Hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving feasts last week! I am certainly thankful and proud of myself after last week’s events! Not only did my baked goods turn out better than expected, my family loved them, and my gut went uninterrupted! Things went so well that I forgot to take pictures of everything. Jeez. I promise that real pictures will come when I make everything again for Christmas!

The pumpkin pie & thumbprint jam cookies come highly recommended from my family! Not to mention that everything was ridiculously easy to make. So for the sake of sharing, here are the recipes to my SIBO friendly holiday noms!

Thumbprint Jam Cookies
1 ¼ cup almonds – ground OR almond meal
3 tbsp coconut butter – melted
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 jar jam or filling of choice!

Directions: 
1. Pour 1 ¼ cup of almonds into food processor. I stuck these in my single-serve Ninja blender & it worked great. Make sure not to over-process as the ground almonds will start to turn into butter!!
2. Add ground almonds, coconut butter, & maple syrup into your mixer, and mix until the mixture forms as one. It should be firm and stick together completely.
3. Shape the dough into a big ball & stick it in the fridge for about 30 minutes.
4. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
5. After 30 minutes, remove your dough from the fridge and start picking about 1-1.5 inch pieces of dough and roll them into individual balls.
6.  On a cookie sheet, flatten them out by sticking your thumb right into the middle!
7. Take your jam of choice (I chose raspberry) and use a spoon to place into the space created by your thumb!
8. Bake for approximately 10-15 minutes until golden brown!

I doubled the recipe, which yielded about 24 cookies. They were so good that only half of them were left over by the evening! Yum!

GF/DF/SF Pumpkin Pie
Gluten-free pie crust (I used a 9 inch, pre-made, GF graham cracker crust that I found at Whole Foods!)
1 15 oz can of pumpkin
2 whole eggs
3/4 cup of sugar
3/4 cup of coconut milk (or product of choice)
1.5 tsp of pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt

Directions:
1. Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees.
2. Start by combining the pumpkin, sugar, eggs, and milk together in a slow mixer.
3. Add the rest of the ingredients once the later have been sufficiently combined. Your mixture should be watery! Don’t be alarmed – just be very careful for the next step.
4. Carefully transfer the mixture into the pie crust – try not to spill it! If you have too much mixture, only fill the crust up to the top, living the edges free.
5. Bake pie for 30 minutes. Remove and add a pie shield or cover with aluminum foil to prevent burning the crust. The mixture should have firmed up for the most part at this point.
6. Bake pie for another 30 minutes. The pie is done when you insert a fork into the middle and comes out clean 🙂

For added noms, we served the pie with SO Delicious CocoWhip on top! I also
had Coconut Bliss GF/DF/SF Ice Cream on the table as well!

& for coffee, Califia Farms Almond Milk Creamer is the best (& way better tasting) alternative to half & half.

Reminder: Do NOT forget to ALWAYS check the ingredients list on items that you purchase to guarantee that you are not accidentally using something that can potentially hurt you. I made sure that the jam & pie crust that I used did not contain anything harmful. I know some people might be sensitive to eggs and even sugar. Try your best to substitute! Sugar sensitives might want to try Stevia.

The original recipe for the cookies called for butter. I have yet to see if I can tolerate butter, and I chose to sub for coconut butter. The ratios can change. In the case of butter, I actually had to use a little bit more coconut butter than the recipe called for. Use your eyes to make sure the consistency is what you need it to be!

The most important part was that my whole family enjoyed my noms. The fudge & the chocolate chip cookies were a hit too! If I had not told my family that they were GF/DF/SF, they would not know the difference. In fact, they even said the pumpkin pie was better than regular pumpkin pie! I have been instructed to ensure that I bring this to the Christmas table as well.

Make sure you try these for your next holiday gathering – I promise you will not be disappointed!

<3 Steph