Grandma Trager's Gluten Free Oatmeal Cookies

Grandma Trager's cookies have been in my family for two generations now. I have no idea who this wonderful grandma is, but I got this out of an old cookbook that I inherited from my mom when I went off to college. Most of this cookbook is filled with recipes collected from the local women in South Bend, Indiana and it threw me for a loop when I first read recipes containing ingredients such as 'oleo' and 'lard'. Granted, we've learned a lot about trans fats in the last 20 years that would make us cringe when reading these older recipes, but Grandma Trager was a genius when it came to her recipe. Actually, it isn't much different than the famous Neiman-Marcus cookie recipe that has been floating through cyberspace as a forward in most everyone's inbox since the invention of said inbox.

It has taken me a while to learn the ins and outs of different flour blends to get around to working on converting this recipe. It has some things going for it that I just didn't want to mess with, such as the cinnamon and sugar soaked oats, so you are witnessing the perfected version my friend. In fact, it was her recipe that got me started on letting the cookie dough rest for several hours before baking.

Now, when it comes to measuring the brown sugar I don't pack my sugar because I am sensitive to sugar and too much just messes with my system. If you prefer a sweeter cookie, by all means pack away, but if this is still too sweet for your pallet, just reduce the sugar down to 1 cup. I actually forgot sugar in one of my batches and I was surprised that it still made for a good cookie (of course the kids didn't eat it, but it was their loss).

I make one half batch with just chocolate chips and for the second half I add raisins because of family preferences. I have made this recipe with both coconut and walnuts. Both variations are super yummy.



Ingredients:

2 cups Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Oats (1 cup ground fine and 1 cup coarsely ground)
1 cups Lundberg brown rice-milled in coffee grinder
1 cup sweet sorghum flour
1 1/2 cups golden brown sugar
2 tablespoons potato starch
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp guar gum (or xanthen)

Set aside for 10 minutes in a small bowl:
2 tablespoons flax seed-milled in a coffee grinder
6 tablespoons very hot water

1 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup oil
2 tsp vanilla
1 tablespoon of maple syrup/honey/brown rice syrup
1/4 tsp brown rice vinegar

Stir in options:
1 cup Enjoy Life chocolate chips
1 cup raisins
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup chopped walnuts

In a large bowl, mix all the dry ingredients and blend with a blender. This helps to blend the flours as well as break up any lumps that are in the brown sugar.

To the dry ingredients, add the premixed flax seed and water, applesauce, oil, maple syrup, vinegar, and vanilla. Blend well using a mixer for about a minute, making sure to scrape down the sides to make sure that there is no dry flour stuck to the sides of the bowl. Using a heavy duty spoon, stir in the chocolate chips and other add in ingredients.

Cover the dough with wax paper sitting directly on top and place it in the refrigerator for at least two hours (overnight would be even better). This helps the oats and the other flours to soak up the liquid. Do not skip this step. There is something about letting gluten free cookie dough rest in the fridge that helps the flour to soak up all the flavors of the other ingredients and it helps it to bake that much better.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. If using a baking stone like I do, preheat the stone with your oven. Spoon out the dough onto either a prepared baking stone or a cookie sheet with a little non-stick spray applied. Bake for 20 minutes or until the cookies are golden brown. Store the dough in the refrigerator in between batches. Makes about 4 dozen cookies. These store well in the freezer or an air tight container in the refrigerator.

This batch has raisins.

Home Made Dashijiru

Dashijiru is the base of many a Japanese dish. I am listing several varieties of dashi as a reference for those of you that wish to make authentic Japanese dishes completely from scratch. There is commercial dashi out there or you can just use water, but the addition of dashi gives you a depth of flavor much like chicken and beef stock does in American dishes.

Basic Kombudashi:

1-4" piece of dried kombu (I like Eden Organics)
4 cups/1 liter water

Soak kombu overnight in water. You can soak it for as little as an hour if you start with hot water, but the stock will not be as flavorful.

Bring water and kombu to a boil over high heat. Boil for 5-6 minutes. Turn off the heat and remove kombu*.

*This can be used thinly sliced and sauted in oil with a splash of tamari for a tasty side dish.


Katsuo-bushi Dashi:

1 cup bonito flakes by volume (these are vary fluffy-a handful will do)
4 cups of basic kombudashi

Add the bonito flakes to the kombudashi once the kombu is removed and cook it for an additional 3 minutes. Run the stock through a strainer to remove the bonito (if you have a cat or dog, this makes a great treat for them). This variation makes excellent soup stock for your udon or ramen noodles.

Shiitake Dashi:

4 dehidrated shiitake mushrooms
1 cup of boiling hot water

Place shiitake into the hot water and let it soak for up to 30 minutes. Remove the shiitake and use it in your recipes. The resulting stock can be saved for later use or used in any recipe that also calls for shiitake mushrooms such as my Sauted Chicken and Dandelion Leaves.

Simmered Sweet Potatoes Nikkorogashi Style

Nikkorogashi is a simmered Japanese dish that usually consists of taro potato (It's not really a potato, it's a distant relative of the philodendron) and onion simmered in dashi stock and soy sauce. Some variations have mirin added, but when using sweet potato I find that this recipe is sweet enough to not need the added sugar. I used white garnet yams in the photo below, but you can easily swap them out for regular sweet potatoes or even your Idaho baking potato and still get wonderful results.

There are several kinds of dashi, but the most common one now days is in the form of Dashi-no-motto. Dashi-no-motto is a powdered seasoning that can be bough in packets and added to your dishes mixed in a little water to form a broth. Though Dashi-no-motto tastes great, it is made from yeast and loaded with preservatives and msg (unless you are lucky enough to find the msg-less variety). I prefer making my Dashi from scratch and I usually make kombudashi. If you don't have the time to make kombudashi from scratch, the easiest thing to do is just use water. You won't get the depth of flavor that you would have with dashi, but between the caramelized onions and the tamari, you still will have a very tasty side dish.

It is also very important that the pan you use has a lid. The majority of simmered dishes in Japan are simmered under cover and it does affect the flavor of the dish. This belief dates back to times when the Japanese believed that if you left a dish uncovered while cooking that evil spirits would get into your food and spoil the dish. I don't believe in the evil spirits, but your liquid will evaporate before the potatoes are cooked and you'll end up with dried out and flavorless potatoes instead.

Ingredients:

1 large sweet potato or yam, diced
1 medium sized onion cut into thin slices
1 Tablespoon/15 ml sesame oil (not toasted!)
1 cup/200ml kombudashi (see link for details)
3 Tablespoons/45 ml Wheat Free Tamari

Heat up a dutch oven or large sauce pot over medium heat and add the oil. Once the oil is smoking hot, add the onions and stir, being careful not to burn them. Once the onions are translucent, add the potato and saute until coated with oil.

Add the kombudashi and tamari. Stir to mix and cover. Turn the heat down to medium low and cook for 10-15 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. Serve warm. This also makes great leftovers as it tastes even better the next day.

Kelly's Gluten Free Granola

My friend calls this recipe the "oatmeal cookie in a bowl" granola. I started making my own granola long before becoming gluten free. It was more a means to make it economically since really good granola is pricey and I've never been a real big cereal fan. This recipe is easy to change to your own tastes and preferences. If you are not a fan of brown sugar I'm sure that coconut sugar, brown rice syrup, or honey would be easy substitutions in this recipe. Just remember that brown rice syrup and honey have some water in them and you might want to decrease your water amount accordingly.

That is also true of what nuts you choose to use here. I prefer walnuts, but this would be good with almonds or any other nut. I like to grind all my nuts and seeds up. This makes the seeds easier to digest and I like the overall texture that the ground nuts have. Plus, the nuts toast better when ground up into smaller pieces. Really, once the nuts and seeds are ground up, this is a dump everything in a big bowl and mix type of recipe. This is a great one to have the kids help with too. I keep this in the refrigerator in an airtight container for up to a week, but you can freeze it in big batches and it will last up to 6 months, if it isn't eaten before then.

Kelly’s Granola

Ingredients:

One 32 oz Bob's Red Mill GF Rolled Oats

One 8 oz or 2 2/3 cups of Let’s Do…Organic Finely Shredded Organic Coconut Unsweatened

1 cup Toasted Sesame Seeds-milled in coffee grinder

1 cup Certified Organic Flax Seed-milled in coffee grinder

1 one pound bag Sunflower Kernels

1 one pound bag Walnut Pieces-ground fine in a food processor

1 cup Oil

1 cup Water

1 tsp Fine Sea Salt

1 cup Golden Brown Cane Sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F, set aside two cookie sheets with sides or two sheet cake pans.

Combine oats, coconut, flax seed, sesame seed, sunflower seeds, walnuts, and salt in a large bowl.

In a sauce pan, mix together the oil, sugar, & water. Heat until boiling. Pour over rest of the ingredients, stirring thoroughly.

Spread mixture onto cookie sheets and bake for 20 minutes, stir. Repeat this process three more times until granola is toasted. 2nd time for 20 minutes and 3rd and 4th times for 15 minutes each. Oats should be crisp and brown, but coconut should not be burned.

Allow to cool thoroughly and place in an airtight container for storage. Can be stored up to 3 weeks without refrigeration.Raisins and GF/CF chocolate chips are my favorite add-ins and I serve it with unsweetened hemp milk.

To Run or not to Run? "Lifestyle" Decisions

I have been thinking a lot about running my first race lately. I grew up not thinking of myself as much of a runner, and here I’m thinking of entering the Boulder Bolder which is held every year on Memorial Day. Now, I’m not saying that the distance would be that hard for me to do. Not to brag, but I completed my first 10K distance just last Sunday. I think I’m wondering more at the whole experience of racing. The one time that I went to the Boulder Bolder was as a spectator and it looked like a big, crazy (some runners complete with costumes, but this is Boulder we’re talking about) mob when they took off at the starting line. One of the things I love about running is being in the outdoors. It’s just me and the world in motion. It not only gives me a break in my routine, but it is a stimulant; a rush of endorphins and stimuli that one can’t get from being still.

When I run, I can let my body get in a zone and just go for as long as I need, while my mind wonders through random thoughts, shifting between the internal and external. Breathing? Yep, still feels good and steady. Is my foot hitting the pavement the way I want it to? Yeah, but maybe I could spread my toes a little more for a better landing. Hey, didn’t I just hear this song on my MP3? Oh, there’s that osprey again. I bet that’s his favorite branch. I love that the randomness of the thought is sometimes what helps me to stay in my zone better, allowing me to complete my run without focusing on all the little things; the little things that would stop a less experienced athlete from pushing the boundaries in search of what their body is capable of.

The thing about running is that I haven’t been running that long. As I mentioned in my first post, I am a P90X graduate. This is an extreme program, but there are some thing that I learned about myself while on this video based, at home program that I would like to pass on to you. This program is not for everyone, but in order to explain some of my theories on fitness better, I think I’ll have to take my readers back to a couple of years ago. Two years ago, I was back to normal, at least as normal as I thought life as a wife and mother with hypothyroidism should be. I’d been on the gluten free diet for a year and I had been playing with the elimination diet for a couple of years before that. Actually, there were several foods that I had given up due to pregnancy preference that I never really enjoyed post baby, but I digress.

My numbers where finally in a range that I would call normal. My TSH levels were low enough that I felt good and it had been a small victory that I finally talked my doctor into upping my prescription so that I didn’t feel so tired all the time. Sure, I had some baby chub, but don’t we all after two kids? The problem was, and I didn’t realize it until it was almost too late, that I had anemia due to iron deficiency and messed up cycles. It was bad enough that I had to go to the ER for a four-pint blood transfusion, because my body wasn’t keeping up. I don’t know what the scientific numbers are, but a friend of mine mentioned to me, after my low iron levels had sent me to the ER, that it was common for people with gluten problems to have nutrient deficiencies. I’ve read enough to know that she was more than likely correct in her assumption that my body wasn’t lacking nutrients, but the ability to absorb them.

This was the shot in the arm, no pun intended, that I needed to get me serious about my physical health. I was already aware of my digestive and food allergy related problems, but I still needed to do more to get my body to work the way it was meant to. Thank goodness, God knows everything that I need long before I need it and he is the one who created me the way I am, because he put people and events in my life in the right sequence to help me on my road to recovery. I don’t think I would have started writing again like I did in high school if I hadn’t had been put in a position where doing everyday chores became a struggle. I ended up spending that time using my mind and practicing my creative writing skills, when I wasn’t taking care of the basic needs of my children. Without it, I don’t think I would have had the courage to write this blog.

My body was weak from the anemia, but I got tired of not being able to do very much after the first couple of months. It was about this time that school started and we live close enough that I could walk the kids to school. The first couple of weeks were hard because I was wiped out after just walking my son to Kindergarten every day; pushing his younger brother in the stroller as we went. I have Irish/German stubbornness in my veins, so I knew I had to keep at it. Like the age-old saying, “What doesn’t kill you will only make you stronger.” After those first few weeks, I was finally able to walk the kids to school at a normal pace and I started feeling well enough to get other stuff done around the house too.

Before kid number two, I had been rollerblading to lose the baby chub from my oldest son and I did this for many of the same reasons I love to run. I decided to bust out the roller blades and the jogging stroller and the more stamina I gained, the more my competitive streak started to push me to try longer distances and different routes. I started to feel human again. My friends and my husband were very supportive of these little steps to gain my health and I think every positive comment just propelled me to keep at it. I also noticed, that the days that I didn’t do something, I would physically ache by the end of the day. Since aches are a part of hypothyroidism, I just decided that whatever I was doing physically was working out those aches during my workout and that just made me realize that just because I have a bad thyroid, that I don’t have to let it determine how I feel. By exercising and eating right, I was daily gaining back the health that many of us take for granted.

By this point in my story, my husband decided that he’d had enough of being out of shape and had picked up the P90X DVD’s from a college at work. I was skeptical about this infomercial workout program and told him that he could do what he wanted, but there was no way that I was going to join him. It took the first round of me watching him try not to kill himself to realize that I could do this workout. I started to pick and choose videos from the program and try them out on those days that I couldn’t rollerblade for one reason or another. I had been told by a chiropractor that I should do yoga to relieve the aches and pains that I had from my thyroid, so that was one of the first ones that I tried. Not an easy workout by any means, but I was soon hooked.

It took me a while to do the entire program according to the book and almost a year after my trip to the ER to have the stamina to even attempt the six day a week program. It seriously kicked my butt, but it was as if I was back in that stinky gym in high school lifting weights and I was loving it. I was seeing muscles that I hadn’t seen since my landscaper days and my clothes were threatening to fall off the more calories that I burned. I was hooked. Fast forward to last fall when I decided that I had done one round and I was ready for the next challenge. A mommy friend of mine mentioned that she was starting to run again and I thought, “I’m in pretty good shape after one round. I wonder how far I could run.”

I decided to start by running home after dropping the kids off at school, a little over ¾ of a mile one way. Soon, I was running farther and farther. I worked it into my workout schedule, because they have a variation called “Doubles” where you have the option of doing cardio on the strength training days. Not only was I hooked on Tony Horton’s workouts, but now I was running. One of the women at church, who happened to be a stay at home mom and a half-marathon runner, wanted to get a running club going. I was maxing out at 3 miles a couple of times a week at this point, but decided to give it a shot. The first time I ran almost 5 miles and was ready for a good nap. Now I’m running on average 6 miles a couple times a week and our group usually runs between 3.5 miles and 6 miles, depending on how everyone is feeling that day.

Which brings me back to the present day. Should I take my running to the competitive level? Probably, but let’s just say the Boulder Bolder question is still up in the air until I have at least one other person that is willing to run in that mob with me. I’ve learned that exercise is a crucial part of keeping my body working right. God made our bodies to work and it is much happier when it does so. I also don’t fight the aches that come with my chronic illness and I don’t feel chronically ill when I’m active. I’ve also learned that if I want to be successful, in life as well as fitness, small obtainable goals are key. I don’t look past the next 90 days or the next potential race with my fitness goals, but I do know that I am able to keep at it daily much better than I ever have in my adult life.

Health is important to me personally. I’m not in it for fame, even though our running club did end up on the front page of the local paper (talk about a shocker there). Would I love to win a race some day? You bet! Will it be this year? Personally, I’ll be happy if I’m at the front of the pack. Do I want to end up looking like I did two years ago, out of shape, fat, and unhealthy? I’ll give you a resounding “NO!” I know what it takes to look this good and I want to keep it that way. I’ve learned that being on top of my health has so much more to do with not only what I eat, but how I treat my body. God gave me this body so that I might do his work. I can’t do that if I’m flat on my back with more health problems than I know what to do with. Am I cured? No, but my numbers are good and I feel great. I plan to take this one small goal at a time and see where it takes me. Who knows, I might try for a marathon one day, but I think I need to go shoe shopping first. I’ve almost worn clear through this pair.

It’s all part of the “Lifestyle” now.