Poor Man's cookies

Poor Man's cookies:

I found this recipe hand-written in a box of recipes that my mom had collected. This particular recipe came from a stack of cards written by my great-grandma. Great-Grandma Ruth is legendary in my family for her amazing cooking and for aways having something to eat to give to grandchildren, neighbors, or strangers that stopped by.

Pre-heat oven to 350

Ingredients:

2 c. rolled oats*

1 c. packed brown sugar

1 c. flour (for GF just use a GF flour mix-I used Bob' Red Mill baking flour since Cosco started carrying large bags of it!)

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 c. hot water

1/2 c. butter melted and cooled (you can also just use vegetable oil or you can try apple sauce to give them a bit of a healthier kick!)

Mix ingredients and form small walnut sized balls. Place on greased cookie sheet. Cook until golden brown. This will take about 10 minutes (+/-). Careful- these cookies go from done to burnt very fast! So watch them. Loosen cookies from cookie sheet right away but wait two minutes before transfering them onto a wire rack to cool. They will fall apart if you try to transfer them before the 2 minutes are up- but if you don't loosen the cookies they will be hard to get off the cookie sheet. (If you are not making them GF you don't need to loosen them, just wait the 2 minutes). These are crunchy yummy cookies. Easy to make and fun for kids to help with. I took them to church and all of the kids ate them up and even the Reverend ate a bunch!

*GF note:

Its easy to make these as yummy Gluten free and dairy free cookies. However, if you know you or your loved one cannot handle oats- this is not the recipe to try! If however, your loved one and you can handle oats, check to make sure they are certified gluten free oats. My little brother is not quite sensitive enough to wheat that the possibility of cross contamination is something we worry about much with rolled oats. But that's because we know his tolerance level. To be safe if you do not know you or your loved one's tolerance level make sure you get certified Gluten free rolled oats. They are more expensive but its better to be safe than sorry!

Changes...

Its been such a long time since I posted anything I doubt anyone will even read this but if you do...I am changing the purpose of this blog. While, someday I would still love to make a cookbook that promotes peace, is allergy friendly, and kid friendly. Right now, I have decided to simply post allergy/kid friendly recipes online. As for the peace part, well, to me any time I bake or share food with someone I also share love and peace. Cooking makes me happy in a way that is hard to describe. Even if no one ever reads this blog, for me it will be worth the adventure!

And if you are reading this...Thanks for sharing this journey with me!

Recently, I have needed to learn how to cook gluten free. I have have struggled against this newest challenge. There is something about the smell of yeasty bread and the feel of flour (wheat flour) that makes me so happy. Gluten free recipes do not have the same effect one me. However, I have found that when a gluten free recipe turns out, and it tastes good!, I gain a lot more satisfaction from the result than I do from a "normal" recipe.

The allergy list for this house includes:

Dairy

Nuts

Sea Food

Wheat (but we are completely gluten free, not just wheat free)

Citrus

Pears

Rhubarb

and several other things!

Dairy is the main allergy/sensitivity that we have to deal with. Out of the eight people in my family 5 are sensitive or allergic to dairy (and I don't just mean lactose! Casein, lactose, whey, you name it- we can't have it!).

Right now, and hopefully it will be something that is not life long, wheat is only a big no-no for one person. Of course, when that one person is three years old it is just mean to eat food in front of the little guy that he cannot have. That means, for the most part, we as a family are gluten free.