Salted Flourless Chocolate Cookies (and a Month Gluten-Free)

My kitchen helper

I am about a month in to not eating any gluten; it has been a pretty good adventure so far.  I will admit I have had a few setbacks, but for the most part it has been pretty smooth.  I feel like I have explained myself and my reasons many times, but most people seem to understand (after first assuming I am doing it for weight loss.) I am not going to lie; the weight loss is a plus but not the reason. 

I finally made it back to my doctor, I explained how I was getting fed up with nothing helping (I was on three different medications) I felt like I was losing a battle.  I told her how my mom brought up celiac and cutting out gluten, and that I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try it.  I was concerned with what she would tell me, but it was all positive.  She explained how I still should take my one medication, since I was diagnosed with colitis, but I should keep up with the GF diet as well.  She went on to talk to me about other patients that suffer from both diseases and how they cope.  Since I haven’t been eating gluten, none of the tests would show a positive result for celiac.  But because of the family history I shared, she said there may be a chance I do suffer from it, and even if it isn’t full blown celiac, I definitely have an intolerance.  My choices would be to start eating gluten just for the test, an endoscopy, or hold off being tested but continue eating GF.  For now I am just going to continue on.  I feel better; I don’t need a test to tell me that, at least 
not right now.

Adding chocolate chips and nuts, so serious!

I made it through Thanksgiving and now we are in full swing into the Christmas season.  We plan on having Christmas dinner at our house this year, which I am excited about since I will be controlling the menu.  I don’t plan on making the whole meal GF; I can’t deprive my husband and son of rolls that would just be mean.  I have been looking around for some different ideas for the dinner menu, but I must admit my focus has been more on the cookies.  We are suckers for cookies in our house.  Plus we are doing a cookie exchange at work, so I need to figure out what I plan on making for that.

I already tried one batch of GF cookies, in my last post, now I am going to try to venture into more…I found a lot of recipes for GF Cookies on Foodgawker, I am planning to try out a few. 

iPhone picture

Salted Flourless Chocolate Cookies

(Inspired from Meaningful Eats) 

3 cups powdered sugar
2/3 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 egg whites, at room temperature
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips

½ cup chopped pecans

Coarse Sea Salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together the sugar, cocoa and salt.  Slowly add egg whites and vanilla. Once all combined, stir in the chocolate chips and pecans.  

On a greased, or lined cookie sheet, add batter a teaspoon at a time.  The cookies will spread, so unless you want large cookies, use small mounds.  Sprinkle with the coarse salt.  Bake for about 15 minutes. (I made about 36 cookies)

The flavor of these cookies were really good and chocolaty, they were chewy and crisp at the same time.  They were also very thin (they would make great ice cream sandwiches.) I am not sure if my egg whites weren't quite warm enough or what.  I may play around with them a bit to see if I can make them "fluffier".  I will make these again.

Enjoy!

Mexican Hot Chocolate and Marshmallows, the perfect gift!

Yes, I know the holiday gift giving season is pretty much over...so what!  This is a great gift or just something nice to keep in your cabinet. 

A couple of years ago, I decided that I was going to make everyone marshmallows and hot chocolate, I remember getting a lot of good reviews so I decided that I was going to do it again this year.  It is just something different then cookies and breads, and you can put it away for a later date if you want (well at least the hot chocolate.)

This year instead of just plain ol' hot chocolate mix, I made Mexican Hot Chocolate.  The difference is that it has cayenne pepper and cinnamon.  Now, I made the first batch and it was really good but I wasn't really able to taste the cayenne pepper. SO...when I made the second batch, being the super smart person I am, I decided to add just a bit more of the pepper.  Not something I recommend.  I didn't add much, but man!  I ended up having to split the second batch into two and mellow them down a bit to tame the heat.  The second (and third) batch were/are still spicier then the first but were much more tolerable.  I even got a "tell your wife shes the bomb" response from one of my husbands friends, I must admit the compliment felt good. 

Mexican Hot Chocolate

3 cups non-fat dry milk
1 3/4 cups powdered sugar
1/4 brown sugar (I used dark)
3/4 cups white chocolate chips
3/4 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/8 cups dark cocoa powder (such as Hersey's Special Dark Cocoa Powder)
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Add all ingredients into a food processor, pulse until well mixed and most of the chocolate chips are broken down. (This may need to be made in batches depending on the size of your processor.)

Combine about 1/3 of the mix with hot water or milk, mix well and top with a homemade marshmallow.

Now. Marshmallows.  If you like marshmallows and have never made your own, I highly recommend it!  They are so much better, fresher, softer, did I say better, then store bought and really easy to make.  The other thing with making your own marshmallows you can flavor them anyway you want by just adding extracts, or cocoa.  For this recipe I just did plain since the hot chocolate had extra flavors.

Marshmallows

Vegetable oil, for brushing
4 envelopes unflavored gelatin
3 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups light corn syrup
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla extract (or what ever flavor you would like)
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, for dusting
Water

Brush a 9 x 13 pan with oil, I like to also line the pan with foil (which will also be oiled) that hangs at least two inches over the sides for easy removal, dust the pan with some of the powdered sugar. *You can not over oil the pan!

Bring the sugar, corn syrup, salt and 3/4 cups of water to a boil. Stir to dissolve the sugar.

In a standing mixer, with the whisk attachment, add 3/4 cups cold water. Sprinkle the gelatin over the water. Let soften for at least 5 minutes.

On low speed, whisk the sugar mixture in to the gelatin.  Switch to high speed, add vanilla and beat until stiff and looks like marshmallow fluff.  About 12-15 minutes.
Pour into the prepared pan, smooth and set aside, uncovered until firm. About 3 hours. Cut in to 1" squares or what ever shape your heart desires. 

Christmas Crafts with a Star Theme

Star Christmas Cards

I am always looking for some type of craft to do with my son, and this month I decided to try to get into the spirit a little more with star themed Christmas crafts. 

My son loves to paint, and I love that he loves it!  I covered our kitchen table with paper, gave him red, green, and white paint and let him go at it!  I also bought crayola glitter glue and gave him all but the turquoise. Using his artwork, we then cut the paper in to star shapes (that eventually became our Christmas cards), and into strips to make a garland. 

When we were finished with the table, I gave him cardboard stars.  This was an upcycle project if you will.  We have cardboard boxes at work that have dividers in them to hold rolled plans, and the person who worked in our print room cut the dividers into a bunch of smaller pieces that were about 5" x 5" when pushed flat, but have seams to fold into a cube. 


Cardboard Stars



Well I took the pieces (I was told I could) and cut them into star shapes.  My son and I, painted about a dozen.  They are now standing around our living room on shelves, and we even put a couple in our tree.  They probably won't last til next year so I may keep one, but the rest will probably just end up in the recycling bin. 



 

Star Garland (in front of door for clarity)



We also, used the cardboard stars to make a garland. Well this was more my project, I added some colored paper circles between the stars and threaded them all together. It actually hangs in the window next to our front door.

I don't have good picture but we also painted salt dough ornaments, my son did most of the painting, I just went back with the glitter glue and added a little.  The original plan is for the ornaments to be

Ornaments

decoration on the grand- parents gifts, and they still may.  I had a couple extra stars that I put on two of the gifts, so the third may have an ornament.  Because I was a little impatient, I dried the dough in the oven on a low temperature.  Well they bubbled up a bit so they didn't turn out quite how I wanted.  But everything was a lot of fun to make.

I am all about being creative through a mess, and kids should get messy.  It all washes off and out.  Life is too short to worry about spilled paint. 

Cookie Season: Classic Spritz Cookie

Spritz cookies. I remember them being a special treat during the Holiday, my mom rarely made them but I loved them. My mom used my grandmothers recipe, but my father said they were never the same. I don’t think anything ever ends up being better then what you remember as a kid.

A few months ago, we took a trip to visit my father-in-law and we never leave visits with my husbands family empty handed. Well this time, mixed amongst the ice cream maker, chairs, beanie baby animals, quesadilla maker, etc. there was a cookie press, and not just any press a battery operated one! Well I decided right then that I was going to make my grandmothers Spritz Cookies this year. So I asked my mom if she could send me the recipe. Well…she couldn’t find it. Disappointing! She said it was probably tucked in the cookie press box, but she no longer has the press. Well who ever has ended up with it, now has a good grandma recipe. Well then my search was on to find a spritz recipe that made me relive my childhood.

Well I think I found that recipe, it was very simple. One thing that I didn’t do before hand was test my cookie press. I loaded the batteries, made my cookie dough, filled the press, squeezed and…nothing. My heart actually sank a little. All I thought was “this has to work! I am not going to stuff a pastry bag!” After a little cursing, I figured it out! There was a small gear that is on the “press” part and that was supposed to stay, via pressure in the top of the press. Well it wasn’t and come to find out I need to actually have it threaded for it to work. (Sorry if that makes no sense, I am sure it doesn’t.) So now that I had the press working, I just needed to work on getting the correct amount of dough on the cookie sheet. After a couple of tries, it became so easy! I remember using my mom’s press and having to actually press and twist to get the dough out, no wonder she didn’t make them much. It was like exercise. I am loving the battery operated one; I will probably use it more often.

Well on to the recipe…the recipe said it was from the side of the Wilton cookie press box, but I don’t have a Wilton so I am not 100% sure it really is or not.

Classic Spritz Cookies

3 ½ cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 ½ cups of butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2 Tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp almond extract
Red and green sugar sprinkles (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a small bowl, combine flour and baking powder, set a side. In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg, milk, vanilla and almond extracts and mix well. Gradually add flour mixture, beat until combined. Do Not Chill. Fill cookie press with the dough, press onto ungreased cookie sheets, and if desired sprinkle with the colored sugar.

Bake 10-12 minutes or until the edges are just starting to get LIGHTLY golden brown. Cool.

Makes 7-8 dozen small cookies.



Enjoy!

Holiday Roast

I  hosted Christmas at our house this year and I didn't want to do turkey or ham.  I wanted to do something different.  Christmas Eve we had lasagna with salad and garlic bread but for Christmas day I wanted to do something just a little more special.  I decided on a Beef Roast, with scalloped potatoes, green beans and salad.  We didn't go over the top, I didn't want to have a lot of leftovers (I actually still had leftovers from Thanksgiving in my fridge.)

This roast was so easy  and it was a hit, I actually wish I would have made a larger roast so we could have more leftovers!

Holiday Roast

1/4 cupGF flour (3 tablespoons for gravy)
2 tablespoons dry mustard
1 1/2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons fresh ground pepper
1 - 3 to 4 pound boneless roast


Combine the first 5 ingredients, reserving flour for gravy. Cover the mixture over the roast.

Place roast fat side down on a rack in a shallow roasting pan.

Bake uncovered, at 325 degrees for about 2 to 3 hours or until meat thermometer registers your desired degree of doneness.  135 degrees for medium-rare, 165 degrees for medium.

Gravy

1 cup dry red wine (I used the red that was open at the time)
2 cups beef broth
1/2 cup water

In  a small sauce pan, add the liquid ingredients just til simmering.

Once you remove the roast, in the roasting pan add liquid. Whisk all together, slowly add flour to thicken.