Chewy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is my grandmother's recipe.

1 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar (C&H)

1 cup granulated sugar (I usually just use about 1.5 cups brown sugar and no white sugar--C & H brand brown sugar is cane sugar with no additives)

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla (organic vanilla with no corn syrup is usually safe)

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

2 cups flour (I use King Arthur’s Unbleached White Whole Wheat Flour)

2 cups rolled oats

1 to 2 cups chocolate chips (Enjoy Life brand chocolate chips are safe)

Cream butter and sugar, add eggs and vanilla. Sift together soda, salt & flour; add to egg mixture. Mix well. Stir in oats. Add chocolate chips.

Bake in 375 degree F oven for 8-10 minutes or until not quite done in appearance. Let cool and finish baking slightly on cookie sheet, then move to cookie rack.

Chocolate Fudge Cereal Treats (or No-Bake Cookies)

Grease an 8 x 8 pan or a cookie sheet, or lay out waxed paper on paper bags. Get out candy thermometer.

Measure out 4 cups of puffed grain or cereal (I used puffed rice).

Combine in a heavy saucepan:

1/3 cup oil (I used safflower)
2/3 cup honey
4 Tbs (1/8 cup) sifted unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Hershey's baking cocoa)
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup rice milk (I use Rice Dream Original Unenriched)
2 teaspoons calcium/magnesium powder (optional)

Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until candy thermometer registers 250 degrees Fahrenheit. Remove pan from heat and stir in cereal until well coated.

Pour into greased pan for bars, or quickly drop by spoonfuls onto waxed paper or greased cookie sheet for cookies. Allow to cool and enjoy!

If you leave the cereal out, this might make a good hot fudge topping.

Sourdough Brown Sugar Drop Cookies

These cookies taste very "normal." The recipe uses sourdough starter as the acid, but nobody would ever guess they're sourdough. You can leave the dough to ferment at room temperature for a couple of hours without hurting it. Fermentation supposedly enhances the digestibility of gluten-containing grains. Use "fresh" sourdough starter that has been fed within the last 12 hours or so, or part of your sponge.

These cookies aren't particularly healthy, so they are for special occasions, but they are whole-grain and the sugar is not highly refined. I add a tablespoon of calcium powder so I can pretend they're healthy. :) They are also free of corn, soy, eggs, milk/dairy, oats and nuts. If you use vegetable gelatin they can be vegan.

The dough tastes just like cookie dough should. We like to eat it raw since it contains no eggs. You could add a teaspoon of corn-free vanilla with the wet ingredients if desired.

Sourdough Brown Sugar Drop Cookies

Mix 1 tablespoon plain unflavored gelatin with 3 tablespoons cold water. Leave it for a couple of minutes to soften, then stir in 1/4 cup boiling water to dissolve. I use beef gelatin, but other types should work as well. If you use a vegetable gelatin, you may have to adjust amount/temperature of the water.

Mix or sift together:
3 cups whole wheat flour
1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking soda (bicarbonate of soda) (if you like denser, less cakelike cookies, try reducing to 1 teaspoon and adding a pinch more salt)
1/2 teaspoon unrefined sea salt
1 tablespoon calcium/magnesium powder (optional)

In a separate container, blend until smooth:
1/2 cup vegetable oil (I use safflower oil)
2 cups brown sugar (C&H/Domino's is a pure cane sugar that's corn-free and naturally brown)
Gelatin mixture

Stir into sugar mixture:
1 cup sourdough starter

Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix just until blended.

If desired, stir in:
1 cup baking chips, raisins, or other mix-in of your choice. (An entire package of Enjoy Life Chocolate chips is perfect in this recipe--since they are mini chips, they seem to need more to taste right
.)
You can also add rolled or puffed grains (quinoa, rolled oats, etc) if you like. I add a cup or two depending on the grain and the consistency of the dough.

(Depending on the type of flour you use and the consistency of your sourdough starter, you may need to add an extra 1/4 cup or so of flour or a few tablespoons of water to get the dough to good drop-cookie texture. If the texture is wrong, try letting the dough rest for 5 minutes before you make adjustments.)

Drop by rounded teaspoons onto non-stick baking dish. Bake at 375 F for 12 minutes or until solid and lightly browned. Remove from pan immediately for slightly chewy, moist cookies.

(I have in a pinch used an oiled glass baking dish and longer cooking time with some success.)

Makes approximately 4 dozen cookies.

Flourless Potato Cookies

These cookies are grain-free and vegan. They are made almost completely with potatoes and some sweetener. They're quite sweet and rich-tasting, especially with chocolate or white chocolate baking chips in them. My husband thinks the texture is like French Fries, although the taste is different.

The brands in parenthesis are what I used when developing this recipe. Since different varieties of potato flour perform differently in baking, you may need to experiment with leaving out the water or adding more liquid if you use other brands of ingredients.

To make these cookies Kosher for Passover, use all K for P ingredients. If you are sulfite-sensitive, this would not be a good recipe to try since potato chips, starch and flour are all likely to contain sulfites.

2/3 cup potato flour (Bob's Red Mill)
1/3 cup potato starch (Manischewitz Kosher for Passover)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder (Featherweight corn-free gluten-free, or see this post for baking powder substitutes)

1/2 cup honey (Fred Meyer pure clover honey)
1/2 cup brown sugar (C & H pure cane sugar)
1/3 cup oil (Trader Joe's grapeseed oil)
2 tablespoons water

1 cup coarsely crushed potato chips (Manischewitz Kosher for Passover Potato Stix)
(optional) 1/2 cup of your favorite mix-in (I used a mixture of Lieber's decorating chips [white chocolate] and Oppenheimer chocolate chips, both Kosher for Passover)
(optional) 1 teaspoon of your favorite flavoring (safe vanilla, ground cinnamon, etc.)

Sift together potato flour, starch, and baking powder. If adding a dry spice, add it with the potato flour.

In a separate container, blend oil, sugar, water and honey. If you're using a liquid flavoring, add it with the liquid ingredients. The oil may not blend into the other ingredients well, and that's okay.

Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and blend as well as you can with a spoon. If you have trouble stirring, knead the misture with your hands until smooth.

Stir or knead in the potato chips and the mix-in. Drop by tablespoons onto a cookie sheet. Do not flatten the tops of these cookies; the rounder they are the better the texture will be.

Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 8 minutes. They will be golden-brown around the edges and will still be a bit soft and gooey when you remove them from the pan, but stiffen up as they cool.

Best served warm.

Matzo Cookies

Here's a Kosher Pareve cookie recipe I worked up using some of the corn/soy/dairy-free Kosher for Passover products available this time of year. I modified my mom's famous chewy oatmeal cookie recipe, using crushed matzo (also spelled matza, matzoh, or matzah, or in Hebrew מַצָּה maṣṣā) crackers instead of oats.

If you need a Kosher for Passover recipe, substitute matzo meal for the flour and K for P sugar or honey for the brown sugar. You may need to add a tablespoon or more extra flour if using a liquid sweetener, and the texture won't be the same.

I also tried the recipe with 2 tablespoons less margarine (6 tablespoons total) and 1/2 cup brown sugar with 1/4 cup honey. That worked fine although the texture and flavor weren't quite as good.

Matzo Cookies

1/2 cup Kosher for Passover Pareve margarine (I used Mother's brand regular salted margarine)
3/4 cup brown sugar (C & H is corn-free, pure cane sugar)
1 egg

1 cup flour (I used King Arthur White Whole Wheat)
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. additive-free salt (kosher salt or unrefined sea salt)

2 large matzo crackers, coarsely crushed (makes almost 1 cup of crumbs)

1/2 to 1 cup of your favorite cookie mix-in (optional)
1/2 tsp. flavoring of your choice (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Crush the Matzos. I broke mine in quarters and put them in a sandwich bag, then pounded the bag with a blunt object (the bottom of my sea salt canister) to crush them.

Cream together margarine and sugar. Add egg and mix well. If you wish to add a safe vanilla or another liquid flavoring, stir this into the wet ingredients with the egg.

In separate bowl, mix flour, baking soda and salt. If you are adding cinnamon or another dry flavoring, add it to the dry mixture.

Add dry ingredients to sugar mixture and stir just until blended. Mix in the matzo crumbs. If desired, stir in your favorite cookie mix-in (i.e. raisins, baking chips, candy, dried fruit or nuts).

Drop in small spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet and cook for 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from the oven while they still look soft and shiny in the center for cookies with a chewy texture; they will continue to cook a bit after you take them out of the oven. I baked mine for just 8 minutes and immediately removed them from the pan to a cooling rack.

Makes about 30 cookies.

Gingerbread Cookies

This gingerbread cookie recipe was a big hit at a recent birthday party we attended. Several children ate their cookies and left the cake and ice cream nearly untouched. With whole foods and no refined sugars, these cookies are a great choice.

I did use slightly more honey than the recipe called for . . . maybe a tablespoon more. My cookies were a little too sticky to roll out, so I had to add a little extra flour and dust the rolling pin and rolling surface with an extra-thick layer of flour.

I used King Arthur's White Whole Wheat Flour. King Arthur and Gold Medal seem to be the most corn-free of the widely available commercial flours.

I made just half the batch and it made 2-3 dozen cookies.

Gingerbread People
From Desserts by Sue Gregg (Eating Better Cookbooks)

"A special holiday cookie. Children will especially enjoy making these."

Cream together:
1/2 cup soft butter
1 cup molasses, unsulfured or blackstrap (molasses may be problematic for some people who are highly sensitive to excitotoxins)
2 Tablespoons honey

Beat in:
4 eggs

Blend together in separate bowl:
4 cups whole wheat flour or whole wheat pastry flour
3 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons ginger
1 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cloves

Mix dry ingredients into creamed mixture thoroughly but do not overmix.

Wrap in wax paper and chill for 1 hour.

Roll dough small amounts at a time 1/8" to 1/4" thick. Cut dough with gingerbread cookie cutter.

Bake on greased cookie sheet at 350 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes.

Ice when completely cooled, and decorate with raisins and red hots.

The cookies could be made non-dairy by substituting another fat for the butter. I like to use palm kernel or coconut oil to substitute for solid oils (like butter, margarine, shortening) because they are non-hydrogenated oils that are solid at room temperature.

There is a recipe for icing, but I didn't try it . . . it contains a lot of dairy products. We used a different frosting.

I would suggest dried fruit, nuts and puffed grains as decorations instead of candy.