Sunday, December 29, 2013

Lime Coconut Cookies


Lime Coconut Cookies

I really liked the lemon cookies so I decided I had to make Lime ones to match. 

1 cup butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1 cup white sugar

whip together

3 eggs
2 whole limes, juiced
zest of two limes
1 tsp vanilla

add to butter mixture in parts

2.5 cups flour
.5 cups cornstarch
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Add in three parts

1 cup coconut
blend in.
scoop out dough into powdered sugar

bake at 350 for 10 minutes or until done.

Which recipe is your favorite? Lime or Lemon? maybe we should make orange cookies sometime soon.




Sunday, December 8, 2013

Vegan Oatmeal Cookies


Classic Vegan Oatmeal Cookies.
1.5  cups brown sugar
1 cup demerarra sugar
1 cup vegan vegetable shortening
mix

egg substitute equivalent to 3 eggs
vegan vanilla
mix in one egg at a time

3 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
mix in (split into several parts to add in gradually)

1 cup oatmeal
mix

extra demerarra sugar in bowl
scoop out cookies into sugar 
bake at 325 for 12 minutes or until done.

One of the best things about vegan cookie dough? safe to eat all of it without danger of food poisoning. Also I can feed the kids all the cookie dough which they love.
If these cookies end up a little burnt substitute white sugar for demerarra sugar.
These cookies won't flatten as much as a traditional cookie so shape them how you want to cookie to be and if you cook until they look just like your traditional cookies they will be burned. I usually take them out after 11-12 minutes even if I normally would leave them in and they turn out perfect.
The first time I made these I don't know if the planets just aligned correctly but they were some of the best cookies I've had. If they have trouble sticking together add more shortening.

It breaks my heart to see things suffer. I used to try to volunteer with dog rescues to help them have a better life and better conditions and I still hold a special place in my heart for people who are working to help abused animals.  At the same time I do not love the squirrels that used to dig up the bulbs I planted in my back yard.  I don't think I could hunt an animal and kill it. Sometimes that makes me think I shouldn't eat them at all. In an ideal world I think I would be vegan. One of my closest friends is Vegan and sometimes I make her cookies. She is always very nice about it even if I don't think the cookies are as good as they should be.
I HATE most of the chocolate chip products that are out there for vegan consumers. They just don't taste good. One of the biggest problems if you want to make vegan products is trying to make them taste the same as non-vegan ones. There are a lot of delicious foods that are animal products free but don't expect something that isn't milk to taste like milk My favorite vegetable shortening is Vegan and it doesn't taste like butter but it makes the most delicious sugar cookies and whips up really nicely when you cream it with sugar. The best whip in a shortening I've ever seen.
I practice different tastes with vegan and allergy sensitive cooking not only because I feel like I should be able to reduce my negative impact on animals. It's also because I want to be good at making cookies everyone would enjoy and that means knowing how to make several different kinds of cookies.  I think it is good to try to figure out ways to cook so that people with dietary issues and concerns can still participate. I have a child with a dairy allergy so every week I make one kind of cookies with no dairy. That's fairly easy since vegetable shortening is great to bake with. I also have friends with gluten intolerance. Much trickier. Especially since almond flour seems very expensive. I've decided that a lot of experimentation is the way to improve the cookies so here is one of my favorite vegan cookie recipes.

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Monday, December 2, 2013

S'mores Cookies

 S'mores Cookies



One day one of my co-workers told us all that she made s'mores cookies. They were FANTASTIC. Incidentally, that same co-worker is also fantastic at braiding hair. She taught me how to do a starburst crown braid which you can learn on the cute girls hairstyles youtube channel. I had no idea how awesome Youtube was for pretty much every question I've ever had. My new years resolution this year was actually to learn how to do my hair better so this was perfect. I still can't really braid my own hair but I did braid my daughters hair and I was proud that she didn't fuss.
These cookies are actually some of my favorite I've ever had.  I recommend them to everyone. They are a little bit tricky with kids because you have to take them out of the oven to add the graham crackers and marshmallows so be aware that if you child is too young to control themselves or always wants to touch things out of the oven it would be best to wait until after bedtime on these cookies.



1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup butter
cream for at least 2 minutes
3 medium eggs
2 1/2 tsp vanilla
mix in 1 egg at a time
3 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
mix dry ingredients together and add in at least three parts
1 bag semi sweet chocolate chips
mix in semi sweet chocolate chips
bake 5 minutes
add at least 
7 teddy grahams
bake 5 minutes 
add approximately
7 mini marshmallows and chocolate on top. I used mini hersheys
cook until they are done (3-5 minutes)