The other day, I had the opportunity to try Big Spoon Roaster’s Tigerwalk Espresso Nut Butter (almonds and hazelnuts) and I was blown away. Really really delicious, and the perfect thing for making Gluten Free nutbutter cookies like these. They are GF and dairy free (they do have eggs, but no butter), and are simply delicious. They come together in a snap (no mixer needed) and this recipe can be halved as it makes quite a lot of cookies.
It’s been one of those weeks (and one of those months! I hate January!) that chocolate wasn’t an option this weekend, and the best option was for these Salted Caramel Pretzel Pecan Brownie Bites. They are cute, delicious and definitely filled the chocolate “void’ for the weekend. I make my brownies from scratch (not out of the box), but in a pinch, you could also do this recipe with a box mix. A very straight forward and simple recipe.
And what would a CSPS Christmas be without some dressed up nuts? This year, I made Honey gingerbread ones, with almonds, cashews and pecans (but any combination of nuts will do). These are a little sweeter than some of my sweet and spicy ones, but still very delicious. Let them absolutely cool completely before bagging them up, otherwise they will stick together and get totally hard.
Going back to an old stand-by as I am often doing. Here is yet another recipe for crumble bars, this time with gooseberries and pistachios. Just goes to show you that you can really use any fruit and nut combination. If you’ve never had a gooseberry, it’s a greenish or light pink (although there are also dark purple just not around here) berry. Quite tart. In German, they are called Stachelbeeren …. thorn berries …. because the vines have thorns on them. They are a member of the ribe family (as are currants) so they were banned in parts of the US for a long time and are just making a comeback (though there are still quite a few laws on the books outlawing mass growing of them). Anyway, delicious combo with the pistachios.