Egg Free Molasses Crinkles

These cookies will simply make your mouth water!  They are so delicious!  I can eat them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In these pictures, I doubled the recipe.  It is easy to double, takes a bit to bake, but then I freeze half.  That way I don't have to be baking cookies all the time.  I freeze in quart sized baggies and take out as needed.  Freezing cookies works best in a stand alone freezer, at least in my experience.

3/4 C Butter, softened
1 C Brown sugar
1 TBSP ground flaxseed + 2 TBSP water, mix and let stand 3-5 minutes
1/4 C Molasses
3 C flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cloves
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger

For Rolling dough balls in:
1/3 C Granulated Sugar

 Preheat oven to 350 Degrees.
 
In a small cup, mix ground flaxseed and water.  Set aside.  In a medium sized bowl, mix flour, salt, baking soda, cloves, cinnamon, and ginger.  Set aside. Put granulated sugar in a bowl; use a bowl that will be easy to roll your dough balls in. Set aside.

In bosch mixer with a cookie dough attachment, mix butter and brown sugar until well combined.  Add flaxseed/water combo and molasses. Mix on speed 1 until combined.

Add dry ingredients and mix on speed one.  After dry ingredients are mixed in, if needed, add 1/2-1 TBSP more of water until dough reaches "sugar cookie dough consistency".  Don't add too much water, just add slowly as the mixer is running.

Using a pampered chef small scoop, scoop balls of dough into your bowl of sugar.  When ball is coated, place on a cookie sheet.  No greasing necessary!  I can fit 15 of these small balls on a standard cookie sheet.

Bake at 350 degrees for 9-10 minutes.  Watch carefully.  You only want these lightly browned.  Over cooking molassess cookies leads to hard cookies.  Molasses cookies should be nice and soft.

Cool on a wired rack.  Then store in an airtight plastic container-these work better than a plastic zip baggie if you are storing at room temperature.  Otherwise, freeze in freezer safe baggies in a stand alone freezer.

Happy Baking!  If you give these to your neighbors...they will always ask for more.:)

Homemade Taco Seasoning

One of the things I had to figure out right away when my son was diagnosed with his food allergies was how to make a taco seasoning that we liked.  You have to be so careful which brands of spices you purchase because many contain soy or are made in a factory with other allergens.  We have been very happy with McCormick brand and many organic brands.

It amazed me how it took several tries to get the recipe flavor to our liking.  I hope you will enjoy the recipe that I have come up with as I have adapted to our family's taste buds!  Happy cooking!

2 TBSP chili powder
1 TBSP cumin
1 TBSP paprika

1 TBSP oregano
1 TBSP onion powder
1 TBSP garlic powder
1 TBSP regular salt or "Real Salt"
1/2 TBSP pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Pour all spices into a canning 1/2 pt jar.  Put lid on tightly and shake well until all spices are well combined.  You can make it in bigger batches, of course, just use a larger jar. 

Homemade Granola Bars

August was very busy with two family reunions, sick kids, and the whole getting ready for going back to school hustle and bustle!  Now the kids are all better, I've recovered from planning two family reunions, and the kids have all necessities for school.  Now, I have time to blog.:)

The recipe I'm sharing today is an essential for packing lunches...homemade granola bars.  This recipe is so simple, just FOUR ingredients!  I like simple, and my kids like eating simple.  One preference I have on my oats is that the type you purchase in the large plastic gallon buckets(mine is currently a 23 lb bucket) work much better than the ones you buy in the small paper containers on the breakfast isle at the store.  I have purchased mine at Caselot sales or at Costco.  They seem "fresher" to me and make a better granola bar. So, without further delay...

Homemade Granola Bars

6 C quick oats
5 C Rice Krispies brand rice krispies( or any other kind if you're not avoiding soy)
1 bag Enjoy Life mini chocolate chips
2 cans sweetened and condensed milk

Grease a cookie sheet that has sides with butter.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a very large bowl, combine first three ingredients. Stir until well combined.

Then add the two cans of sweetened and condensed milk, and stir until it is fully incorporated.

Pour into prepared cookie sheet and press down into pan.  I like using a "fold over" sandwich baggie that I have dipped in softened butter so that it doesn't stick to my hand or the baggie.

Once it is pressed down well(it should reach about to the top of the sides when pressed down), bake in the oven for 20 minutes.  My lovely oven doesn't brown evenly, so I rotated it at 10 minutes.  Hopefully you all have fabulous ovens and won't need to do that!  The granola bars will be lightly browned when done.

When done, remove pan from oven and set on a cooling rack.  Allow the granola bars to cool about 40 minutes before cutting.  Then allow to cool completely before removing from the pan(2-4 hours is best).  You will usually need to run a knife through again.  It is important for them to cool completely so that the sweetened and condensed milk has time to reabsorb.  Otherwise your granola bars will not come out looking very nicely because they are too gooey.

I cut mine in 9x4 rows so they are the shape of a granola bar...like this photo:

Once cooled completely, using a spatula, I carefully take out the first row.  Then, I place them either wrapped individually in plastic wrap in a freezer safe plastic baggie or I just put them in quart-sized freezer baggies without the plastic wrap if I'm in a hurry.

We go through these like crazy with seven people in our household, so there isn't much time for them to get freezer burn or dry out.  If you have less people in your household, then I highly recommend wrapping them in plastic wrap prior to placing them in a freezer baggie.  Then just pull these out each morning when you're packing lunches and wa-la you just made awesome granola bars for much cheaper then purchasing them at the store.  And there is no worry over nut contamination or soy.  Yeah!

I really hope you enjoy these.  Please leave a comment and let me know if you needed to adapt in another way!  If you can enjoy nuts in your household and want to add nuts, simply decrease the amount of oats and rice krispies equal to the amount of nuts you want to put in.  We can't do nuts, seeds, or coconut in our household, so we are pretty basic here.  But basic is pretty TASTY!

Have a happy lunch packing week! 

Baking With Flaxseed

This is the flaxseed I always use when I bake to replace the eggs in a recipe.  On the back of this package, it says to replace an egg with 1 TBSP flaxseed plus 3 TBSP water.  In baking, I only use 2 TBSP water for cakes and muffins, and start with 2 TBSP in cookies(**I add 1/2 TBSP usually after the dough is mixed if it needs a little more moisture-if you add too much your cookies won't turn out).





















http://www.amazon.com/Premium-Gold-Flaxseed-Organic-Milled/dp/B008PUMAB4/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1438269244&sr=8-9&keywords=cold+milled+flaxseed


I have yet to find a truly good brownie recipe where this works, but in cookies, cakes, and muffins, this works nicely.  Some times you need to up your flour 1/4-1/2 C to help the cake/cupcakes to not fall as much.  You will have your cakes fall a bit in the middle, don't worry, just use more frosting!  That is one sacrifice we make with using flaxseed.

Flaxseed has helped me so much to make all the things I love for my family.  It also has been a game of try and try again.  Cooking without eggs can be very frustrating.  But be patient with yourself.  Elevation, makes a difference too.  I live in the Salt Lake City, Utah area, so play with your recipes to achieve what works best with your location.

 One other tip with cookies and flaxseed is that they tend to go stale faster than when using eggs.  So I bake my cookies, cool completely and then freeze.  It only takes a few minutes out of the freezer before you can eat them.  Or if you can't wait, then microwave for a few seconds.:)

Happy Baking! Check out my egg free cinnamon rolls here:  Egg Free Cinnamon Rolls

Egg Free Banana Bread

1 C granulated sugar
1 C brown sugar
2/3 C butter, softened
2 TBSP flaxseed + 4 TBSP water, mix in a small bowl and let stand 2-3 minutes
4 lg ripe bananas, mashed
6 TBSP Dannon plain yogurt http://www.dannon.com/dannon-all-natural/
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
4 C unbleached flour

Sugar for sprinkling on top(makes it look pretty)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  I love how my bread turns out in disposable aluminum mini loaf pans.  I just wash and reuse them.  The always cook through and turn out great.  So, grease pans with butter, and then flour them(put a tbsp or so of flour in the pan and turning the pan and tapping it coat the buttered pan with flour).  Set aside.  In a medium sized bowl, mix flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda.  Set aside.

In a bosch mixer, cream sugars and butter on speed 1.  Then add flaxseed/water combo( this will look gelled when ready), bananas, and yogurt.  Then add your dry ingredients and mix again.  Scoop dough into prepared pans, filling them about 1/2-2/3 full.  I just try to make all six mini loaf pans equal.  Sprinkle with sugar on top.

Bake at 375 degrees for about 40 minutes or until a tooth pick come out clean and the top is lightly browned.  Remove loaf from pans, and let cool on a wire rack.  Serve warm or cooled completely.

This recipe will WOW your neighbors!  Most people I know can't believe I make these without eggs!

You can use a different type of mixer, I used to use a hand mixer until I got my BOSCH universal mixer.  You can get one here:

http://www.amazon.com/Bosch-Universal-Plus-Kitchen-Machine/dp/B0016KU16G

Soy Free Sweet and Sour Chicken & Rice

2 large chicken breasts, cubed

Olive oil

½ onion, minced

1 carrot, thinly sliced

½-1 green pepper, chopped (may use whatever colors and amount desired)

Sauce:

1 C pineapple juice(100 % pineapple juice canned with the fruit + a little water to equal 1 cup)

½ can tomato sauce

1/3 C ketchup

½ TBSP Worcestershire sauce

1 TBSP apple cider vinegar

1/2 C brown sugar, packed

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

¼ tsp ginger

2-3 cloves garlic, minced

Add:

1 C pineapple chunks( I cut the “sliced” pineapples into chunks)

1 ½ -2 TBSP cornstarch (mix it with a little cold water first, then pour in)

Before beginning to cook, it is easier to have the chicken and veggies all chopped/minced.  In a large skillet with a lid, cook chicken in a small amount of olive oil.  While chicken is cooking, make the sauce.  Then when the chicken is just about done, add the onion and carrots.  Cook for about five minutes.  Then add the green pepper, and cook 2-3 more minutes.  Pour in the sauce and add the pineapple chunks.  Bring to a boil, then turn down and simmer 15-20 minutes or until carrots are tender.  Add cornstarch/water mix and stir until the sauce thickens.  Serve over rice.

Rice:

4 cups water

salt

2 Cups good quality rice

Bring water to a boil, lightly salt.  Then add rice and turn heat all the way down to low.  Cook rice for 35-40 minutes.  I like to check the rice at 35 minutes, fluff with a fork, then let cook  a few more minutes. If you start your rice just before cooking the chicken, they will be done about the same time.

Yogurt is not created equal

One thing that surprised me when we began our food allergy journey was that sour cream was impossible to find without soy.  Then I remembered people saying you can substitute yogurt.  So I began looking for a yogurt with nothing else added.  At first it was a struggle, then I saw this one from Dannon

This "all natural" yogurt is actually what it says!  Shout out to Dannon!  Just look at the INGREDIENT...yes I said ingredient...ONE ingredient!













 I use this to replace sour cream in all my baking.  Look for future posts using this yogurt in banana bread, taquitos, and a Delicious marinade for chicken!