Orange ginger oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (wheat free, gluten free)

Orange ginger oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (wheat free, gluten free) While oat week is officially over, I just had to share one more recipe from my oat week experiments. I had some trouble making a cookie that was not either rock hard or really bitter thanks to the baking soda. After finding this wonderful exposé on the gluten-free leavening agents necessary for successful baking, I did a few more tests, and voila! I finally ended up with with tasty, hard on the outside, chewy on the inside, wheat free cookies! But wait! Sin of all sins, how can cookies be [...]

Gorgeous vanilla apple crumble (wheat free, sugar free, and gluten free)

Gorgeous vanilla apple crumble (wheat free, sugar free, and gluten free) It’s Day 5 of Oat Week at The Curious Giraffe! One of my favourite ways to use oats is in an apple crumble. The trouble with most crumble recipes is the addition of wheat flour, sugar, and margarine. This recipe cunningly sidesteps these harmful ingredients, while offering a satisfying mouth feel and rich apple vanilla-spice flavouring. I've cut out the normal first step in crumbles which is to cook your apples first in a pot before baking the oat crust in the oven. In this case, we are going to simplify [...]

Blender pancakes with oatmeal and banana (gluten free, heart-healthy)

Blender pancakes with oatmeal and banana (gluten free, heart-healthy) It’s Day 2 of Oat Week at The Curious Giraffe! I am a sucker for pancakes. I think it's because they drop me right into "weekend mode". But the regular wheat-y kind give me a sugar low about 20 minutes after eating them, and all I want to do is take a nap on the couch! So much for Saturday afternoon! Blender pancakes with oatmeal and banana (gluten free, heart-healthy) These oatmeal pancakes taste better to me than the original (egads, is it possible?) They are full of heart friendly goodness as well as [...]

Banana oat muffins with almonds and blueberries (wheat free recipe for cholesterol reduction)

Banana oat muffins with almonds and blueberries (wheat free recipe for cholesterol reduction) It's Day 1 of Oat Week at The Curious Giraffe! Today we are making muffins with oat flour and absolutely NO wheat. Before Oat Week gets underway, I wanted to clarify something. Why all this fuss about going 'wheat-free' or 'flourless' and using oats instead of wheat? Cardiologist William Davis, MD, author of Wheat Belly sums up wheat nicely (all forms including supposedly healthy forms like whole wheat, sprouted, etc.)  as "incredibly destructive genetic monsters".  His fascinating account of the genetic modification of wheat over the last [...]