Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 Cup *Evaporated Cane Juice Crystals

1 Cup Brown Sugar

2/3 Cup Margarine/ Butter

2/3 Cup Shortening

1 tsp Salt

1 tsp Baking Soda

2 tsp Vanilla

2 Eggs

3 Cups Soy Flour
Chocolate Chips (White Chocolate Chips in picture at right)

*Can use white sugar.
In a large bowl, cream the sugars, margarine, and shortening.  Add everything but the flour, stirring well.  Finally, add the flour and then the chocolate chips.  Be sure not to mix too well or the cookies become too cakey.  Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 6-10 minutes until golden brown around the edges.  May be a bit crumbly due to the lack of gluten in the flour.

Additional Information: 1/4 cup of soy flour has almost 15% of your daily need of iron.  Soy flour is a great source of protein and fiber without having very much fat.  I decided to try this recipe in honor of my friends and their children that may have gluten intolerances.  My roommates that don't care for whole wheat variety treats loved these cookies.  Enjoy!

Cheesy Whole Wheat Drop Biscuits

2 Cups Whole Wheat Flour

1 1/2 Tsp. Baking Powder

1 Tsp. Salt

1/2 Tsp. Garlic Powder

1 Cup Shredded Extra Sharp Cheddar Cheese

 1/4 Cup Grated Parmesan Cheese

2/3 Cup *Milk mixed with 2Tsp. Lemon Juice

1/3 Cup Canola Oil

*Can use Buttermilk if desired.

Combine dry ingredients and shredded cheeses in one bowl.  In another bowl, combine the liquid ingredients.  Pour the liquids over the dry, stirring.  When completely moistened, drop onto a cookie sheet a couple of inches apart.  You may have to add milk if the mixture still seems dry after adding all of the dry ingredients.  bake at 425 degrees Fahrenheit until golden brown.

Pumpkin Challenge!

I started out making pumpkin bread.  It was one of those great evenings where I believed that the time was finally mine to bake something fun and relax.  I opened up the 30oz can of pumpkin, dumped it into the bowl.  "Hmm, maybe I should actually find a pumpkin bread recipe," I thought.  After a brief search, I just opened up one online.  Well, it only called for 15oz of pumpkin, so I began doubling.  As I was mixing, I decided that the bread recipe called for too much water.  I have a sense about these things nowadays.  Have you ever tried making something that would never seem to bake all of the way?  Yeah, my pumpkin bread was not going to do that.  The mass of ingredients grew to an enormous lump of goo.  What is this?  I glanced back at the recipe. The original made three loaves of pumpkin bread!  I had the beginnings of six loaves.  It was time to bail on the bread recipe as if from a sinking ship.  Quickly adding more sugar, a bit of this, and bit of that, I made pumpkin cookies!

This was about the time that I suddenly recognized I had a group meeting.  It started a half an hour ago.  Without a second look, I ran out the door with my laptop under my arm to the group meeting.  When I finished the meeting, I returned to the giant bowl full of pumpkin stuff. I baked I had baked pumpkin goods exploding from every surface in the kitchen.

The funny thing is, that as great as everything turned out, I have no idea what was in those cookies except that I started out with a 30oz can of pumpkin.  Our favorite was the pumpkin chocolate chip muffins from the cupcake maker.  This is the great challenge of cooking: be daring!  Try something new!  Be adventurous!

Creamy Alfredo Sauce

2 TBS Butter
1/4 Cup Skim Milk
1/2 Cup Ricotta Cheese
1/4 Cup Shredded Extra Sharp Cheddar
2 TBS Parmesan cheese
1 TBS Dry Garlic
1 tsp Onion Salt
2 tsp. Italian Seasoning
2 TBS Flour or 1 TBS Cornstarch (I use whole wheat flour)

Melt the butter in a sauce pan on medium heat.  When melted, add milk and Ricotta cheese and stir until very smooth.  Add spices, onion salt, and Parmesan cheese.  Add the flour or cornstarch to thicken.  Finally, add in the cheddar and stir it in. I added broccoli and whole wheat spaghetti noodles to the sauce.

After adding the broccoli and noodles, I had about three 1 Cup servings of noodles, broccoli, and sauce.

Vegetarian Lasagna (bread pan size)

You can see the broccoli in the layers.

10-12 whole wheat lasagna noodles (or other noodle type like rice noodles...)
2 TBS canola oil
1 TBS evaporated cane juice crystals (sugar)

1 1/2 cup of spaghetti sauce
8 oz ground-sausage-style soy protein
1 cup of frozen chopped broccoli
1/4 cup ricotta cheese
1 tsp. onion salt
1 tsp. dry garlic
1/4 cup mozzarella cheese
2 TBS shredded extra sharp cheddar 

You can see whole wheat noodles and pale ricotta cheese.

Precook the lasagna noodles in a pot.  In a separate frying pan, add oil and sugar to the sausage, stirring and breaking the soy protein sausage apart.  When cooked, add spaghetti sauce, garlic, onion salt, and broccoli.  Drain the lasagna noodles when cooked to desired tenderness. In a bread pan, spread a layer of the sauce mixture. Place a single layer of precooked noodles on top of it.  Next, add a thin layer of ricotta cheese.build the layers until the lasagna is the desired height.  Spread a thin layer of sauce and top the final layer with the shredded cheeses.  Cover the top of the pan in foil and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.   Remove the foil and bake until the cheese on top is melted and crisped to the desired texture.

Whole Wheat Zucchini Bread

2 cups of peeled shredded zuchini
1/2 cup of evaporated cane juice crystals (can use brown sugar instead)
1 1/2 cups of brown sugar
3 eggs
1 cup canola oil
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 TBS of vanilla
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. cloves
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
3-4 cups of whole wheat flour

Mix everything but the flour in a large mixing bowl.  Be sure to mix the eggs enough to make the bread rise more.  Once this is thoroughly mixed, add the flour until the batter is thicker than cake batter but not as tough as cookie dough.  Seperate the dough into two standard bread pans (9x5 will work well or slightly smaller).  I used shortening to grease the pans so the bread would slide out easily.  Bake at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for 45minutes to an hour until a fork or toothpick comes out clean.  (The bread pictured above was baked for fifty minutes.)  When the bread is baked, remove from the bread pan and melt butter over the top.  Sprinkle sugar over the loaves. 

Why this bread is great:  The whole wheat and brown sugar combination make the zucchini less noticeable than typical zucchini breads! 

Get Some...

Here is a picture of my latest loaf of whole wheat bread.  I made this using the previous recipe on the blog.  Instead of honey or brown sugar though, I used organic evaporated cane juice crystals.  Costco was selling them, and I can't have white sugar, so I bought the bag!  The bread has turned out great and I find that some recipes are better with the crystals instead of brown sugar, but some are not.  Brownies are definitely better with brown sugar (consensus in my apartment.)