Recipe: Amino Acid Cookie-Square

Have you heard of the cookie diet? It's basically cookies that you eat in place of a meal. Looks like 3 cookies per meal, 2 meals per day, with a sensible 3rd meal. The cookie-meals are about $4.20 per meal! Supposedly, the inventor came up with a special combination of amino acids which help ... do something. It's not clear.

This got me thinking about flax seeds. We buy large containers of flax seed meal at Sam's Warehouse, and flax seeds are a wonderful source of amino acids. So I took that and a few other ingredients and created this "amino acid cookie-square". It's gluten-free, lactose-free, chock full of amino acids and proteins, and it's very yummy with cocoa and chocolate chips.

Ingredients:
6 cups puffed rice
1 cup flax meal
1 1/2 cups water
1 cup honey
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
3 eggs
2/3 cup dark chocolate chips (lactose-free as needed)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Pan spray a 9x13 baking dish. In a small to medium mixing bowl, combine the flax meal, sugar, and cocoa powder. Add the honey and water and carefully mix. Let sit until the flax meal absorbs the liquid, turning into a gelatinous goo! In a large mixing bowl, place the puffed rice. Add the flax meal goo and the eggs, and mix well. Incorporate the chocolate chips. Pour into the baking dish and even out. Bake for 1 hour minutes. Cool and cut into approx. 2-inch x 2 inch squares. Snack on once or twice a day, as a snack.

Variations:
When going crazy with making up new combinations, remember that walnuts are also an excellent source of amino acids. Add the walnuts with a heavy hand, and the sugary items with a light one.
-chopped dried fruit (mango, apples, peaches)
-banana and walnuts
-blueberry and chopped pecans
-cinnamon and raisin
-coconut and chopped walnut
-peanut butter
-chocolate and coffee
-almond and butter
-chocolate and orange extract
-chocolate and raspberry extract or fresh/dried raspberries
-chocolate and maraschino cherries
-white chocolate and macadamia nuts

Note:
I'm not claiming that these are diet-cookies-brownies, or that you'll lose weight with these squares. I'm just saying that if the cookiediet.com guy says amino acids helps people lose weight, I thought I'd try it. Let me know if these squares help you lose weight!

Copyright (c) 2009 V P Lawrence-Williams