Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Cookies - two ways

These little cookies might just be my new favorite - they are super easy, require only 4 ingredients, gluten-free and delicious. I've made these a few times and two different versions - Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies and Cris-Cross Peanut Butter Cookies. Both are great; it just depends on whether you want chocolate with your peanut butter or not ;). You can check out the original recipe here.

Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies

2 eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups peanut butter
2 cups sugar minus 2 tablespoons
bag of Hersey Kisses

Preheat oven to 355 degrees.

In a small bowl, beat eggs and baking soda. In a mixer, blend peanut butter and sugar until smooth. Add egg mixture into the peanut butter mixture and stir well. Roll into 1 inch balls, place on cookie sheet and flatten. Cookies will flatten upon baking, so leave enough space between cookies on the sheet. Bake 8 - 12 minutes. Let cool on the cookie sheet for a couple of minutes before placing the Kiss in the center of the cookie. Remove cookies from sheet and further cool on a cooling rack or aluminum foil.

Cris-Cross Peanut Butter Cookies

2 eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups peanut butter
2 cups sugar minus 2 tablespoons

Preheat oven to 355 degrees.

In a small bowl, beat eggs and baking soda. In a mixer, blend peanut butter and sugar until smooth. Add egg mixture into the peanut butter mixture and stir well. Roll into 1 inch balls, place on cookie sheet and flatten with a fork, creating a Cris-cross pattern. Cookies will flatten upon baking, so leave enough space between cookies on the sheet. Bake 8 - 12 minutes. Let cool on the cookie sheet for a couple of minutes before placing on a cooling rack or aluminum foil.

No Sugar Coconut Apple Cinnamon Cookies

Welp, I fell off of the healthy bandwagon (I blame 4th of July, World Cup and all the awesome breweries in walking distance of my new house) and needed to get back on track, so it's back to 21DSD, although it's more of a 10DSD mini detox since I'm off to the east coast to visit family at the end of this week. I'm a week in a feeling good, although I learned the hard way yesterday on my run that I need to add the "energy" allotment of a small amount of starchy carbs to my diet. Otherwise, this time around has been a lot easier than the first. I think knowing what to expect and being overly prepared have really helped.

Anyway, hubs and I were craving something sweet and I was itching to bake something. I wasn't in love with the No Sugar Pumpkin Spice Cookies I'd made the last time, so I decided to look for something else. I found a recipe for Not-Sweet Cinnamon Cookies in the 21DSD cookbook that looked promising until I saw it required the dreaded BANANA. Ugh. So instead, I substituted green apple. I was nervous about how the consistency would turn not using banana, but I was pleasantly surprised.

These cookies turned out to be quite tasty and I will definitely be making them again! Maybe with bacon..................stay tuned.

No Sugar Coconut Apple Cinnamon Cookies

1/4 cup mashed green apple (about one small apple)
2 eggs
2 teaspoons melted coconut oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon coconut flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1/4 teaspoon sea salt

Preheat oven to 350.

Wisk together apple, eggs, oil and vanilla. Sift in the coconut flour and cinnamon and stir until well mixed. Stir in coconut and salt.

Spoon onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper into 9 equal portions and flatten.

Bake about 15 minutes. Cool completely on cooling rack or foil.

No Sugar Pumpkin Spice Cookies

I mentioned in my last post, I lost my mind and decided to do a 21 Day Sugar Detox. One part that was
especially hard for me, since I'm used to making sweet treats, was trying to avoid baking. I decided I *needed* to make something and found a Sugar Detox Pumpkin Cookie recipe. I read through some of the comments and saw that others had made some modifications to make them tastier, so I decided to come up with some of my own (on top of the high altitude adjustments).

They tasted good enough, but I felt like they were missing something, so I decided pair them with icing from a scone recipe in the 21-Day Sugar Detox Cookbook.

Obviously, they are still technically missing something (SUGAR), but I think they were pretty good, all things considered. They are definitely great if you decide to take the plunge and do the sugar detox. As an added bonus, they are gluten-free as well ;)

No Sugar Pumpkin Spice Cookies

3/4 cup pumpkin puree

2 teaspoons coconut oil

2 eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon coconut flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

Icing 

(optional)

1/2 cup coconut butter, melted

1 tablespoon coconut oil, chilled and chopped 

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 teaspoons cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350.

In a mixer, whisk together pumpkin, oil, eggs and vanilla until well blended. Sift spices and coconut flour into the mixture and mix until fully combined. Stir in the coconut until mixed in thoroughly. Roll into 1-inch size balls and flatten slightly onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes or until browned on edges. Let cool on parchment paper or cooling rack. Drizzle icing on top or dip as desired (if desired, I don't want to seem like I'm pushing an agenda or something).

For the icing: Combine coconut butter and coconut oil and stir until oil is completely melted. Add vanilla and cinnamon until fully mixed. Drizzle over the cookies or use as a dip.

Bacon and Eggs Muffins

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So...the girl who has a blog about baking, mostly sweet treats, decided to do a 21 day sugar detox. It was tough; you would be surprised as to how many items have sugar in them that you wouldn't even realize. Never before have I looked at so many labels! It also forced me to plan ahead and prep a lot of food. It was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun (especially since hubby did most of the cleaning after I destroyed the kitchen almost nightly).

Most of the recipes I used were directly from the 21-Day Sugar Detox book and cookbook, although I did make up a few of my own and modified some from the books, one such modification is below. 

This Bacon and Eggs Muffin is an adaption of the author's Buffalo Chicken Egg Muffins, which are quite delicious, and that you should totally try.

I'm not what you call a dieter, although one time in college I did Atkins and I felt gross. Really gross. Having basically only meat and cheese and grease does not work for me. And neither does eating a set number of meals per day. 21DSD (that's what the cool kids are calling it) has lots of food on the approved list and you eat when you're hungry; which makes sense to me.

I suppose now you want to know my results. Well, my skin cleared up and I have been sleeping better.

And I lost 6 pounds.

 

Nope, this isn't one of those before and after photography tricks. I'd be much skinnier in the after if it was ;)

It was a great kick-start to getting out of "fat season" and getting back on a healthy track. While I don't plan to eat like this forever, I have picked up some good habits that I hope to continue.

Yup, I totally took a pic after I'd had a few bites

Bacon and Eggs Muffins

1 1/2 pounds bacon

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

12 eggs

1/4 cup sliced green onions (scallions)

sea salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 425. Prepare 12 cups of a muffin tin with parchment paper muffin liners (I've tried it with regular liners - does not work!).

Cook bacon your favorite way until fully cooked and chop into pieces.  In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs with the green onions, salt and pepper. Pour egg mixture into muffin cups, filling about halfway. Gently spoon about 1/4 cup of the bacon on top. Bake for 40 minutes or until the muffins rise and become golden brown around the edges.

Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have a quite a few friends who have to eat gluten-free and I always feel badly when I'm all like, "look at these delicious treats that I made that you can't eat or else you will be in an immense amount of pain." Yeah, not cool, not cool at all.

I knew that finding gluten-free recipes was becoming easier, but I did have some trouble finding ones that were for high altitude. I was pretty excited when I somehow stumbled upon this page and even more excited when I realized that the blogger had a cookbook out as well. Obvi, I immediately ordered it. The book has some great ideas, but I did tweak this recipe a bit since I prefer more salt and the batter was really dry. Also, the directions were a little confusing/unclear. But it got the important things right so I was satisfied.

I was more nervous than usual making these since I've never made any gluten-free desserts before and had no idea how they would turn out. I always think of gluten-free as being pretty terrible and I certainly did not want to force my friends to eat something terrible and then have to pretend that it wasn't terrible. I was also nervous cause I was petrified that even though I was following the recipe that I would somehow screw it up and put gluten into it and then my friends would be sick. But, thankfully, neither of these things occurred.

I suspected that everything was going to be okay when I tasted a bit of the batter and realized that it tasted exactly the same as regular Chocolate Chip Cookies. I knew that everything was going to be okay when they got out of the oven and my husband asked to taste test them and then proceeded to eat them and I had to tell him to stop because I was afraid there wouldn't be any left for the people they were intended. And further proof that they were a hit? I was told that they were better than the ones my friends had gotten from a bakery.

Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 1/2 cups white rice flour

3/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips
2 tablespoons water

Preheat oven to 375.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, cornstarch, xanthan gum, baking soda and salt. In a large bowl, cream sugars and butter. Add egg and vanilla and beat until smooth. Add flour mixture slowly and thoroughly, a little at a time. Stir in chocolate chips and water. Drop cookies, about an inch around, onto an ungreased cookie sheet about an inch apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove cookies from the cookie sheet immediately and place on a cooling rack or wax paper