5 Favorite Gluten-Free Christmas Cookie Recipes

Who loves Christmas cookies????  Me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Baking cookies (all right, all right....eating cookies) is my FAVORITE Christmas activity.   I love baking cookies.  I love eating cookies every more...and I don't like really fussy cookies that take lots of time.  I'm all about the simple and the delicious. 

So, I present to you my five favorite, easy, simple, delicious gluten-free cookie recipes

1.

Peanut Butter Birds Nest Cookies

Sorry for the bad photo. 

1 1/2 cups peanut butter

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1/4 cup coconut flour

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon salt

chocolate chips.

Preheat Oven to 350 degrees

Mix all ingredients (except chocolate chips) in a large mixing bowl.

Grease cookie sheets.

Roll dough into approximately golf-ball sized balls

Please 3-5 chocolate chips in the center of each ball making a "nest" around the chocolate chips.

Bake for 10 minutes or until bottoms juuuuuuuuust start to turn brown.

Enjoy!

2.

Buckeye Peanut Butter Bars

Photo from Allrecipes.com but my recipe is different from theirs. 

1 cup finely chopped nuts (almonds, pecans or walnuts. I whirl mine around in the food processor until they are broken into very small pieces.

1 1/2 cups peanut butter

2 cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

1 tablespoon butter

Mix nuts, peanut butter, powdered sugar and salt in a large mixing bowl.  The mixture should be very thick....if you need to, you can add more powdered sugar.

Press into the bottom of a jelly roll pan.

In a microwave safe mixing bowl, melt chocolate chips with butter.  Stir frequently and watch for burning...

Spread the chocolate on top of the peanut butter.   Refrigerate for several hours until firm.  Cut into bars and enjoy! 

Warning:  These are VERY addictive.  Eat at your own risk. 

3.

Mexican Wedding Balls

Clearly I have a real calling as a food photographer

1 cup softened butter

2 cups Gluten Free Flour Blend (with xanthum gum).  I like and always use Namaste

1/2 cup confectionar's sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 cups chopped walnuts

Preheat Oven to 350 degrees

Combine all ingredients.

Grease cookie sheets

Roll into balls.

Bake on cookie sheets for 10 minutes.

Roll balls in more confectioner's sugar while still warm,

Allow balls to cool and roll again in confectioner's sugar for one last coating.

4,

Chocolate Peppermint Fudge

Photo from allrecipies.com but it's my own recipe

3 cups chocolate chips

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1/4 cup butter

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon peppermint extract

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

Melt chocolate chips, butter and sweetened condensed milk in saucepan on stove.  Stir constantly to prevent burning.  Stir in extracts and salt.

Spread into greased glass pan and refrigerate several hours until firm.

Cut into squares and enjoy!

5.

Puppy Chow

So, I'm cheating and this isn't a cookie.  But it is a Christmas  any time of year, favorite of mine!

Photo from allrecipes.com

9 cups gluten free rice chex cereal

2 cups chocolate chips

1/2 cup peanut butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon sea salt.

Over saucepan mix chocolate chips and peanut butter until melted.

Stir in vanilla and salt.

Toss with chex cereal, coating all the cereal.

Toss with confectioner's sugar.

Perfect for parties, games or just movies!

Now, go see Moxie Wife for more Five Favorites

Best, best, best, best, best ever lemon squares and gluten free to boot.

I haven't participated in a Mystery Ingredient Monday in a few weeks, because I just haven't gotten it together to make a recipe...but when I saw that this week's ingredient was lemon,

Insert random lemon picture off the internet here. 

 I knew I just have to post my recipe for long squares...a recipe that got RAVE reviews at our recent family reunion AND, it's gluten-free to boot.  (Isn't that a funny expression, to boot, I'm not sure why I'm using it, other than I must want to channel my mother who probably used quaint expressions like that in the 50's .

Lemon squares are basically lemony goodness on top of a rich shortbread cookie and shortbread is actually a cookie that comes out REALLY WELL gluten-free...in fact, one could argue that shortbread is better gluten-free.  I could argue that...but I won't because I don't like arguing on my blog.

And, this is going to be a super lame blog post, because I don't have any pictures of my lemon bars or the baking process.  I'm just too busy living life to photograph it.  (Actually, I just didn't think to take pictures..but I like to come up with pithy sayings like that, just for kicks). 

Lemon squares are a great summer recipe, because they are a nice cool cookie.  And, these squares are very lemony and the perfect blend of sour and sweet. 

Best, best, best, best ever lemon squares. 

1 cup butter softened

1/2 cup sugar

2 cups flour (I used Namaste brand Gluten-free Perfect Flour blend)

Beat butter, sugar and flour together. 

Press into bottom of ungreased 9 x 13 inch pan.  Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes until firm and golden.

Meanwhile, beat together:

4 eggs

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/4 + 1/8 cup flour

3/4 cup lemon juice.

Pour over baked crust and bake another 20 minutes in hot oven. 

Sift powdered sugar over top.  Cut into squares and resign. 

So, go check out the Bazin Chronicles for more lemony goodness. 

Five Favorites (the totally random, unrelated things edition).

I've been feeling a bit stressed/anxious/edgy lately, so this Five Favorites Link-up came along at just the right time.   Blogging always makes me feel better and thinking about my favorite things makes me happy.   So, here they are!

1.

DeMontfort MusicRun by friends of ours, Kevin and Monica Fitzgibbons (writing that kinda makes me feel  important, like we hobnob with celebrities  or something).  Anyway, they just released a beautiful CD from the Benedictines of Mary.  Normally, I don't like music, as with all the noise from kids around, I feel like silence is golden, but this music is so beautiful and uplifting.  

image from demontfortmusic.com

2.

You know how I've mentioned that I've been feeling stressed/edgy/anxious lately.  Well, this supplement has definitely been helping!  It contains high levels of EPA and NO DHA.  For some reason, studies have shown that the high EPA without any DHA really improves mood and brain chemistry.  It's a bit pricey as far as supplements go, but totally, totally worth it. 

image from Amazon.com

3.

The other thing that helps me is eating gluten-free.  And. this flour blend is the BOMB!  I can make ANYTHING gluten-free with it (well, anything I can make normally...I make no claims as to fancy things like doughnuts and bagels...but any muffin, cake, quick bread, pizza crust, yeast bread, scone, popover, etc., etc...I can make gluten-free with this awesome flour blend. 

Image from Amazon.com

4.

Daughters who can bake and decorate a cake all by themselves.  Heidi made this rosary cake (that's supposed to be a rosary on it) for our First Saturday get-together with friends.  It was a big hit..and she did it all by herself  (even clean-up). 

5.

And, in honor of Mother's Day..my Mom.  Here she is with her granddaughters when she came down to visit after Elsa was born. 

Not sure, why Heidi and Greta look so tired...it's not like THEY were up all night nursing a newborn baby? 

 Now, go check out Camp Patton for this week's Five Favorites. 

What I Wore Easter Sunday...and Gluten Free Goodies

Linking up again for a fun What I wore Easter post!

I spent the entire day yesterday baking goodies for this morning. I made brownies with chocolate butter cream frosting, peanut butter sandwich cookies with a cream frosting and coffee cake...everything gluten-free of course.

 And, guys...I going to spill a secret about gluten-free baking. It's not that hard. Honestly..it's not. For everything, except for breads and pizza crusts, I basically use any regular recipe and substitute a good gluten-free flour blend with xanthum gum or guar gum. I prefer Namaste Perfect Flour blend, because Whole Foods has it for a decent price and it already has xanthum gum in it..but Better Batter brand is also really good.

 I don't like the Bob's Red Mill GF flour blend though...it contains bean flours which aren't that great for baking...so don't buy it...unless of course you want to ignore the voice of experience.

..  

 For the brownies, I used a brownie recipe from The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook (subbing for the flour) and frosted them with a regular chocolate butter cream frosting (butter, powdered sugar, cocoa, vanilla and milk). 

 For the peanut butter sandwich cookies, I simply made flourless peanut butter cookies. The recipe is so easy..just 1 cup peanut butter, 1 cup sugar and 1 egg. Form into balls, flatten and bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes. I filled them with cool whip mixed with melted chocolate chips. I was hoping to turn the cool whip into chocolate, but it didn't quite work out that way, the chocolate chips just hardened into little small bits..but it was still super, super good..almost like an oreo cream filling. I made sandwiches out of the cookies and used the cool whip in the middle. 

 For the coffee cake, I used a basic recipe for cinnamon coffee cake and just subbed the flour. We had that for breakfast (along with ice cream and the peanut butter sandwich cookies) after Mass. I took the brownies with me to a SUPER fun Easter gathering at a friend's house with a bunch of  other families, the kids had an eggs hunt and a good time was had by all! 

And, I don't know why I just spent the first several paragraphs of this post blathering on about food...other than the fact that I love to eat and love food and baking...and I wanted to talk about my goodies.

And, I probably subconsciously think that food is more interesting than clothes. 

So, now you all know where my priorities lie. 

 But, here is the actual point of this post. What I wore Easter.

   

 Dress: Thrifted from an awesome thrift store in Rhode Island. I bought it while I was pregnant with Elsa, even though it's not a maternity dress...but I hoped I could wear it as one. I couldn't..it looked terrible. But, it actually works pretty decent as a nursing dress...even though it's not one. I usually hate wearing dresses because they are hard to nurse in, but this one isn't so bad...although I do need to use a cover with it, because I have to come out over the top. I'm not a big nursing cover fan..but I did have one and it worked pretty well with this dress, and Elsa is at the age where the cover actually helps her nurse because she is easily distracted.

 Tank top: Wal-Mart 

 Belt: Amazon.com 

Shoes: acquired for free from Payless. 

 Glasses: Zenni Optical (I have so many glasses from there..love that place). 

 And, here's a pic of the kids. I could NOT get a good one, before they started mutiny. They were especially uncooperative this morning. All their clothes are hand-me downs from others, except for Heidi's. She bought her skirt with her birthday money off Zulily (sob..my girl wants to spend birthday money on clothes?!?!?) and her shirt was bought from Wal-Mart (I think).

This one is a tiny, tiny bit better:

   

 But, not much.  

So, go check-out the better dressed families at the link-up and I'll be linking up with Fine Linen and Purple tomorrow. 

And have a wonderful and Blessed Easter and Easter Week Everyone!! Alleluia!!!

Biscuits that are really Popovers

(This photo and these popovers were made by Ann Larie Valenine...because my popovers didn't look nearly as pretty, so I just hopped on over to flickr and found a beautiful photo that was available for sharing via the creative commons license.   So, we'll just pretend that my popovers looked as pretty as Ann Larie's did...okay?)

So, for the last, oh, 5 years or so, I have been serving soup with either drop biscuits or no-knead 5 minute artisan bread, which if you haven't tried yet, you absolutely should because it is so, so, so, so easy and so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, good!  Is that enough so's for ya?   Seriously, this bread is like the one thing I miss most about being gluten-free.  Well..besides breaded/fried mozzarella cheese sticks that is-- the ONE food I totally craved in my last two pregnancies.  I can't even tell you how excited I was last summer when I discovered that a local grocery store in Rhode Island carried GLUTEN-FREE fried mozzarella sticks!   Those were no doubt responsible for at least a couple pounds of extra baby weight I am currently trying to lose.  Thankfully, I haven't found them in a store down here in Naples yet, otherwise I probably would have gained like double that weight.

Anyway, back to the popovers, so I've always served soup with either biscuits or bread, because that is what my mother did..and well you know, we do things a certain way because our mother did them.   Except my biscuits never, ever came out the way I remembered my mother making them.  Never, ever, ever, ever.

And today..I FINALLY figured out why...because my mother wasn't serving biscuits all those years...she was serving POPOVERS.   Awhile back, I noticed a recipe for gluten-free popovers on the back of a box of King Author gluten-free flour blend.  And,  I said to myself, Self, those popovers sound good, you need to try them.  So, today I did..except I had long used up that box of flour, so I hopped onto my trusty laptop and used good ole' google to find another recipe for gluten-free popovers.

So, I made them tonight for dinner, took one bite and was instantly transported back to my childhood.  I remember sitting around my kitchen table on long wooden benches and eating green onion soup (yuck....no offense mom..but I hated it) begrudgingly just so I could eat those delicious little balls of crusty goodness on the outside and delicious airiness on the inside.  I can even distinctly picture the bright yellow bread basket, covered with a towel, she used to serve them in.  And all this time, I thought they were biscuits!!  I'm so embarrassed.

Anyway, these gluten-free popovers are DELICIOUS!  Greta even said they were "super, incredibly, amazingly yummy" and for her to say that about a recipe that doesn't even contain any sugar is pretty darn amazing!

And they are SO easy!  I will never, ever,  make biscuits with soup again.. I am forever converted to a popover fan.

Anyway, dear readers...here is my wonderful recipe for gluten-free popovers that taste JUST like how I remember my mom's regular old, gluten-containing popovers tasting.

2 1/2 cups gluten-free all purpose flour blend (I really like Namaste Foods, Gluten Free Perfect Flour Blend_

1 1/2 tbsp melted butter

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp xanthum gum (omit if you are using a flour blend ..like Namaste, which already contains xanthum gum).

1 1/2 cups milk

5 eggs..slightly beaten

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Whisk all ingredients together until smooth.  Grease 18 muffin tins and fill each tin about 1/2 way with batter.  Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes.  Prick each top with a fork to let steam escape and then bake 5 minute more.  Remove from oven and ENJOY, ENJOY, ENJOY!

Blessings,

Amelia