free! free! free!!!

my friend's third child, hazel, is allergic to many of the things i bake with everyday; dairy, wheat and soy. it's her 4th birthday and i wanted her to have something special that she could eat that wouldn't give her the itchiest arms on the planet! i texted her mum asking if she could have this product or that one and kept notes. i found a couple interesting recipies but the one i'm showing you now is a very simple one for spelt cookies (here). this cookie is dairy free, wheat free and soy free!
i didn't want to use oil for the cookies, so i got some organic coconut butter and softened it up. the only problem i had with this recipe was the directions. i think you should make these like you would any other cookie: cream the fat and sugar (in this case apple juice and oil) and then add in the flour mixture until just combined. i also think when i make these again i'll substitute the apple juice concentrate for apple sauce. the texture is very dense and combined with these milk free chocolate chips is a really great little cookie!

SPELT COOKIES

Ingredients

2 1/3 cups spelt flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup apple juice concentrate, thawed
1/2 cup oil
3/4 cup milk-free unsweetened or semi-sweet chips
-- (carob or chocolate) OR
3/4 cup chopped nuts, any kind

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly oil baking sheet. In a bowl combine the spelt flour and baking soda. In a separate bowl mix the oil and apple juice concentrate, and stir into the flour mixture, until just mixed. Fold in the chips or nuts.

Drop by heaping teaspoonful onto the baking sheet and bake 10-14 minutes or until they begin to brown. Using a spatula, immediately remove to wire racks. Allow to cool.

For sweeter cookies boil down 1 1/4 cups of the apple juice concentrate to measure 3/4 cup.

for a cold or your soul

quite a few people lately have asked me how i make my chicken soup. it's really quite simple, and there are a few ways you can go about doing it. personally, i like to add my veggies into the broth right before it's ready to be served that way they don't turn to mush. i hate mushy veggies. blech!

how do you make the stock???

the first thing you do is get a whole chicken and cook it up however you like and have that for dinner. the next morning, take whatever meat is left on them bones and put them aside for later... the bones is what you want right now. put them in the biggest pot you've got, cover with water, toss in a bay leaf or two, cover and turn the burner on low. every hour or so, remove the lid and scoop off the bubbles and oil and discard, you don't want that in your soup. be careful to not let the water boil as tempting as it is... it will cloud your stock. you can also use turkey bones or beef bones if you're into that. of course, you can also just skip this step entirely and use prepared stock, there's nothing wrong with that!

what kind of vegetables do you put in???

we like a lot of veggies in our soup, but you don't necessarily need to add as much as i do, or as many, but the soup is better with more veggies! my mouth is watering thinking of this...

i usually chop up a yellow onion, 4 garlic cloves (or less if you don't like garlic), 4 good sized carrots; you can just slice 'em, or dice 'em, 4 stalks of cellery, a cup of frozen corn and cup of frozen peas (i use fresh when it's available). i also add some basil and salt and pepper (to taste) to this lovely batch of goodness in a deep sided pan. start with the onion and garlic in some butter, then add the carrots and cellery, etc... take some of the stock and cook the veggies in that. when it's all cooked up, add it to the stock (don't forget to strain the bones!), and boil up some tiny pasta or egg noodles either in the soup or alone and add it in like i do.

by the way, check out my friend Gabrielle's blog. she's a writer and has a great chicken soup story...

back to it!

i've been a horrible blogger, not posting since june! yikes! i'm not going to go on and on about how hard it is to work at home with 2 kids, a dog, a cat, and a house to run, and vacations to go on and so forth, so i'm not...
that said, while i was busy with everything i still did find some time to be creative in the kitchen! not as much as before mind you, but still creative. i successfully made dorie's chocolate ganache ice cream (without making scrambled egg custard!), and a pretty great wild blackberry frozen yogurt. it was a hot summer!
we also tried growing fruits and veggies in our garden this year. zucchini, tomatoes, potatoes, peas, blueberries, raspberries, (thornless)blackberries, rhubarb and strawberries were all a success! i didn't plant the corn, carrots, cantaloup, and squashes early enough and so they were not so great, and "someone" ate the beans. this time last year we planted some fruit trees: a flemish pear, honeycrisp apple, and a fuji apple. we didn't get any pears, but we got a pretty decent crop of honeycrisp in early september, and just last week i picked the fujis... had enough to make our thanksgiving pie! who knows, maybe next year we'll have enough apples for 2 pies!