Gluten-Free Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. For your gluten-free munching pleasure.

I suppose you could argue that one oatmeal cookie recipe is enough. I mean, how many oatmeal cookie recipes does a person need? To this I answer, at least two. Why? Well, first you have one with raisins. Raisins give oatmeal cookies that old school chewy sneaky nutrition boost. They're old fashioned and comfy cozy.

Kinda like spending one of those Saturday afternoons at your Aunt Martha's house, chillin'. Watching Mr. Rogers and laying on the floor with a pile of coloring books. Coloring outside the lines with a beat up box of Crayolas.

Wishing the silver crayon was more than a lonely nub.

And right at that nub lamenting moment she'd bring you a plate of cookies.

I never had an Aunt Martha.

But I did have a chain smoking platinum blond Aunt Patty who liked martinis a little too much. Or maybe it was gin and tonics. There was ice in the glass.

If I was lucky enough to scrounge up a coloring book and some crayons, I would hide behind the sofa. I didn't want to hear her opinion on pantyhose or how you could tell a woman's age by looking at her knees.

I'd wait out the tedious afternoon without cookies. If I was lucky, I might get some tap water Kool-Aid. Or a plastic bowl of Cheetos.

Perhaps that's why I'm not a fan of raisins in oatmeal cookies.

I don't have comforting memories of their dried grape taste, though I appreciate their fine qualities- in an abstract, theoretical sense.

No, I'm more of a chocolate chip oatmeal cookie kind of girl. Especially when the cookies are warm and the chips are melty. Chocolate makes everything right with the world.

So here's oatmeal cookie recipe number two. Bake some up this week.

I say, be your own Aunt Martha.

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Karina's Nirvana Layer Bars: Chocolate Coconut Bliss

Divine Gluten-Free Layer Bars

This dessert is a family favorite- my chocolate-coconut layer bar recipe. Simple to make. Sweet and gooey and bliss inducing. And most important? You can offer them at any gathering without a gluten-free apology. (Would that be, Don't ask, don't tell?)

Bummed about the dairy in it? My son Alex has created his own casein-free version using condensed coconut milk. See our Dairy-Free Nirvana Bars recipe here.


Chill before serving, if you like, for a snappy, cold burst of sweetness.

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Crunchy Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Crunchy almond butter cookies.

A Good Cookie Is No Small Thing...

Our latest variation on a theme- crunchy almond butter chocolate chip cookies. Why another gluten-free chocolate chip cookie recipe, you ask? There are so many reasons, Darling. In fact, where do I begin? 

First. The obvious. The duh. 

One can, in fact, never have too many gluten-free cookie recipes. Especially in our polite don't want to make a fuss look-but-don't-taste universe, when one has to live gluten and dairy free, shunning wheat flour, cream and butter, declining pink birthday party cupcakes and adorable custard tarts and snowy cream cheese on toasted Everything Bagels and examining every ingredient label ad infinitum. 

How do we survive in a culture that promotes our poison everywhere we turn? We keep a stiff upper lip. We cultivate a cool and breezy neo-zen detachment. We learn to ignore hunger pangs and cravings. We learn (sometimes the hard way) that taking a risk (eating out in any kitchen that is not our own) is not worth the price our body will (all too often) pay. We tie on a perky pink chocolate apron and flirt with our inner domestic goddess. We bake our own cupcakes and cookies. We tweak our tried and true recipes and play with variations on a theme, nudging an ingredient or new flavor combo into the spotlight. Just because it's fun. 

And in our special, special gluten-free universe? 

Every tasty cookie that is safe to eat is a treasure. A gift. A little morsel from heaven. 

So when we have a new favorite nut butter- crunchy almond butter- we start to wonder...

Would it would make a good cookie? 

We just knew it would.

A nutty non-peanut non-legume treat. And we knew we had to add dark chocolate. 

Duh part deux. 

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Gluten-Free Gingersnaps Recipe

Gluten-free gingersnaps- a classic holiday cookie.

This time of year simply begs for gingersnaps- the classic and humble cookie that tastes old fashioned and elegant and post new wave all at once. A subtle, spicy, gingery bite that snaps with a crunch to awaken satiated taste buds soaked in a holiday sea of egg nog, cheese logs and peanut butter balls. Fancy cookies, these are not.

Slathered with green icing and star sprinkles?

Not exactly.

Though, you could, I suppose. Slather these. And sprinkle with abandon.

If you're of a mindset that more is more, and nurture not the minimalist mantra of Less.

The choice is yours.

Go old fashioned and let the gingersnap goodness tingle on its own.

Or go wild.

And get your frosting on.

It's your party.


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Snowy Lemon Cookies

Light and lemony gluten-free wheat-free cookies.

My Luscious Lemon Cookies Recipe...

It is a vaguely unnerving thing to look back and see the past curving away behind you, blurring into a soft and distant memory. So often we food bloggers write about the future, imagining holidays- like Christmas (and lemon cookies)- perched in a hot, noisy apartment on a bright September afternoon, conjuring the stillness of snow and December candlelight.

Such is the blogging life- often a life lived forward, imagining the new.

I am in a Terence Malick sort of mood. Wanting to escape with my iPad and watch To the Wonder- for the third time this week.

And wishing I had some of these Snowy Lemon Cookies.


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Buckwheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

  

Warm from the oven buckwheat chocolate chip cookies.

I know what you're thinking. Not another cookie recipe. Please. I've had it with melty chocolate chips and crunchy, chewy sweetness. Where are the rutabaga recipes, dagnabbit? And what about beets? Or parsnips? I've got a hankering for kale the size of Wyoming. I yearn for jicama. Cook me up some kohlrabi, already. Sorry, Darling. Not today. You'll have to be patient.

There are cookies to bake.

And these are gluten-free.

And wheat-free.

And dairy-free.

And vegan.

But I'll be honest.

Baking egg-free, butter-free, gluten-free cookies (that actually taste tempting) can be tough. So if you- or an angel you love- are allergic to one- or several- of the top food allergens, or consciously living GF/CF for ASD reasons, just know I'm in the weird and rocky boat with you.

Which is why I keep experimenting and tweaking recipes.

And if the butter-eating glutenous In Crowd doesn't get it, I say, You know what, Cheese Breath? Just go eat your Twinkies, will ya?

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New Quinoa Bars Recipe - Blondie Style

Our new favorite quinoa bar with almond meal, lots of good vanilla and dark chocolate chips.

A New Quinoa Bar - Blondie Style

A short and sweet post to share a new gluten-free quinoa bar recipe with chocolate chips. It's a Blondie style chocolate chip cookie bar. The quinoa flakes and almond meal add texture, flavor, and protein. Not that I'd go so far as to call it health food. But. As sweet treats go?

This one's mighty tasty.


READ MORE and get the recipe ...

Gluten-Free Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Crunchy outside, chewy inside, 
gluten-free vegan chocolate cookies.

Double Chocolate Yum

(and some gluten-free baking advice) 

I have a new cookie recipe to share today. A cocoa infused cookie studded with semi-sweet chocolate chips. A cookie that tastes like a brownie- if a brownie was slightly crispy and crunchy on the outside, and chewy soft on the inside. You could say, it's a brownie with a cookie texture.

Chocolate cookies that remind me of brownies. Vegan and egg-free.

Karina's Gluten-Free Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies - A Vegan and Dairy-Free Recipe

Recipe originally published April 2011 by Karina Allrich.

I used a mild organic cocoa in these chocolate chocolate chip cookies. The cookie's flavor is subtle, like cocoa, with lovely bittersweet bites of dark chocolate chips. The men in the house like these babies straight from the freezer, ice cold.

Ingredients:

Whisk together:

1/2 cup GF buckwheat flour or certified gluten-free oat flour

1/2 cup sorghum (jowar) flour

1/2 cup brown rice flour

1/2 cup tapioca starch or potato starch (not potato flour!)

1/3 cup organic cocoa

2 teaspoons xanthan gum

1 teaspoon sea salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 cup organic cane sugar

1/3 cup light brown sugar

Add in:

1/2 cup organic coconut oil or Spectrum Organic Shortening

1 tablespoon bourbon vanilla extract

1/2 cup vanilla rice milk, coconut milk, or almond milk- more as needed

As you beat the dough pay close attention to the consistency. Add more rice milk a tablespoon at a time, and beat to combine, until you achieve a smooth but sturdy cookie dough. I added two more tablespoons of rice milk to my dough.

Add in:

1/2 cup vegan chocolate chips

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Line one or two baking sheets with parchment paper or an Exopat liner.

Stir in the chocolate chips as best you can (the dough is stiff).

Roll a golf ball sized wad of dough between your palms, and place the ball on the lined baking sheet about two inches apart. Repeat this process to make 18-24 balls. Use your palm to press down on the dough and flatten slightly- not too much- unless you like your cookies thin. Press a few extra chocolate chips into the tops of the cookies, if you like.

Bake in the center of a preheated oven for about 15 minutes until the cookies are set. They will still be slightly soft in the center. If you bake two pans at once, rotate the pans half way through baking.

Remove the pans from the oven, and allow the cookies to cool and "set" for a few minutes; then use a thin spatula to move the cookies to a wire rack. The cookies will get crisper as they cool.

Cook time: 15 min

Yield: 18-24 cookies

Recipe Source: glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com

All images & content are copyright protected, all rights reserved. Please do not use our images or content without prior permission. Thank you. 

Karina's Notes on Baking:

In this recipe- use eggs, if you prefer.

Texture is a big deal in gluten-free baking. It's no secret that giving gluten the boot also means giving texture, stretch, and structure the old heave-ho, right along with it. First timers bite into gluten-free goodies and pause. They chew. Their eyes widen and dart to the side as they search for a word to describe exactly what it is they are chewing. The word most often used to describe something gluten-free? Gummy. Or worse. Hockey pucks. Cardboard. Dirt. Attributes one does not necessarily associate with um, pleasure. With nourishment. With flavor.

Which is why I am here.

It was nearly ten eleven twelve thirteen years ago (December 2001) when I broke up with the abusive protein known as gluten.

Our love affair had been a passionate, tumultuous ride. Thrilling and deliciously seductive. From twirling garlic laden Italian pasta to rustic bread baking, we had nurtured a decades long love affair. Four and a half decades, in fact. And I'm not embarrassed to admit, I was deep into it. Head over heels. And dizzy in denial. Until symptoms could no longer be ignored.

And it turned out I felt better without gluten. Not just better. Transformed. 

So I bought a gluten-free cookbook and started baking (and no offense to the wonderful woman who was- literally- a gluten-free pioneer and wrote several best selling gluten-free cookbooks, but). I determined- quite quickly- that white rice flour and starches do not a gourmet treat make.

Truth is, ten years ago, baking gluten-free meant using rice flour and starches, or just plain cornstarch (this was Julia Child's advice). We didn't have the higher protein, whole grain gluten-free choices we have today. Oh, they were there, lurking. Buckwheat flour and almond meal have long, delicious traditions in the old country (I loved the cookbook Fabulous and Flourless). But packaged blends and gluten-free mixes favored cheaper rice flour and starches (and even today, most g-free mixes rely on this old school stand-by, with predictably gummy results). So the cardboard moniker stuck.

And me?

My hopes for baking without gluten deflated like a sad little souffle.

Until Bob's Red Mill brought us whole grain gluten-free grains. Grains with protein and fiber. Grains with nutrition. Grains with flavor. And yes- texture! Milled with artisan care in a gluten-free facility. And no, this is not a sponsored endorsement. This is personal.

By now you should know I'm not the kind of blogger who can be seduced by a coupon offer. Or a free t-shirt. I've been doing this awhile, Darling.

I have an opinion. An informed opinion. Based on thirteen-plus years of gluten-free baking (which ought to be worth more than a coupon or a  five dollar sample).

So I tell it like it is.

Readers sometimes ask me for recipe substitutions. These can be grouped into a handful of popular themes: 

1. I use too many different flours- they want to use one (or a baking mix).
2. I use buckwheat flour- they wouldn't touch buckwheat flour like they wouldn't wear Crocs.
3. I use sorghum flour- they can't find sorghum flour (for that, I am truly, sympathetically sorry!).
4. I use almond meal or coconut flour (fabulous protein and fiber)- and they are allergic (once again, profoundly sorry!).

So they sub. They use rice flour and starches in my recipes. And return to tell me the texture is gummy. Or as dense as cardboard.

Exactly.

Flour choices matter.

And so does execution.

So I thought I'd address this today, and offer some quick, short advice on gluten-free baking- and substitutions.

Truth? Gluten-free baking is more of an art than a science.

What this means- there is no one perfect, exact, preset formula for a gluten-free recipe. And you don't need a scale to measure things in grams.

Why?

Without stretchy gluten, flours can be finicky, and far less forgiving.

There is weather, Bubela. You know, humidity. And winter heat dryness. And there is how you store your flours (in the cold fridge- or in the cupboard next to the stove?). Dampish flours need less liquid added. And some g-free flours are super thirsty (coconut flour grabs on to fat and liquid like a parched and greedy camel).

With gluten-free baking, the relationship of dry ingredients to wet is crucial. Even two tablespoons more/or less liquid can make the difference between a gummy center, and a fluffy crumb.  

Here's what I do- I add my liquid to the whisked dry ingredients slowly, a little at a time, and beat until it comes to the right consistency. Don't dump all the liquid in at once. Sometimes you need a tablespoon less liquid. Sometimes, a few tablespoons more.

Then there is temperature. The temperature of the ingredients themselves (ice cold eggs?). The ambient temperature of your kitchen (is it drafty and damp, or hot and humid, or do you use air conditioning?). And then, perhaps the most influential of all, there is the temperature of your oven-- which, surprisingly, can actually vary. Not only for those of us using cheap stoves in rental apartments, but also in your shiny newly installed appliance-- it may not be calibrated correctly. This is a big issue for many a reader, by the way). Which is why I recommend using an oven thermometer, and checking your 'preheat' temperature. Temperature influences baking time, big time. 

How to judge the right consistency?

Intuition and experience helps. But in general, cake and cupcake batters are slightly thicker than wheat based cake batters. You're not looking for velvety thin ribbons of batter like the old days. I find the best gluten-free cake batters tip toward a muffin batter consistency.

Bread dough and pizza dough is more like muffin batter. 

G-free cookie dough is stiff and sturdy and a bit sticky. Roll it into balls with wet or oiled hands.

For baking substitution help (because of course, I know how hard it is to bake gluten-free with allergies- you know I love you, my multi-allergic sisters and brothers, I'm one of you!) please use my post on Baking Substitutions and Help as a guide to subbing problematic ingredients in my recipes.

And for vegans, and non-vegans, I have found my recipes perform well with eggs and without, using an egg substitute. For a powdered egg sub I use Ener-G Egg Replacer- if you use a different one, you may need to adjust starches/liquids. Many readers report good luck using flax seed gel; I have limited expertise with flax, but I do think it adds a nice touch to gluten-free baking. And yes, for dairy and non-dairy, I find it's an easy one-to-one sub. (I must be dairy-free, so I write up recipes that way, but if you prefer using butter and milk in my vegan recipes- that will work just fine; my husband and sons have tried them both ways, with success). 

For detailed info on gluten-free flour choices and how to make your own g-free flour blends that don't suck, see my Gluten-Free Baking Tips post.

Finally- to repeat it--- experience counts.

Even our failures bring us one step closer to better results. They teach us. Baking gluten-free is a process. It is not a finite, closed experiment. It is more like jazz than strophic form. Learning an intuitive sense of improvisation is worth the effort.

So, go bake some cookies with whole grain flours and share them with someone you love, okay?

Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Quinoa Cookies

Quinoa chocolate chip cookies. A gluten-free favorite.

Have I Got a Faux for You

My last cookie post stirred up a veritable stew of feelings. From oat-loving high fives and boogie till the cows come home oatmeal cookie bliss, to very sad, That's okay, I'll sit this one out in the corner moping. Because oatmeal? It's not for everyone. Apparently, oats can be unkind to sensitive celiac tummies. So while many celiacs celebrate the availability of certified gluten-free oats (thank you, Bob's Red Mill!), just as many shun this humble cereal grain for the sake of symptoms or safety.

Avena sativa? Not welcome in many a gluten-free kitchen.

Some believe the trouble starts with its globulin or legume-like protein called avenalin. Some think it's the soluble fiber factor. Others believe that the prolemine in oats called avenin triggers a celiac-like response. The debate rages on. And I'm no scientist, I'm sorry to tell you, so I'll sit this one out. But.

The truth is, Babycakes, you don't want to be around moi after I've eaten too many oats- gluten-free certified or not. Although I tested negative for oat allergy, if I over indulge with my Homemade Gluten-Free Granola or those aforementioned oatmeal cookies, yours truly produces enough, um, wind in my nether regions to keep Wyoming powered for a week.

It ain't pretty, is all I'm saying.

So of course I had to play around with the oatmeal cookie recipe. I couldn't leave my oat-shunning peeps out in the cold without a chewy golden cookie of their own. I rolled up my sleeves and got to work. I stirred up some quinoa flakes, quinoa flour, sorghum flour, organic brown sugar, and olive oil and vegan chocolate chips and guess what?

I think you know what.

In fact (shhh- don't tell those lucky oatmeal cookie folks), this cookie is even better than its oatmeal cousin. It is, I swear, my new favorite cookie. I am Patsy Cline Crazy about it.

Quinoa flakes rock.


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Gluten-Free Raspberry Coconut-Almond Bars

Gluten-free almond raspberry bars with coconut are sweet temptation.

Let's Party

Let's be honest. I am here today to tempt you. To coax you. To seduce you with a (gluten-free vegan!) dessert worthy of every single luscious calorie. In full transparency, I am admitting up front these are not fat-free. Or sugar-free. These aren't diet food. They're not proper for breakfast (unless you serve them with Champagne).

And you won't be able to sigh ever-so-wistfully at parties and mention, off hand, how hard it is to eat gluten-free at family gatherings and parties. Because, Darling Reader, you'll score zero sympathy points once people sink their teeth into the luscious raspberry jam filling nestled between buttery toasted coconut-almond crunch topping and tender hazelnut cookie crust. Nope.

In fact, these decadent raspberry coconut-almond bars should come with a warning:  

{Be careful who you share these with.

Because they are sure to fall madly in love with you.}

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Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Cookies

Dunk worthy gluten-free peanut butter cookies with quinoa flakes.

Quinoa Flakes + Cookies = Perfect Match

You know how I feel about cookies (I've confessed my love before in my Ode to Cookies love fest, Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies).

Because a good cookie is no small thing.

Especially if you must live gluten-free. Double that if you must live dairy-free. And triple that if you live egg-free.

Holy Mother of Muffins, it ain't easy. 

The gluten-free wheat-free vegan lifestyle is a hefty, sometimes tortuous challenge. But the ugly truth is more and more of us are discovering we are not only blessed with celiac disease (yes, I use the word blessed ironically; you do remember irony, don't you, it got you through grade school) but we have the incredible fortune (more irony) to develop additional food sensitivities due to the insidious damage celiac disease wreaks on our innocent little villi, those dutiful nutrient grabbers who not only keep us well fed through proper absorption, they appear to be the first line of defense against the dreaded leaky gut syndrome that allows food proteins to invade intimate territory and cause serious mayhem with our immune system.

To read more about celiac disease and its new found dangers, I urge you to read this article by Dr. Mark Hyman on Huffington Post: Gluten: What You Don't Know Might Kill You. Yes, I know, serious bummer of a title, but Babycakes, do read it, because celiac disease is dead serious stuff. And it is vastly under diagnosed.

Millions are suffering various nagging (and often awkward) symptoms. Needlessly.

That, Dearheart, is scary.

Good thing we have cookies.

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Lemon-Iced Ginger Thins

A holiday cookie for grown-ups. Ginger thins with lemon icing.

Thin and Sweet Winter Treat

Indulge me a little, won't you? I promise it won't hurt a bit. This week I'm sharing a wonderful gluten-free wheat-free Christmas cookie recipe I created for Allergic Living magazine last year. A recipe too good not to post here on the blog and share online. Some of you Allergic Living readers may remember it. It is a lovely, crispy-chewy ginger cookie with lemon icing. There is a slight change in the recipe. I've switched out the brown rice flour for sorghum flour- a gluten-free wheat-free flour I much prefer.

We are still settling in to our Connecticut abode. Gearing up for our first winter in three years- since Northern New Mexico. Unpacking books. And art supplies. Installing a wall easel in the studio. Hanging a pine wreath. Watching for chickadees. Anticipating the coming Winter Solstice.

Moving into Winter- and the darkest weeks of the year- from sun abundant Los Angeles is both surreal and invigorating. Embracing change. Welcoming the new. Dreaming of what the New Year will bring us.

It's all good.


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Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

Fabulous pumpkin cookies, gluten-free + delicious.

My restless spirit has been wandering far and wide and away from dreams of butternut chili and baked rice casseroles toward the tempting, sweeter things in life. As in cookies. Like the character Ana Pascal confesses in one of my favorite movies, Stranger Than Fiction, I decided that if I was going to help make the world a better place this week, I'd do it with cookies.

So today's post, Dear Reader, is brief and sweet. Just like the treat I baked this weekend when I began with the idea of a pumpkin cookie. I craved something different than my Pumpkin Pecan Cookies and my nutmeg icing drizzled Pumpkin Quinoa Cookies. I craved dark chocolate. And peanut butter. So I threw them in the bowl with pumpkin and coconut flour and, well.

There was a happy ending to the story.


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Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

How do I say this? These new chocolate chip cookies are the best.

The subject of cookies is a favorite topic on Gluten-Free Goddess, and for good reason. I've written about cookies before- in posts too numerous to count.

So why are these different?

Why are these chocolate chip cookies blog worthy?

Because they are golden and gently crisp on the outside, and soft and chewy within. Like the cookie you remember- that gorgeous, sweet caramel bite of homemade love. Warm from the oven these taste remarkable like the classic Toll House cookie recipe I baked a thousand times.

I credit the new flours and fat I used.

Gone is the brown rice flour. Gone is shortening. I've nixed the tapioca starch. And the result is a truly wonderful, soft dough that tastes closer to a real Toll House cookie than any other gluten-free chocolate chip cookies (though delicious!) I've baked.


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Pumpkin Quinoa Cookies - For Breakfast?

Pumpkin cookies with quinoa flakes. Like oatmeal- but better.

Karina's Pumpkin Quinoa Cookies - For breakfast?

Dear Reader (yes, Babycakes, I'm talking to you)- you know how I feel about you, right? I'm crazy about you. I read your kind and thoughtful comments on Facebook. I am humbled by your generous,  warm and giving e-mails (I save them). 

Your feedback and support keeps me going and inspires me.

I started this whole crazy blogging adventure back in a village on Cape Cod famous for quaint. One of those slow paced leafy communities with whitewashed churches and a town grist mill. Salt weathered shingles and white picket fences and roses in June. You know, historic. Beachy. The magical stuff of regional painters and windswept poets prone to melancholy.

Then an empty nest ignited the urge for going and my husband and I moved west to the rural high desert of New Mexico where the cobalt beauty of an oceanic sky met the hot iron of isolation and a certain individual's proclivity toward brittle bones. My broken hip changed my body forever.

Four years later (relocated to Los Angeles) I am profoundly grateful to live by the ocean again. I am wrestling with new ideas and facing certain limitations (still waiting for Margaret Mead's promise of zest). Days are often a stew of conflicting realities, losses and gains stirred so close together they emulsify.

There are days I feel thirty and days I feel eighty. Sometimes in the same single moment. 

Forgive my habitual drift into philosophical territory here, but here's the thing. A growing, deepening awareness of how little we actually control has sparked my need to surrender. And shake loose some assumptions. Including the perception of Other (risking a messy and complicated expansion of the heart, the awareness of Yeah, I am that too). Which startles you with a sharp clean view of what is valuable and true. 

What is bare bones rock bottom important.

Important not in some airy-fairy New Agey or even dyed-in-the-wool religious way. I chafe inside any system and its man-made rules (key word: man-made). I'm old enough now to look back upon decades with an estrogen-free seasoned eye. I see the need behind belief. I see the old paradigm. I see why people judge and separate, critique and belittle. I see the reason why unruly concepts are snipped down to size and labeled and tucked safely into rehearsed little packages of fear whisked with a pinch of faith. The Ego rules. And the Ego loves conflict.

I also see the powerful few doling out platitudes to the millions who struggle with so much less. And we are not blameless, either, we who are so willing to consume what masquerades as inclusion when it is anything but.

So here's the thing.

Before I share my recipe today, before I conjure words about cookies and yummy flavors and how much vanilla to beat into the dough, allow me some food for thought, if you will.

We are all given moments of grace.

Far too many of these moments are missed, floating by the fuzzy edges of momentum, a stream of invisible assumptions. And needs. Life guarantees change, but really, what else? Opportunity (what are you going to do with what you've got?). Choice. Self explanatory, right? We cut a swath of choices every single day. Trivial choices (would you like whipped cream on that?). And loaded choices (some requiring nothing less than moral courage to execute). Each and every choice spins us off in a direction, a trajectory with consequences.

And what I am coming to realize, even cherish, now more than ever, is this. The choices boil down to a choice between love (connection) or fear (separation). So what will you choose today?

Think about it.

As for me?

I vote for love.

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Gluten-Free Rice Crispy Treats

Gluten-free brown rice crispy treats, GFG style.

Crispy Rice Goodness

Sunday seems to stir up all kinds of sneaky devils and hungry ghosts in the guise of food nostalgia. I dreamed up my last post about Zucchini Gratin on a Sunday, stirring up a bread crumbed casserole of desire fraught with secret emotions and sticky attachments. Food as familial. Food evoking a warm embrace. Food as a way to connect our twenty-one grams of soul to this earth. The ground of being.

I think I know why I'm tip toeing in the garden of nostalgia lately.

My tribe is expanding.

The family my husband and I created when we held hands and promised I do through a veil of mutual tears is now plus one. I have a new daughter-in-law I regard with deep affection. She brings a fresh focus to our four-squared history. And I see us in a slightly altered light, looking at our shared quirks and wrinkles and dreams with renewed optimism. Our clan now feels stronger. Our humble, wacky tribe feels enriched.

And more than a tad sweeter.


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Almondy Almond Butter Cookies

Gluten-free almond butter cookies await.

Almondy Cookies

Rumor has it baking weather is just around the corner. Though you'd never know it by looking out the window here in Southern California. Texting skateboarders whip by in short shorts, bikini clad surfer girls are paddling out on their long boards, and jewel-studded flip-flops remain the shoe du jour. It feels more like July than September. It's hot.

And it feels good.

It was a coolish summer for those of us on the South Bay coast. June Gloom stuck around long past its expiration date. Until this week, in fact, I was walking my morning ritual loop in my thickest hooded sweatshirt, fingers tucked up inside the sleeves for warmth (what visitors to Los Angeles assume is smog is actually fog that hugs the coast, blanketing our beaches- and west side- with a fuzzy soft marine layer). It's lovely for baking. But chilly for fingers and toes.

So I bake. In UGGs.

And my latest experiment is cookies.

Just because.


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Wheat-Free Gluten-Free Anise Biscotti

Sugar-free vegan biscotti infused with anise. Start dunking.

Not Too Sweet Biscotti

Sugar is taking a beating these days. Have you noticed? Studies left and right are accusing this sweet-talking Romeo of seducing us to a life of ruin and heartache. They've applied the words toxic, and poison. Is it really as bad they say? I'm not certain (and I'm not convinced they are, either; my sugar loving grandmother lived to the ripe old age of 93). But this I do know. Super refined corn sugar (aka HFCS) scares me. Not only because it cajoles our livers to convert the fructose to belly fat, but because it doesn't agree with me. Period.

I knew this the first time I drank a margarita that made me balloon and bloat like a pregnant Demi Moore (and while I concur that Demi was superbly gorgeous in all her fecund glory, in all honesty, I do not desire to emulate such a look- or frankly, such a fertile state- at my tender age of post- let's say- fifty). So I took a gander at the label of margarita mix to be sure it was gluten-free. It was.

But the second ingredient?

High fructose corn syrup.


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My Best Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipes

The best gluten-free chocolate chip cookie recipes on GFG.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Crush

It's a cool rainy Sunday here in West Hollywood. I am sipping a hot coconut milk chai to the velvet croon of Chet Baker. And I am thinking about cookies. Not just any cookies. Gluten-free chocolate chip cookies. The best of the best. Sifting through my variations like a saxophone player in the groove of a beat. How do I like them best? That is the question. Because cookies will be baked today. And I've got a handful of chocolate chip cookie recipes to choose from. I've got choices.

Maybe I'll go with a classic style, bumpy with heavenly chunks of a vegan dark chocolate bar. Or the slightly chewy-crisp favorites made with gluten-free rolled oats from Bob's Red Mill. Wait. But then I remember my buckwheat flour chocolate chip cookies. Slightly sweet and verging on cakey. Perfect with a glass of cold vanilla rice milk. And then, to make matters even more complicated, I suddenly crave my quinoa flake cookie dough seductively studded with dark chocolate chips.

Decisions. Decisions.

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Gluten-Free Almond Flour Cookies

Almond flour cookies with the nutty crunch of pecans.

Almond Flour Cookies

Here I am again. Baking cookies. It's one way I cope with the world. Which, in case you haven't noticed, is totally moon bat crazy. So what do you do? The older I get the more I let go. And it's not just letting go of the obvious stuff, like that box of canceled checks from your first marriage or those hideous platform shoes you bought after seeing Saturday Night Fever. I'm letting go of things I once cherished. Stuff I used to believe. Opinions. The Right Way To Do Something. Why?

Because the older I get the less convinced I am that I know what is best. Sometimes it's hard to tell. I know from experience that the best laid plans can will often fail. And that sheer dumb luck can plop in your lap and splatter you with an unbidden opportunity. I've lived long enough to see the truth in my favorite line from Little Big Man. Sometimes the magic works, sometimes it doesn't. So I don't grasp anything too tightly anymore. 

Which brings me to Cheez Doodles and why you need to let go. 

My grandmother was a saver. The type of woman who, if you gave her a pretty new night gown, she'd just stuff it in the closet and never wear it. She'd go on wearing her crusty pink K-Mart gown. The one with mysterious brown stains down the front of it.

If you asked her, Why don't you wear the new nightgown we gave you? she'd swat away your question and begin rummaging around her kitchen cupboards. Rooting for food objects. To give you. A prize to take home. A dented can of baked beans from the reduced shelf at Walgreen's. Candy canes from Christmas past. And yeah. Cheez Doodles.

One particular visit, on our way out the door, my grandmother turned in the February light that slatted through beige vinyl blinds and stared at my two sons- twelve and nine at the time. 

You hungry? she barked. The boys shrugged. Take these, she told them, thrusting a giant bag of Cheez Doodles in their direction. The youngest carried the bag to the car. It was bigger than his head. We buckled in and drove off.

Can we open the Cheez Doodles? 

Steve and I looked at each other. Well. It's risky, I warned. God only knows how long she's been hanging on to those. 

Smell it first, offered the oldest. They tore the bag open in unison. And that's when it hit us.

The SMELL.

The most duodenum wrenching rancid odor you could imagine. Filling the car's interior in an instant, thanks to the car heater cranked on high. Accompanied by - of course!- Seal's Kiss From a Rose on the radio.

That is some serious heinous-ity, gasped my husband, rolling down the window for some air. 

I think the expiration date expired, offered one son.

Smells so funky, said the other.

Close the bag, I yelled. Have mercy on us!

After airing out the car we rolled up the windows. 

Why does she keep old stuff? my son asked. Yeah. What good are old Cheez Doodles? said his brother.

Exactly! said I.

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