White Bean Chili

White Bean Chili

(adapted from a friend's recipe)

Ingredients

4 cups dried white beans (navy, black eyed peas, great northern, etc.)

7 cups water

3 medium onions chopped

5 Tablespoons vegan broth powder

8 oz frozen corn kernels (optional)

Juice of 5-6 limes

A bunch of fresh chopped cilantro

Few dribbles of hot sauce (won’t taste, but adds flavor)

Soak the beans overnight, Drain, and add the fresh water, followed by all other ingredients. Some people prefer to add the cilantro and juice at the end. I've done it both ways and not noticed much of a difference.

Cook for 8-10 hours on low, 5-7 hours on high. Use a stick blender to blend about half of it. This will make it creamy, while leaving some whole beans for texture.

This makes about 3 quarts of soup.

Authentic Hummus: All About That Paste

This awesome parody has inspired me to share my hummus recipe here, which I'm surprised I haven't done before. I worked in an Arabic restaurant for several years, and though I never saw the recipe, this is how they made hummus.

Hummus 6 cups chickpeas (otherwise known as garbanzo beans, Nathan!) 1/4 to 1/3 cup lemon juice 2/3 to 1 cup tahini bean water (if you cooked the beans yourself, save the water. If not, use tap water) Lots of salt! I cook the beans in a crock pot with lots of salt till they are completely mushy. Save the water when you drain them. Add at least 1/4 cup of bean water, 1/4 cup lemon juice and 2/3 cup tahini to a food processor. Slowly add the beans. Puree. Authentic hummus is not supposed to be thick, so I keep adding water until it is the consistency of a dip. You can play with the amount of lemon juice and tahini. I like it less lemony and more creamy, so I use more tahini. I'd use a full cup if I could, but my husband prefers less tahini, so we compromise and I use more water. Serve room temperature with olive oil drizzled on top. Sprinkle some paprika, add an olive and you're all set! Use pita or veggies for dipping.

Senate Bean Soup

This recipe is adapted from the American Wholefoods Cuisine cookbook, by far my all-time favorite cookbook. Seriously. It's not fancy, there are no pictures, but for $16.22, you get 1300 awesome recipes, many of which are easy to adapt to be gluten free and dairy free. Here is one such adaptation.

Senate Bean Soup
1 pound dried white beans (I use navy beans, but great northern or any whit bean would work)
6 cups water or broth
1 bay leaf
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
1/2 pound potatoes
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 clove garlic, chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt (or another teaspoon if not using broth)
3 tablespoons vegan broth powder (optional)
1/4 cup milk (I use coconut milk beverage)
1/4 cup chopped parsley (optional)

1. Soak the beans in water overnight. Drain in the morning. Put them back in the crockpot with the water, and turn it on high.
2. Chop all things that need to be chopped, and shred the potatoes. The recipe actually calls for mashed potatoes, so if you happen to have leftover mashed potatoes, that would work to.
3. Add all chopped things and spices to the crockpot pot. Save the parsley and milk for later.
4. Cook on low for 8-12 hours.
5. Try and fish out the bay leaf, and then use a stick blender to make this smooth and creamy.
6. Add milk and optional parsley, if your children are not afraid of floating green things. Mine are.

Crockpot Vegetarian Chili

I'm in the process of gathering up recipes to use for freezer meals. I'll create 8 vegan, gluten free, dairy free and soy free bean-based freezer meals, and share the process with you all. Many of them would be good with meat added, if that's your preference.

I'll post the recipes here that I haven't shared already.

Vegetarian Crockpot Chili

1 cup each 4 types dry beans (I use black, kidney, garbanzo, and pinto usually)

1 can tomato sauce, about 14 ounces

2 cans diced tomatoes, totaling 32 ounces

2 teaspoons chili powder

3 teaspoons cumin

1 teaspoon oregano

½ teaspoon salt

1 large onion, pealed and chopped

½ head of garlic, pealed and chopped

2-3 cups of water

Whatever veggies you want (I shred zucchini and carrots into this recently. Veggies will basically disintegrate if you have picky children. A great way to use shriveled veggies).

1. Soak the 4 cups total of dry beans overnight. Drain in the morning.

2. Dump all other ingredients into the crockpot. I cook this on high because I have an older crockpot (doesn’t get as hot or cook as fast) and because I use kidney beans.

3. Cook until beans are soft (about 8 hours).

The Cost of Homemade vs Store-bought Sauerkraut

I have been without a food processor since our move here to Virginia.  Ours was acting up in Boston in that it would turn on all by itself (dangerous!), so we left it behind.

Since we lived for over a month in a hotel with limited food and kitchen options, I decided it was imperative that we eat quality, raw, fermented vegetables to keep our gut flora active and healthy.

This meant I needed to buy them from the store.

Thankfully, the Wegmans here has an amazing natural food section, including whole food gluten-free options and raw fermented foods.

We absolutely fell in love with this Wild Brine Madras Curry Cauliflower Sauerkraut Salad. It is amazing! We also had already had Bubbies Sauerkraut several time, and knew it was quality.

Cost? $6.99 for each, both jars less than a quart.

Yikes.

For Christmas, I received a new food processor (yes!), and decided to do a cost comparison of the money saved by making my own sauerkraut, as I made a batch recently.

Supplies I purchased for this batch of sauerkraut:

2 pounds of red cabbage

7 pounds of green cabbage

4 carrots

1/2 onion

4 cloves garlic

Stuff I had on hand:

Sea Salt

Yellow curry

Dill

Caraway seeds

JJ thinks fermenting is fun!

Here is the per cup cost of the store-bought kraut:

$2.54/cup for Organic Curry Cauliflower Sauerkraut (2 3/4 cups @ $6.99)

$2.09/cup for Bubbies Sauerkraut (3 1/3 cups @ $6.99)

Here is what I purchased to make my kraut:
Red Cabbage: $1.50 (all @ $.79/pound)
Green Cabbage: $5.60 (1 1/3 heads @ $.79/pound)
Organic Carrots: $.46 (4 carrots out of a package of 20 @ $2.29)
Onion: $.15 (1/2 onion, 10 onions in 3 lb bag @ $2.99)
Garlic: $.13 (about 4 cloves)
Spices: $1.50 (4 T curry: $.50, 10 T sea salt: $.50, 2 t dill $.25, 1 T caraway seeds: $.25)

Total cost: $9.34

Wow. This made 5 1/2 quarts.

"Take my picture again!"

Per cup cost for the homemade kraut? 42 cents.

A couple of things to factor in:
Spices: The cost of spices is approximate. If you had to buy the individual spices, the cost would be more (Wegmans has small containers of spices in the natural foods section for $1.99/spice). You could also just make plain kraut with sea salt which would cut down the cost of spices and ingredients.

Organic Vs. Conventional: I wanted to do this experiment with organic cabbage, cauliflower, etc., but I do not have a Whole Foods close enough to get them.  The cabbage used in the curry kraut by Wild Brine was organic, but all the other ingredients were conventional. I did buy organic carrots (a preference of mine), but given that cabbage is on the Clean 15 list (conventional produce that is the "cleanest" after washing in terms of pesticide residue), I'm not too concerned about it.

Tools: My new food processor is fairly typical and cost about $100. Our last one cost about $50 and lasted 10 years. If you don't have a food processor, a typical cheese grater would work fine. That would cost you about $10 at Amazon.com or Walmart. The jars cost about $1.50 a piece this time of year, but you can get them for less than $1 during canning season.

Time: Some people might factor in time. If you're super busy or don't enjoy projects like this, you may ask, is it worthwhile for me to spend the time making this myself?  This might take about an hour to make, up to an hour and a half. It depends on how many varieties you are making (I made 4 different types of kraut).

Still, is it worth it to make your own sauerkraut, if you have the time and the resources? Absolutely. Even if you have to purchase tools to make it happen, you can easily make up the difference within a couple of years, if that.

Cranberry Bean Hummus

I picked up a bag of dried cranberry roman beans at an Amish store in Pennsylvania for 40 cents. I remember buying them before at a post-Thanksgiving sale and liking them.

I couldn't remember what I made with them last time, but googling found me this. I used its vague memory to create this recipe.

Cranberry Bean Hummus
1 pound dried cranberry beans
1/2 small onion, peeled
2-3 dried bay leaf
1 large zucchini {about a 9 inch veggie}
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons tahini
2-3 small clove garlic, chopped
Juice of 1 freshly squeezed lemon juice
Sea salt

Soak the beans overnight. Drain, rinse, and put back in the crockpot. Add sufficient water, the onion and the bay leaves with a pinch of sea salt. Cook until cooked :) Mine cooked on low about 8 hours because I was at work, but I think they're done a lot faster than that.

While the beans are cooking, wash and chop the zucchini into stick-shaped pieces. Saute in olive oil until soft. I actually cooked these the night before for ease. Set aside.

Once the beans are cooked, drain again, saving some beans water. Take out the bay leaves, but leave the onion. Put beans and onion in food processor with zucchini, tahini, garlic and lemon juice. Puree. Add sea salt to taste. Add beans water if you want a thinner consistency. Mine was quite soupy, but very yummy.

This is great served warm or cold. You cannot taste the tahini (a plus for us because my husband isn't a huge fan). Even my 4 year old loved it. We dipped veggies in it.

Naturally Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins

Sorry for my silence these days. I'm still running, still cooking, still fermenting, and still eating :) I'll share a quick recipe with you.

These peanut butter chocolate chip muffins are dairy free, gluten free, and have the potential to be grain free.



Naturally Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon vinegar (raw apple cider is my preference)
1/4 cup sweetener (honey, maple syrup, or cane sugar work)
1 cup creamy peanut butter (I prefer Valencia peanut butter with sea salt)
1/4 cup Jarrow brown rice protein powder (optional)
1/4 cup or more water
1/4 cup mini chocolate chips

Beat the eggs with the baking soda, vinegar, and sugar. Add the peanut butter and beat. Slowly add water. Then beat in protein powder, if you choose to use it. Fold in chocolate chips with a rubber spatula.

Divide into 12 muffin tins.

These muffins have 10 grams of protein each if you use the protein powder. My kids love them. They each ate 3! I knew I should have made a double batch.

Great Foods For After Long Runs

I ran 11.25 miles this morning at a 9:18 pace. That's a spritely pace for me :)

When I got home, I started eating and haven't stopped.

I thought I'd post about some great post-run foods. Being that I'm a Lifetime member of Weight Watchers, I count all the points, of course!

I started with Poor Man's Pancakes as we always have tons of overripe bananas in this house. I had scrambled eggs with veggies on the side.

Lunch was a variation on this falafel recipe with tahini dressing.

Falafel Muffins

4 cups cooked garbanzo beans (chickpeas) (I soak them overnight and cook them in my slow cooker)

1 onion, chopped

2 T dried parsley

6-8 cloves minced garlic

2 egg

2 t kosher salt

1/4 t black pepper

4 t ground cumin

2 t ground coriander

1/8 t cayenne pepper

2 large slices gluten-free bread

Put it in a food processor and process! Rather than try to fry these as patties (I can't get them to hold together) or make them in the slow cooker (same issue), I scooped about 1/4 cup into greased muffin tins. Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. Makes 12 falafel muffins, 3 points plus each.

Tahini Dressing

6 T tahini

Juice of one lemon

2-5 cloves of garlic, to taste

A tiny sprinkle of cayenne pepper

1/2 t - 1 t salt (to taste)

Sprinkle of dried parsley

Water

Put this all in your high-powered blender. Add enough water so it's 15-16 ounces. Blend until it's, well, blended!

This makes 15-16 2 tablespoon servings, 1 points plus each.

Dessert was Chickpea Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough because I had extra chickpeas!

Chickpea Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
2 cups warm chickpeas (garbanzo beans)
1/8 cup agave with 10 drops vanilla liquid stevia mixed in
1/4 cup natural peanut butter (I prefer salted)
1/4 cup dairy-free semisweet chocolate chips*

Mix the first 3 ingredients in the food processor. Transfer it to a bowl and mix in the chocolate chips*. This comes out to be about 1 3/4 cups. Each 1/4 cup serving is 5 points plus.

Yum! A full day of fulling food and one full mama.

Next week, I'm running my 2nd half marathon, the Half of Quincy. Looking forward to totally rocking it!

*Given that Passover is approaching, it is fairly easy to get regular-sized dairy & soy free chocolate chips at stores that sell Passover-safe foods, as opposed to the mini chips I usually buy from Enjoy Life/Amazon. Amazon is selling the regular sized chips at a fair price, but I found them at Roche Bros (if you're in MA) for $3/10 oz bag.

Gluten Free Pumpkin Bread

Why don't I ever remember to take the picture before I eat some?

I'm always looking for uses for the almond pulp that occurs after straining my almond milk. Almond milk is super easy to make. Soak 1/2 cup of truly raw almonds overnight. Drain and rinse. Put them in a blender with about 3 1/2 cups of water. Blend on the highest speed for close to 1 minute. Strain (I use a metal mesh strainer that I got at IKEA. You can also use cheese cloth). You'll have about 1 cup of wet almond pulp afterwards.

I discovered after soaking some almonds that my dehydrator is not working! So I needed to use this pulp pronto. I had a pumpkin sitting around, so I decided to roast it and make pumpkin bread.

This bread is a combination of this recipe & this recipe. I meant to half both, but didn't do it correctly! So this is what I came up with.

Gluten Free Pumpkin Bread
1 1/4 cup roasted pumpkin (or canned)
5 eggs
1 cup wet almond pulp
1/2 cup sorghum flour
1 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 cup coconut sugar or honey
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/2 tablespoon pumpkin spice*
1/4 cup coconut oil

Blend the roasted pumpkin with the eggs and the almond pulp. If you are using canned pumpkin, beating it would likely suffice. Dump the blended mixture into a bowl and stir in the rest of the ingredients. Melt the honey and/or oil if it's solid.

Dump into an oiled round cake pan. Bake at 350°F for about 35-40 minutes until you stick a knife into the middle and it comes out clean. Yum!

*If you have pumpkin pie spice or pumpkin spice from the store, check to see if it has sulfites in it. They use sulfites to keep the ground ginger a pretty color. I mix my own pumpkin pie spice using several recipes from the internet.

Turkey Meatloaf, Gluten free

Last week, I did an experiment and made a turkey meatloaf. I really enjoyed it.

Turkey Meatloaf
1 lb ground turkey breast
1/4 cup ground quinoa
1/4 cup gluten-free oats
3 tablespoons ketchup (optional)
3 tablespoons mustard
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1/4 teaspoon salt
Dash ground pepper
Chopped parsley and celery leaves (optional)
1 carrot
1 medium onion
3 cloves garlic
2 stalks celery

I sent the veggies through the food processor for ease. I added the parsley and celery leaves simply because I had them from this summer's farmshare. The quinoa had been ground in my blender in an attempt to make flour.

Mix everything together in a bowl, and put it in a greased loaf pan. Bake this at 350°F for about 45 minutes. If you have a meat thermometer, it should reach about 170°F in the middle.

I might cover it with foil next time, as I cooked it a bit too long! This is 8 servings and 3 PointsPlus per serving if you're a Weight Watchers person :)

Top 5 Posts of All Time: Gluten free, Dairy free!

Because everyone else is doing it :)

What are my top 5 posts of all time?

1. Gluten-free Dairy-free Chocolate Zucchini Bread

2. Gluten-free Dairy-free Biscuits: WOW!

3. Lemon Mint Salad Dressing

4. Gluten-free Baking Mix

5. Gluten-Free Dairy-Free Cornbread Casserole

5 posts of gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free goodness!

Hamilton Beach Donut Maker and Gluten Free Donuts!

Sunday night, I found quite the gem at a local thrift store:


A donut maker!!! I had JUST been thinking THAT day how awesome it would be if I could find an easy way to make donuts for my kids. I printed out 3 recipes for gluten free donuts and tried 2 of them on Sunday morning after running 14 miles.

First I made Lemon Donuts (I didn't have any poppyseeds) from the Spunky Coconut blog (a go-to GF blog). I stuck to the recipe, except I added lemon extract and some lemon pulp. I should have doubled the recipe because this made 4 donuts. They were very good, but (in my opinion) the batter was too thick and difficult to use in the donut maker. I did not frost them.

So we decided to try this recipe, a random gluten-free donut recipe I found by working the Google on the internet machine.

OK, first of all, the image for the recipe is clearly cut & paste from Krispy Kreme's website or something. Your donut will not look that that. Anyway, I mostly followed the recipe, but I added cinnamon & about 10 drops of Vanilla Creme Liquid Stevia.

Here are some of the cinnamon donuts cooking:


And here are some lemon and cinnamon donuts all done:


I love this little machine! The only drawback of the Hamilton Beach Donut Maker is, ok, 2 drawbacks: 1) it only makes 2 donuts at a time and 2) the bottom of the donut is more well-done than the top. Once we realized this, we simply flipped the donuts about 3 minutes in (they need to cook about 5-6 minutes).

If you ever see one of these beauties at a yard sale or thrift store, definitely pick one up!

Banana Oat Scones, Gluten & Dairy-free

Bananas.

It always seems to be feast or famine around here with bananas. Mostly feast. Especially since bananas have been on sale a lot this month.

Thus, I'm always looking for ways to use up overripe bananas. I de-glutenized this recipe recently, and yum! It's a winner.



Banana Oat Scones

Ingredients:
1 cup non-dairy milk (I use rice or coconut milk)
1 tsp vinegar

2 very ripe bananas, mashed
2 tbsp coconut or olive oil
1/4 cup honey (use maple syrup or coconut sugar to make vegan)

1 1/2 cup baking mix
1/2 cup buckwheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp flax meal (optional)
1 egg (optional - I use it)
2 cups rolled oats (make sure they are GF!)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Measure out the milk & add the vinegar to it. Let that sit.

Mashed the bananas in a large bowl. Melt the coconut oil & honey, if solid, and add to the bananas. Beat in the egg.

Mix together baking mix, flour, baking powder, baking soda & salt (flax seed meal optional). Add the mixed dry ingredients and the milk to banana mixture. Stir, then roll in most of the oats. Save about 1/4 cup to sprinkle on scones.

Rather than make round, individual scones, I split the batter in 2 and made 2 pie plate mountains of scones. Make sure the pie plates are greased. Sprinkle the remaining oats on top of the 2 mountains.

Bake for about 30-40 minutes until a knife stuck in the scones comes out clean.

Have a bunch of friends over so you don't eat them all at once.

Don't forget to check out Gluten-free Wednesdays over at my friends' blog!

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies - Gluten-free & Weight Watchers Friendly

Today, I modified this recipe to make it gluten free & Weight Watchers friendly.

Oatmeal Cookies
1 tablespoon oil
2-3 very ripe bananas
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon liquid stevia, vanilla
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-1/2 cups gluten-free flour blend (high fiber is better)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt (optional)
3 cups old fashioned oats
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Add the oil to a glass measuring cup. Add 2 bananas to the cup. Either mash with a fork or use a stick blender. If the oil & bananas doesn't equal 1 level cup, add more banana chunks until it does.

Add the banana/oil mix & rest of the ingredients except oats, raisins & chips to a bowl & mix well. For flour, I used 1/4 cup sorghum flour, 1/4 cup potato starch flour, 1/4 cup brown rice flour & 3/4 cup garbanzo bean flour; I would have used buckwheat, but I'm out! I should have added 1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum, but I forgot.

I split this into 3 small bowls, added raisins to one, chips to another and left the 3rd bowl plain.

Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. I made 43 cookies.

Bake 10-15 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool 1 minute on cookie sheets; remove to wire rack. Cool completely.

Each cookie is only 1 Weight Watchers point!

Gluten Free Coupons & Product Feedback

About a month ago, I was looking at Arrowhead Mills site for information on their cornmeal. After I found what I was looking for, I kept surfing until I came accross this page, listing "Gluten Free Flours". For those of us who are gluten-free, you'll notice that the last flour listed is Barley - definitely not gluten-free. So I filled out their contact form to let them know.

They wrote me back soon after, letting me know that they searched the web site, but did not have any luck in finding barley flour listed under Gluten-Free products, and could I send them a link. I did have to navigate a strange way to find it, but I located the page and sent them a link.

The very next day, they wrote me a thank you (like, on actual paper and not via e-mail), and sent me the following:


I'm sort of slow in opening my mail, so I didn't find them until yesterday, and let me tell you - it was like Christmas!

So don't ever hesitate to send retailers your feedback, even if it's just that you love their stuff. You may get a reward in the mail :)

(And can I just say that as I wrote this, Bear picked up the coupons to look at them. I told him to be careful because they were important to Mommy, so he informed me of his intents: "Check on sales! Check on sales! Save $5 cookies." I like to start 'em young!)

Gluten-free Decadent Brownies

I've been experimenting with changing up my brownies recipe. They're a bit crumbly, so last night I increased the flour & decreased the sugar. It did the trick.

Here's what I came up with. And since I already gave birth, I changed the name as well :)

Decadent Brownies
3/4 cup coconut oil/margarine, melted (I used 1/2 cup coconut oil & 1/4 cup soy-free margarine)
1 1/4 cups sugar
3 eggs, beaten
6 1-ounce squares of baker's chocolate, melted
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup baking mix or flour
3/4 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Cream sugar and oil/margarine together. Add eggs and mix well. Mix in melted chocolate and vanilla. Mix in flour, and then nuts.

Spread batter in an 8X8 inch pan. Bake at 325 for just under 40 minutes - do not overcook!

Enjoy

Gluten-free Breakfast at Ula Cafe

We had to rise bright & early this morning to go to a pick-up for our
buying club we're part of. When we arrived at the Brewery in Jamaica Plain, where we have the pick-up, the truck that delivers our goods was not there yet, so we went over to the Ula Cafe to grab a coffee. Bear had not had his breakfast (I packed him a container of dry cereal), so of course when he saw all the pastries and baked goodies, he signed "Eat" and said "More, more" (yeah, sign language & speaking got a little confused in his brain).

I looked around, feeling fairly positive I would not find any dairy, soy & gluten-free options, when lo & behold! A beautiful little fig bar, wrapped in its own little wax paper, stared back at me! It had a complete list of ingredients, which included figs, quinoa, buckwheat groats, molasses, sunflower seeds, & a bunch of other things I've forgotten. He loved it, devouring almost the entire thing in a short amount of time. He did let me have a bite, and yum! It was very tasty.

Kudos to the Ula Cafe for making our morning! Oh, and the coffee is great. In fact, I said to Roy on my first sip, "This decaf is good" and on my second, "It's really good!"

Wheat-free Dairy-free Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

I had a hankering for oatmeal raisin cookies yesterday. Usually, I make GlutenFreeGirl's recipe, but I don't have any teff flour. So I did an internnet search and converted the 1st recipe I found. Here's what I came up with.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup mashed banana
1/4 cup soy-free margarine (you can just use 3/4 cup margarine or oil for the 1st 3 ingredients)
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups gluten-free baking mix (works out to be 1 cup rice flour, 1/3 cup potato starch flour & 1/6 cup tapioca flour with 1 teaspoon xanthan gum)
2 1/2 cup oats (I used quick oats because that's what I had, could also use GF oats)
1 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Beat together all ingredients except oats, baking mix & raisins. Add baking mix & stir well then add oats & raisins, again stirring well. Drop cookies onto greased baking sheet. Cook for about 10 minutes, depending on cookie size. They don't need to cook as long as I thought they would.

Honestly, I thought these were as good if not better than GFG's recipe. I used less sugar than the traditional recipe, but I didn't even notice the difference.

I've been experimenting a lot with my baking mix. I'm simply adding it in place of flour in wheat-containing recipes to see how it goes. So far, so good! I've converted muffin recipes, cornbread recipes and now oatmeal cookie recipes to easily be wheat/gluten-free. It's so handy to have around. I highly recommend mixing some up and keeping it on your shelf.

Gluten-free Dairy-free Chocolate Crinkles

I was asked today what my favorite gluten-free cookie is. Chocolate crinkles! I made these for a party recently, and was reminded how delicious they are! Gluten eaters love them and can't tell they are GF - really :)

Chocolate Crinkles
1/2 cup coconut oil
4 squares unsweetened chocolate, melted
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups rice flour (I also used a little garbanzo bean flour)
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
confectioners sugar

Mix oil, chocolate, and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing thoroughly between each. Add vanilla. Measure flour and add. Stir into chocolate mix along with salt, xanthan gum, and baking powder. Chill several hours or overnight. Heat oven to 350. Form dough into balls (it will be stiff) and roll in confectioners sugar to coat. Place about 2" apart on a greased baking sheet. Bake about 10-14 minutes.

These cookies are awesome with or without coconut oil, but using high quality coconut oil adds just a touch of coconut flavor. These cookies freeze really well, and the dough keeps well in the fridge.

Gluten-free Pigs in a Blanket

I made pigs in a blanket last week for fun, and they came out quite well!

"Pigs" in a Blanket
2 cups baking mix
1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon Earth Balance soy-free margarine
2 ½ teaspoons gluten-free baking powder
1 egg or egg replacer
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup water

I also added :
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast (for a "cheese-y" flavor)
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

Mix the above ingredients to make the "batter".

Then:
6 hot dogs, cut in half & boiled (I used chicken dogs)

I put about a tablespoon of the batter on a greased cookie sheet and flattened it. I did this 12 times, and then put the half dogs on top. I put about another tablespoon & a half of batter on top of the dogs and sort of mushed it together with my fingers.

Before the oven:

I baked it for about 12-15 minutes at 400 degrees F and then served it with fresh salad with my lemon mint dressing. Yum!

Here's the cooked evidence (don't mind the blur; it's an iPhone photo):