a food processor or blender and grind to a powder. Set aside.
3. Place the egg whites and cream of tartare in a clean dry bowl. Whisk to form stiff peaks. Fold in the sweetener and the ground cashews.
4. Fit a 5mm nozzle to a piping bag. Fill with mixture. Pipe the mixture in 4cm/1.5in lengths onto the baking tray. Bake in the oven for 40 minutes. Remove once golden.
5.  When you remove the the cookies from the oven, they will still be soft. Don’t fret! Let them sit for about 20 minutes and they’ll be beautifully crispy.

Kangaroo is lean, good for the environment, dirt cheap and one of the richest natural sources of CLA. All very good reasons to get it into you. Kangaroo burgers are my regular afternoon snack along with different coloured peppers, they’re something I can eat sitting at my desk, one handed. The addition of the fennel and caraway means that the strong gamy flavour some people don’t like is made a bit more like the sweetness of good lamb

If you keep hard boiled eggs in your fridge for snacks, and if you don’t, you should, these recipes area breeze.  The first filling is a traditional hummus recipe, a great stand by for any occasion if you have tinned chickpeas in the pantry. While the second filling is the true star of the show. Avocado and wasabi ‘cream’ and was deemed ‘better than mayonnaise’ .

Ingredients

• 12 hard boiled eggs (see note)

• 1 can chickpeas, drained
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon tahini (Sesame paste)
• juice of half a lemon
• 2 tablespoons  extra virgin olive oil
• a pinch salt
• 1-2  tablespoon water
• a pinch of sumac

• 1 ripe avocado
• 1 lime, juiced
• 1/2 teaspoon wasabi paste
• a pinch of salt
• a pinch of smokey Spanish paprika or chipotle powder

Remove the shells from the eggs and slice in halve. Scoop out  the yolks from the eggs, setting aside 4 for the avocado cream. Discard, store or feed to your pets the remaining yolks.

To make the hummus filling combine the chickpeas, garlic, tahini, lemon juice, oil and salt in a food processor and blend to a paste. Add 1-2 tablespoons of water to make a thick creamy paste consistency.

To make the wasabi avocado filling.Take the reserved yolks and place them in a food processor  with the avocado, lime juice, wasabi paste and salt. Blend until smooth. Add a small splash of water if the mixture feels a little thick.

Use a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle to fill each of the halved yolks.  Sprinkle sumac over the hummus filled eggs and paparika or chipotle powder over the avocado filled ones.

Note: How to hard boil an egg
Place the eggs in a saucepan just big enough for the eggs to cover the bottom with room for one of two more eggs. Cover with cold water to double the height of the eggs and bring to the boil, uncovered. As soon as the eggs come to the boil, place a lid on the pan and remove it from the heat. Stand for about 15 minutes and then rinse under cold water. Having your eggs cold before peeling them will make it much easier to remove the shell.

I wouldn’t be suprised if these tasty Kale Chips and Cauliflower Popcorn don’t elicit the exact same respnse. I polished both off in under 5 minutes!

Parmesan Kale Chips and Pizza flavoured Cauli-Pop

• 1 bunch kale (either curly or flat), cut into chip sized pieces
• 1/2 head of cauliflower cut into popcorn size peices
• 10g finely grated fresh parmesan cheese
• 1.5 teaspoons dried oregan0
• 1 teaspoon smokey paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• a big pinch salt
• a splash of olive oil
• extra Parmesan, grated (optional)

Preheat your oven to 160ºC/320ºF

Combine the cheese, herbs, spices and salt in a small bowl.

Place the cauliflower in one bowl along with half the cheesy spice mix and toss to coat.

Combine the Kale, olive oil and cheesy spice mix and massage the leaves.

Place each mixture on a seperate baking sheet making sure nothing is overlapping.

Bake the kale chips for about 15 minutes or until crisp.

Bake the caulflower for about 30 minutes.

For crunchier pop-corn cook the cauliflower at your oven’s lowest temperature for 8 hr’s with the door slightly ajar.