Category: Recipes

This weekend, here in town, they’re holding our “First Annual Christmas Tree Lighting”. Santa & Mrs. Claus will be there with Christmas music. They’ll also have hot cocoa, coffee, popcorn & cookies. I volunteered to make three dozen of my wheat free, egg free and dairy free cookies to, also, give away at the event. I’m not sure if there will be much need for them or not. I figure if I can brighten up someone’s evening by having a cookie available, that they can eat, then it will be a good night!

I’ve never posted a re-run of a recipe, but on the individually wrapped cookies, I taped a note about the recipe being on my blog…so here it is.

Brenda’s Wheat Free – Egg Free – Dairy Free Buttermilk  Sugar Cookies  

Ingredients:

Since this is a buttermilk cookie, first thing you have to do is make your buttermilk so it can set for a bit to “turn the milk”. (see below)

You need one Tablespoon apple cider vinegar.  Pour ½ of the vinegar into bottom of a 1 cup measuring cup.  Add milk of your choice (I used almond milk) just about to the top of the measuring cup and then add remaining vinegar.  Let it set as you gather and mix other ingredients.

• 2 Cups white sugar
• 1 Cup shortening
• 4 ½ teaspoons EnerG Egg Replacer plus 6 Tablespoons warm water

Mix these first 3 ingredients until smooth

Then stir in – by hand:

• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon xanthan gum
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 5 cups Gluten Free flour (I make my own Gluten Free flour. At the end of this post, I’ve got the recipe I use.)
• 1 cup buttermilk (which you prepared at the start of this recipe)

Cover dough and let it cool in refrigerator for at least an hour, but it can set for several days.  When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Lay out parchment paper on your work surface (I know I’ve said it before, but I love that stuff!).  Lightly dust paper with either the flour mixture (or it looks like in my picture, this last time I dusted with brown rice flour & tapioca flour) – it doesn’t matter which, your just doing it so the dough won’t be sticky.  Roll out dough on floured surface to ¼” or ½”thick, cut out cookies.  Place cookies on baking sheet lined with parchment paper.  Don’t have cookies touching each other on pan.  Bake 10- 12 minutes.  Let them cool a few minutes before moving to a cutting board or rack.  Once completely cooled you can frost them.

Frosting:

I’m embarrassed to try and tell you how I make my cookie frosting; this is one of those things I just do by sight and feel.  Here it goes!

3 Tablespoons of Earth’s Balance Buttery Spread melted

This is the embarrassing part:  I then just dump powdered sugar in with the melted butter, stir, add a little almond milk and keep adding powdered sugar and milk until I get the consistency I like.  Then when done I add just a little bit of vanilla extract for taste.  Use food colorings of your choice, frost and decorate.

Enjoy!

Thanks for stopping.

Brenda

Below is the recipe for the gluten free flour:

Dr. Carol Fenster’s Gluten-Free Sorghum Flour Blend*:

1 1/2 cups sorghum flour (I use sweet sorghum flour)

1 cup tapioca flour

1 1/2 cups potato starch or corn starch (I use potato starch)

1/2 cup corn flour or almond flour or bean flour or chestnut flour

(I use almond flour, which can be expensive. As Dr. Fenster suggests, I grind my own almond flour by grinding blanched almond slivers in a small coffee grinder.)

This recipe makes 4 1/2 cups. Freeze excess flour.

*Recipe from: Gluten Free 101: Easy, Basic Dishes Without Wheat by Carol Fenster, PhD

Disclaimer:                                 

These recipes and tips are not guaranteed to work or be safe for everyone. Allergies are extremely complicated and vary for each individual. It is still your responsibility to read labels to ensure your safety. I cannot be held liable for any ill effects from using my tips to avoid your allergies. (Sorry guys, I don’t foresee any problems, but Momma’s gotta cover her backside, ya know?) Just read your labels! Do your research!

Our parish festival is just around the corner.  Every year, parishioners are asked to donate baked goods to the “County Store”. 

This year, I’ll be taking several varieties of cookies, one of which is the title for this week’s post; “Gluten Free-Vegan Oatmeal Raisin Cookies”.  On the package, I’ll label them as gluten free and vegan.  I will also attach the recipe; this will let everyone know what is and what isn’t in the cookies.

I used the recipe on the Kroger Quick Oats container.  Below is a pic of the recipe – with my changes. 

Enjoy!

Thanks for stopping.

Brenda

Disclaimer:                                 

These recipes and tips are not guaranteed to work or be safe for everyone. Allergies are extremely complicated and vary for each individual. It is still your responsibility to read labels to ensure your safety. I cannot be held liable for any ill effects from using my tips to avoid your allergies. (Sorry guys, I don’t foresee any problems, but Momma’s gotta cover her backside, ya know?) Just read your labels! Do your research!

In April, Kevin and I celebrated Easter with my sister, Bethany and her family.  When I visit, she always seems to have a few recipes tailored to my food allergy needs.  For this visit, she had two recipes for our Easter dinner.  One was for a baked pork dish, which I will blog about another day.  The other was a recipe for Authentic German Potato Salad, from Allrecipes.com.  That’s the subject of today’s post. 

We are of German heritage and I vaguely remember Mom making a warm German potato salad, a few times, when I was young.  It had been years since having it, so I was excited to try it.  It was really good, but what made this particular recipe even more appealing to me, was the fact that it was a recipe that fit all of my food allergy needs.  As is.  No substitutions needed.   What a refreshing change.

I’m posting a pic of the recipe, which Bethany gave me, below.  I’m also giving you a link to their website, at the bottom of this post, if you’d like to check it out. 

I followed the recipe to a T – kind of. 

I didn’t peel all of the potatoes, only about half.  (We like red skin potatoes with their skins on.)

No fresh parsley in the house, so I used dried.

My bacon was extremely fatty, so after frying it, I drained about 2/3 of the bacon grease out of the pan before adding the other ingredients.  (This is purely a judgement call on how much bacon grease you do or don’t want in your potato salad.)

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/83097/authentic-german-potato-salad/print/?recipeType=Recipe&servings=4&isMetric=false https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/83097/authentic-german-potato-salad/print/?recipeType=Recipe&servings=4&isMetric=false

That’s it.  It turned out great!

Enjoy!

Thanks for stopping!

Brenda

Disclaimer:                                 

These recipes and tips are not guaranteed to work or be safe for everyone. Allergies are extremely complicated and vary for each individual. It is still your responsibility to read labels to ensure your safety. I cannot be held liable for any ill effects from using my tips to avoid your allergies. (Sorry guys, I don’t foresee any problems, but Momma’s gotta cover her backside, ya know?) Just read your labels! Do your research!

For the first six years of our married life, Kevin and I rented a house from a couple, Neil and Rosie, who lived just down the road.  It was during our first year there that I discovered, Kevin LOVED rhubarb pie! (Really?? People LOVE rhubarb pie??)  I learned this, because every summer for each of those six years, Rosie would bring us a freshly baked rhubarb pie – which Kevin devoured.

Then we moved to a neighboring town and Kevin’s rhubarb connection was severed.  I figured I had two options: Learn to bake rhubarb pie or find one at a church bake sale.  I went for the church bake sale, not knowing that was a bit of a crap shoot.  (I figured all church ladies could bake good pie.)  I learned a valuable lesson, more than once.  Just because a pie LOOKS good, doesn’t mean it’s going to TASTE good.  And vice versa. 

After four years, we moved again.  We’d bought a house near my sister Wanda.  She had a rhubarb patch, but I didn’t venture into it right away.  I instead continued to play the pie lottery.  Eventually, I felt bad that Kevin was living in a rhubarb pie desert.  I broke down, picked some rhubarb and made some rhubarb pies. Another lesson learned: There’s a reason there are so many bad rhubarb pies out there.  It’s not an easy pie to master. After a few years, I got pretty good at it.  Then Wanda’s rhubarb patch stopped producing.  I went back to rolling the dice with the church ladies. 

Then, three summers ago, we got good news.  Brent bought a rhubarb patch! Which also came with a house, a barn and some outbuildings.  That first year, I raided the ol’ patch and made a rhubarb pie. Kevin and Brent both agreed that it was really good.  So I decided to try a couple bites.  Yum! It was good.  I’d finally acquired a taste for rhubarb pie after all these years. 

Last year I had rhubarb pie success again.   This year, I decided  I wanted to enjoy the fruits of my labor – time for a gluten free crust.  I only had one, Wholly gluten free, 9” pie shell in the freezer, so it would have to be a crumble top pie.  I also decided to add some raspberries.  This recipe is kind of a melding of several pie/dessert recipes I’ve made over the years.   Here it is:

Gluten Free, Dairy Free Rhubarb Raspberry Crumble Top Pie

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. 

This is the bottom:

• 1 Wholly gluten free 9” Pie Shell https://www.whollywholesome.com/ourproducts-gluten-free.php

Let pie crust thaw to room temperature.

Filling:

• 3 and 3/4 cups rhubarb washed, dried and cut into ½ inch pieces.
• ¼ – ½ cup raspberries (fresh or frozen)
• 1 and 1/3 cups sugar
• 1/3 cup Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour https://www.bobsredmill.com/shop.html
• Little orange zest, if desired

    

Place rhubarb and raspberries in bowl, fold in flour and sugar.  Add orange zest (or if you’re like me, and don’t know where your grater is, cut off the end of an orange and squeeze a little juice in there). Place fruit mixture in pie shell.

The Crumble Top

• 1 – 1 ½ cups brown sugar (remember you already have sugar in the pie filling)
• 1 cup Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour
• 1 and ½ cups oatmeal
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ – ½ teaspoon nutmeg
• ½ cup Earth Balance Buttery Spread (remember, this stuff gets kind of oily, so no more than that)

Combine in bowl and mix with your hands or a fork. Sprinkle it over the fruit in your pie.  Bake pie 40 minutes.  Serve warm with So Delicious Whipped Topping.

This recipe would also work great as a 2 crust pie. Instead of the crumble top, just cover pie with a crust and bake as directed above.

Enjoy!

Thanks for stopping!

Brenda

Disclaimer:                                 

These recipes and tips are not guaranteed to work or be safe for everyone. Allergies are extremely complicated and vary for each individual. It is still your responsibility to read labels to ensure your safety. I cannot be held liable for any ill effects from using my tips to avoid your allergies. (Sorry guys, I don’t foresee any problems, but Momma’s gotta cover her backside, ya know?) Just read your labels! Do your research!

My sister, Bethany, often sends me a text after I’ve posted a new recipe.  She’ll tell me how much she enjoyed trying my latest recipe and also how well the recipe did or didn’t go over with her family of six.  Sometimes she sends me recipes.  Some are her own, others are recipes she finds online, and occasionally she sends one of my recipes – with a change she’s made to it.   

Today’s post is one of the recipes she found online.  She got it from Allrecipes.com.    (www.allrecipes.com)

As soon as I saw it, I knew this recipe was definitely going to work for me, for a number of reasons:  We like chicken. The recipe is simple.  I basically had all of the ingredients on hand. 

The recipe called for marinating the chicken for four hours. I didn’t have that kind of time.  I let it marinate for about 45 minutes and it still had great flavor. I served it with rice and steamed broccoli.  When we sat down and started eating; I knew I’d picked a winner as Kevin said those magical words:  “This is good.  You should blog about it.”  There it is there, the “Kevvy Seal of Approval!” 

So, without further ado, here it is.  (In the recipe, I made notes regarding the lemon juice and the chile paste.)  

Ingredients

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup soy sauce
• 1 cup water
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 tablespoon  lemon juice (optional) —I used the lemon juice.
• 4 teaspoons hot chile paste (optional)  —I didn’t have chile paste, so I used Cayenne pepper and I’m a bit of a wimp when it comes to “heat” in my food so I only used 2 teaspoons.
• Add all ingredients to list

Directions

1. In a medium saucepan over high heat, whisk together the sugar, soy sauce, water, onion powder, and ground ginger. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, and simmer 5 minutes.
2. Remove the mixture from heat, cool, and whisk in lemon juice and hot chile paste. Place chicken in the mixture. Cover, and marinate in the refrigerator at least 4 hours before preparing chicken as desired.
3. Recipe says “prepare chicken as desired”.  I desired to cook it on the stove top in a cast iron pan. 

This is the link for the recipe:  https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/21033/korean-bbq-chicken-marinade/ 

If you go to their site, you will notice, their picture looks awesome; especially compared to mine.  Mine was a hastily taken photo, with good reason.  Right after Kevin had had a couple bites of chicken and made the “…you should blog about this” comment, I flashed a smile and said, “Can we take a quick pic?”  He pushed dishes out of the way as I rearranged the food on his plate.  He held up the background board, biting his tongue, (Actually, I think I heard him growl.) as I said, “Please just one more minute so I can go get my pretty floral napkin to dress up the picture.”  I ran upstairs, came back down and placed the napkin (which is barely visible in the photo after editing) and took 3 pics.  He then set the background board back against the kitchen wall, sat down and said, “Good enough, my food’s getting cold.”  So, there you have it.  That’s as good as it’s gonna get. 😉   

Enjoy!

Thanks for stopping!

Brenda

Disclaimer:                                

These recipes and tips are not guaranteed to work or be safe for everyone. Allergies are extremely complicated and vary for each individual. It is still your responsibility to read labels to ensure your safety. I cannot be held liable for any ill effects from using my tips to avoid your allergies. (Sorry guys, I don’t foresee any problems, but Momma’s gotta cover her backside, ya know?) Just read your labels! Do your research!

Oh. My. Gosh.  How many Fridays can there be in lent?  It seriously feels like a dozen.  I think throwing Ash Wednesday in there makes it seem like more. Also, I’m pretty sure, the fact that I’m not particularly keen on seafood doesn’t help the cause.  My mom, Maybelle, would say, “Offer it up, Brenda.”  So, I keep plodding forward.

One meatless meal we’ve enjoyed, during lent, for years is “breakfast for supper”.  Eggs, toast, fried potatoes, pancakes and fruit.  I’m going to talk vegan, gluten-free pancakes here.  I think you can figure out the rest if you’re going to make this meal. 

You may remember my January 7, 2019 post, entitled “Where Can A Girl Find A Good Pancake?”.  In it, I detailed some of my trials and tribulations regarding gluten-free pancakes. Well, recently, Bradley was home and he mentioned that post. He then said, “I’ve been telling you for; oh, I don’t know – forever, to try making pancakes using pumpkin instead of eggs or egg replacer.  Are you ever going to try it?.”  I had been officially called out – by my kid.  I hadn’t tried it before, because, I get tired of trying something new that may turn out crappy. He had me backed into a corner and I wasn’t going to get out, without conceding. It would actually be nice having someone do a new recipe with me. If it’s a fail, we can crash and burn, as a team.  I told him we’d make them, together, in the morning. 

We used Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Pancake Mix and followed their recipe, kind of – because we made a few adjustments of our own.  (He’s definitely my kid.) They turned out awesome. They had great flavor (chocolate chips always help) and nice texture.

I’ve posted a pic of the Bob’s recipe.  Below that, you will find our recipe. 

Bradley & Brenda’s Gluten Free, Vegan Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Pancakes

• 1 cup almond milk (or your preferred milk)
• 1/2 cup almond milk (or your preferred milk) Set it aside for later.
• 1/2 cup 100% pure pumpkin
• 2 Tbsp. canola oil
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups gluten free pancake mix
• 1/4 – 1/2 cup Enjoy Life Semi-Sweet Mini Chips

Combine pancake mix with 1 cup of milk, the pumpkin, canola oil and vanilla.  Stir it up. The batter will be thick.  This is where the extra ½ cup of milk comes in.  Slowly start adding the ½ cup of milk and stir. Continue adding the milk until the batter is the consistency you like.  I like a thinner pancake, so I definitely use the ½ cup of milk and sometimes end up adding another ¼ cup.  When you’re happy with the consistency, add mini chips and stir.  Spray your skillet with oil.  Be sure your skillet is good and hot before cooking.  (You can splash a couple sprinkles of water on it to see if the droplets dance, telling you it’s hot enough.)  Cook pancakes five minutes on each side.  Eat ‘em up!

Enjoy!

Thanks for stopping.

Brenda

Disclaimer:                                 

These recipes and tips are not guaranteed to work or be safe for everyone. Allergies are extremely complicated and vary for each individual. It is still your responsibility to read labels to ensure your safety. I cannot be held liable for any ill effects from using my tips to avoid your allergies. (Sorry guys, I don’t foresee any problems, but Momma’s gotta cover her backside, ya know?) Just read your labels! Do your research!

Another Lenten Friday, no meat and I don’t eat fish.  The smell of fish and the thought of eating it, kind of gags me. I blame my mom, dad, and the Bengel boys, for my fish phobia.  I never really called it that before, a phobia.  I’ve just always told people I don’t like fish.  Because I was writing this post, I decided to google “fear of eating fish”.  It really is a “thing”.  It’s a phobia and it has a name – ichthyophobia.

“Fear of fish or ichthyophobia ranges from cultural phenomena such as fear of eating fish, fear of touching raw fish, or fear of dead fish, up to irrational fear (specific phobia)”

I got this info from Wikipedia, so, take it for what it’s worth. Me? I’m gonna run with it. I also found a short paragraph, at allaboutcounseling.com, which states, in part: “…may stem from a childhood incident involving fish…”.  That was me.  I was that child.  There was an incident – more than one.

My parents loved smelt.  The Bengel boys, who worked at our family hardware store, loved to dip for smelt.  Once a year they’d drop off one to two – 30 gallon garbage barrels full of freshly caught smelt.  Mom would set up an assembly line in the kitchen for rinsing, cutting & slicing with a scissors, gutting, rinsing for a second time and putting the fish in one quart freezer containers. 

Being the 5^th in a family of 7 kids, I couldn’t run as fast as my 4 older sisters to get one of the “good” stations and I wasn’t allowed to use a scissors. What about the two that were younger than me?  Apparently they had limited fish gutting skills.  Enter:  Brenda.  I won’t give you the gory details; if you’ve ever cleaned fish, you know what I’m talking about.  Now, visualize two garbage barrels full of fish, typically 7” long and every fish needed to be gutted. By the time we were done, you can imagine what our kitchen smelled like & don’t get me started on my hands!  Then to add insult to injury; after cleaning all those fish, Mom would fry up a big ol’ bunch of them.

I think I was scarred for life.  The smell of cooked fish and the thought of eating it, gagged me.  On “Fish Fridays” during lent, I ate a lot of potatoes at supper time.  While supper could be tough, lunch wasn’t as bad with its’ many options of grilled cheese, fried egg sandwiches, mac and cheese, egg salad and tuna fish sandwiches.  Tuna fish; not thrilling, but, some days were better than others when it came to choking down a tuna sandwich.  I ate a lot of potato chips to cover the taste. 

I’ve told you about my fish eating challenges to get it across to you how much I really didn’t like tuna.  After being diagnosed with dairy, egg and wheat allergies, I was pretty much left with the tuna fish.  I had to come up with a way to make a tuna fish sandwich I could and would, actually eat. 

My plan? To make it just like my chicken salad.  It’s loaded with celery, onions, nuts and grapes and has great flavor.  I still can’t eat it every week, but I can every couple of weeks.   

Brenda’s Vegan Gluten Free Tuna Salad

2 – 4 oz. cans tuna (drained and rinsed)

2/3 cup Just Mayo

Couple sprinkles of granulated sugar (I was raised on Miracle Whip, so I like a little “sweet” in my mayo.)

Couple shots of mustard

Celery and sweet onion – Diced (or really thinly sliced, if you need to disguise them from your kids)

Sliced red grapes (You can use Craisins, if grapes are really expensive or you can’t find good looking grapes.)

Walnuts or Almonds – Sliced (or crushed if you need to disguise them from your kids)

Combine all ingredients. (Regarding the veggies, fruit and nuts – put in as much or as little as you like.) Stir until mixed well.  Refrigerate. 

I eat this tuna salad on Wasa Light Rye Crispbread (www.wasa-usa.com),  wrapped in lettuce or on toasted Schar brand gluten free bread (www.schaer.com).  Following with a few potato chips and a dill pickle is still a good idea. 😉

Thanks for stopping!

Brenda

Disclaimer:                                 

These recipes and tips are not guaranteed to work or be safe for everyone. Allergies are extremely complicated and vary for each individual. It is still your responsibility to read labels to ensure your safety. I cannot be held liable for any ill effects from using my tips to avoid your allergies. (Sorry guys, I don’t foresee any problems, but Momma’s gotta cover her backside, ya know?) Just read your labels! Do your research!

This is a cold weather favorite.  Tastes & smells great and using the oven warms the kitchen nicely. It makes plenty for dinner and usually enough (for me) for lunch another day. I love leftovers!

Buttercup Squash Stuffed with Ground Beef for Two

Ingredients

1 buttercup squash (or your favorite squash) – washed & dried

1 – 1 ½ lbs. ground beef

Diced onion, sweet pepper & mushrooms (1/4 – ½ cup total)

Salt, pepper & garlic powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Line a cookie sheet with foil.  Spray the foil with nonstick olive oil.

Cut squash in half – right in the middle – cutting the top from the bottom. Scoop out seeds.

Place 2 squash halves on lined cookie sheet, cut side up.  Drizzle each squash half with olive oil.

Bake squash 20 minutes.

While squash is baking, mix ground beef with diced veggies and mushrooms. 

Divide ground beef mixture into 2 parts. (You probably noticed one squash half is deeper than the other.  So you will divide the ground beef accordingly – not exactly half and half.)  Form each part into a ball with a flat bottom.

Remove squash from oven.  Place the ground beef in each of the squash halves, flattening it a bit on the top.  Season to taste with salt, pepper and garlic powder.

From here I can only give you an approximate baking time – about 30-45 minutes. You’ll know the squash is done when you can easily poke it with a fork.  Use your fork also to check to see if the ground beef is done.

I’ve also done this same recipe in my crockpot. 

When cooking it in the crockpot, don’t bake the squash ahead of time.  Place raw ground beef in raw squash halves.  Place stuffed squash halves in crockpot, which has been sprayed with olive oil. Cook on low 6-7 hours.

When it comes to serving?  You can serve the stuffed squash as is (pictured up above) or plate the ground beef and squash separately (pictured below).

Enjoy!

Thanks for stopping!

Brenda

Disclaimer:                                 

These recipes and tips are not guaranteed to work or be safe for everyone. Allergies are extremely complicated and vary for each individual. It is still your responsibility to read labels to ensure your safety. I cannot be held liable for any ill effects from using my tips to avoid your allergies. (Sorry guys, I don’t foresee any problems, but Momma’s gotta cover her backside, ya know?) Just read your labels! Do your research!

When I started this blog, I said I would tell you about my successes and my failures. Today’s post is definitely a fail… x 2. I’ll try and make this as short and painless as possible.  Please don’t let my fiasco scare you away from trying the recipes I have below. I’m posting these two recipes, which I first featured last year, because  I thought some of you may not know where to find them in my past posts. 

So….. It’s the Christmas season and I have had the urge to bake; cookies for us at home and some to give away.  This is how it went:

Round 1:  Last week I mixed up a batch of my gluten free, dairy free, egg free buttermilk cookies.  (I initially posted this recipe in my post titled “Better Late Than Never?” I’ve also posted it below). I took out the first scoop of dough to roll out: While rolling the dough, I used too much flour; they turned out dry.  Next, I rolled the a dough a little too thin, they came out somewhat crunchy.  Finally, I got my mojo back and the cookies turned out just right.  Ultimately, the cookies got mixed in with each other. I won’t be giving any of these cookies away, I can’t be sure which are good enough to give to others.  Ugh, so frustrating.

Round 2:  Not to be daunted, Sunday, I decided to bake my Thumbprint cookies.  (I initially posted this recipe in my post titled: “Xathan Gum – My Excaliber”.  I’ve posted this recipe below also.)  I wanted to triple my recipe.  Right from the start, I didn’t have enough shortening, so I ran to town to pick more up.  I got back home and picked up where I left off with my recipe.  (I was using the recipe in my Betty Crocker cookbook, not from my blog. Big mistake.  The book’s page kept closing and I kept flipping it open.  Well…… at some point,instead of looking at the Thumbprint cookie recipe at the top of the page, I started reading the recipe on the bottom of the page; which was for Chocolate Nut Slices.  I don’t even know what a Chocolate Nut Slice is.  So what am I telling you?  Instead of putting ¾ cup of brown sugar in my butter, shortening, egg replacer mixture (Remember, I was tripling the recipe.) – I put 3 cups of brown sugar AND 3 cups of granulated sugar.  Whatever they are, those Chocolate Nut Slices are loaded with sugar! Now I had a mess.  I wanted to attempt to salvage the cookie dough. I did some quick math and decided if I divided the dough into three separate, two cup batches I’d be okay.  I mean, theoretically, each of the two cup batches would have one cup of brown sugar and one cup of granulated sugar – which isn’t supposed to be in there.  Maybe that pesky extra one cup of granulated sugar would be non-issue.  Nothing a little extra flour couldn’t take care of, right?    

I put two of the batches in separate freezer containers and into the freezer.  I used the last two cup batch to finish the recipe – the correct recipe.  I rolled the dough into balls, pressed my thumb into a dozen of them  and baked them.  They needed more flour.(See picture below.)  I added more flour and baked another dozen. (See picture below.) They looked good, but, holy cow! They were SWEET, too sweet!  Kevin suggested I add the jam.  I did. I ate half of a cookie, it was miserable and gritty.  Another cookie fail.  Feeling a bit defeated, I threw out the remaining dough.  I gotta stop improvising when I bake.  Maybe I should try making those Chocolate Nut Slices?  I’m half way there already.

So, I don’t have anything new to post, just giving you my two favorite Christmas cookie recipes.   Feel free to try your hand at the recipes I’ve posted below.       

Brenda’s Non-Dairy, Non-Egg,Non-Wheat Buttermilk  Sugar Cookies  Because I was doing this recipe so late before Christmas I only made a ½ batch and still got about 3 ½ dozen cookies.

Ingredients:

Since this is a buttermilk cookie, first thing you have to do is make your buttermilk so it can set for a bit to “turn the milk”. (see below)

You need one Tablespoon apple cider vinegar.  Pour ½ of the vinegar into bottom of a 1 cup measuring cup.  Add milk of your choice (I use cashew milk because I like it’s creamy consistency) just about to the top of the measuring cup and then add remaining vinegar.  Let it set as you gather and mix other ingredients.

• 2 Cups white sugar
• 1 Cup shortening
• 4 ½ teaspoons EnerG Egg Replacer plus 6 Tablespoons warm water

Mix these first 3 ingredients until smooth.

Then stir in:

• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon xanthan gum
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 5 cups of Carol’s Gluten-Free Sorghum Flour Blend (recipe in my 2^nd post)
• 1 cup buttermilk (which you prepared at the start of this recipe)

Cover dough and let it cool in refrigerator for at least an hour, but it can set for several days.  When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Lay out parchment paper on your work surface (I know I’ve said it before, but I love that stuff!). Lightly dust paper with either the flour mixture (or it looks like in my picture, this last time I dusted with brown rice flour & tapioca flour) –it doesn’t matter which, your just doing it so the dough won’t be sticky. Roll out dough on floured surface to ¼” or ½”thick, cut out cookies. Place cookies on baking sheet lined with parchment paper.  Don’t have cookies touching each other on pan.  Bake 12 minutes.  Let them cool a few minutes before moving to a cutting board or rack.  Once completely cooled you can frost them.

Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, Egg-Free Thumbprint Cookies

– ¼ cup packed brown sugar                   – ¼ cup shortening

– ¼ cup Earth Balance Buttery Spread    – ½ teaspoon vanilla

– Ener-G Egg Replacer equivalent to one egg (instructions for use on back of box)

– 1 cup Carol’s Gluten-Free Sorghum Flour Blend (recipe in 2^nd post)

– ¾ cup crushed walnuts

– Jelly

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix brown sugar, shortening, buttery spread,vanilla and egg replacer.  Stir in flour until dough holds together, shape into 1” balls.  Roll each ball in walnuts.  Place about 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheet (I use parchment paper on cookie sheets.). Press thumb deeply in center of each.  Bake until light brown, about 10 minutes.  Immediately remove from cookie sheet, cool.  Fill thumbprints with jelly.  About 2 dozen (I make my cookies bigger than Betty does.)

Thanks for stopping.

Brenda

Disclaimer:                                 

These recipes and tips are not guaranteed to work or be safe for everyone. Allergies are extremely complicated and vary for each individual. It is still your responsibility to read labels to ensure your safety. I cannot be held liable for any ill effects from using my tips to avoid your allergies. (Sorry guys, I don’t foresee any problems, but Momma’s gotta cover her backside, ya know?) Just read your labels! Do your research!