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.

french fries

A quick and easy way to make yummy fries...is by baking them! So this bad for you treat becomes something that is actually healthy (or relatively so!).

-Potatoes (the bigger the better!!!) at least one per person. In my house two persons works better!

-Olive oil

-seasoning: salt, pepper, chili pepper, garlic powder- really anything that sounds good to you!

Time: 20-45 minutes

Serving size: How many potatoes do you want to peel?

Pre-heat oven to 450

Peel potatoes (although you can leave them unpeeled just make sure you wash them well if you leave them with the skin on. The littles in this house don't like peels and the chickens love them, so we peel ours) Cut potatoes into the size and shape you want your fries....stake fries, home fries, McD size fries, again this is up to you! My family chooses some where between the stake fries and the fast-food chain size fries. Sometimes it just depends on the meal!

Place uncooked fries in plastic ziplock bag add olive oil- enough to liberally cover all the fries. Don't be afraid to have left over oil. Its better to have too much than too little in this case.

Spread the oil coated fries on a cookie sheet and sprinkle whatever seasonings you have decided on (I find its good to mix the fries about so that both sides get season).

Place in oven and start baking. After about 7 to 10 minutes, stir and flip fries (this does not have to be precise! you just want them to bake fairly evenly). Every 5 to 7 minutes repeat this process. How long the fries take depends on if you like them soft or crispy. My family likes a nice medium- not too crunchy but nicely crisp. It usually takes about 30 minutes.

fruit granola bars

One of my mom's favorite treats was a soft granola bar from Wild Oats, unfortunately the store by our house closed down and now that treat is a rare commodity.

This is my attempt at make something like it for her and the rest of the family.

This recipe comes from "Love in the Kitchen" by Wendy Jeub with Cynthia Jeub. This is a well liked cookbook in our house as it is written by a mother of 14 and recipes yield nice sized quantities.

3 cups flour (whole wheat is better- but in a pinch like I was tonight white works fine)

3 cups oats

1 cup butter, melted (I use Earth Balance Natural Shortening- make sure you get the Vegan kind if you are trying to make a non-dairy version!)

1/2 tsp cinnamon + (I used more because I LOVE cinnamon)

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups brown sugar - (I used 3/4 cup because we don't like to use a lot of sugar here- toddlers and lots of sugar do not mix well, especially when they have ADHA and sensory issues!)

3 cups of your favorite jam

Pre-heat oven to 350

Mix all of the ingredients together - except for the jam- and press half of the mixture into a 9x13 pan sprayed with oil. Pour jam over mixture (heat the jam up, just a bit, if it is especially thick- otherwise when spreading it you pull up some of the bottom mixture.)

Spread the rest of the flour mixture on top and press down, but not too hard. Cook for 15-20 minutes. start checking at 15 minutes for jam bubbling around the edges of the pan, once there is a fair amount of bubbling- its done!

Cool and cut into bars.

Well, I must have done something wrong because when the bars finally cooled and I eagerly cut myself one- it was horrible! Crumbly and dry in parts and sticky and gewy in others. WAY to sickly sweet, like eating jam rolled in sugar with some oats along for the ride. Not at all what I was expecting!

I plan on trying it again at a later date, and altering the recipe even more...hopefully with better results!

(don't let this reflect on the book though! I have made many other wonderful dishes from it, this one just didn't turn out so great).

update

Just a quick update: Little brother is OK. He is home and safe. We're in the middle of making dinner right now so I will write a bit later and give yummy recipes.

Popcorn days

In our house we call days that just go bat you-know-what crazy "Popcorn days". It started when my mom read a blog from Soule Mama whom she has been following for quite sometime now. This particular entry was written by the author's husband and described such a day where popcorn was for dinner--because that is all that anyone had the energy to make. We have adopted this phrase in our house and when its just one of those days we say "its been a popcorn day" or something like that.

As I type this my parents are driving to the hospital with my three year old little brother. He has had a nose bleed that started around 6:45, stopped right when we were ready to take him to the ER the first time and allowed him to sleep for a bit and then decided to start up again about 40 minutes ago. Today has been a Popcorn day. Tomorrow I will post some yummy recipe and hopefully it will bring you a full tummy and some happiness. For now though I am off to make popcorn (or maybe just eat some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies that are in the freezer- I'll post that recipe tomorrow! they are truly yummy and quick to make too!) and wait by the phone.

Beans and Rice-my way

Tonight, I decided that the meal of Sloppy Joes was just not enough for me. So at 9:30 or so I started making beans and rice. For me though beans are also not enough. I have to have veggies in with my beans. Most of the time I use what ever is in my refrigerator- a staple for me is squash of some kind.

First starting water for the rice- I wanted to be sure that everything would be done at the same time!

Pouring a little olive oil in my skillet so that my thinly sliced potatoes would not burn (or even worse stick!). I love the sound that oil makes when it is hot! I don't know why exactly but its this excited kind of sound that makes me happy- and a bit cautious, because lets face it, who really likes getting splattered by hot oil! I waited about 3 minutes then added in diced zucchini, diced tomatoes, and chopped chives (I would have used onions but it turned out we are completely out of onions! Time to go to the farmers market!).

I added the rice to the boiling water at this point.

Once the potatoes were starting to be somewhat tender I poured in a can of black beans, liquid and all. Next a liberal dash of red chili powder was added. Mixing it all together and then making sure to stir every few minutes after that so as not to have burnt food. By the time the liquid had cooked off, the rice was done and the potatoes were tender. Dinner (or 2nd dinner) was finished!

I was going to take a picture of my efforts but this meal is not exactly pretty looking. Tasty but not pretty.

I am going to play around with it some more- adding some different spices and veggies. It was truthfully a bit bland- adding a bit more chili powder would help. I am still a bit cautious of adding too much (one mistake where I dumped a huge- OK massive would be a better word for it- amount of chili powder in by accident and suddenly I am chili shy!)

If you want to try it:

1 small zucchini (or a 1/4 of a large zucchini)-diced

1 medium potato peeled and finely sliced

half of a small onion diced or several stocks of chives

3 smallish medium (but not cherry!) tomatoes diced

1 regular can of black beans

chili powder

Next time I would also add- a small yellow squash diced

Don't forget to cook the rice- starting before the rest of the meal!

1 cup uncooked rice

This made three servings and some left over rice.

If you try it let me know what you think and let me know if you come up with any improvements!

Have fun!