Holiday Baking: Festive, Naturally Sweetened, Wheat and Gluten Free Raspberry Gems

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I’ve been making a cookie like this for years and it’s always been a favorite. As good as it was however,  this year I decided to give the recipe a major make-over. Now in addition to being vegan and naturally sweetened, these cookies are wheat and gluten-free as well, with rice flour substituting for the wheat and quinoa flakes standing in for the oatmeal. If anything, I like the revised cookies better, with their lighter, more delicate crumb. Baking with an awareness of gluten sensitivities forces me to get creative and consider ingredients in new ways, and it’s a challenge I like and find interesting. Use any kind of jam, but to me raspberry is the best–its deep red color looks just right on a holiday table. Full recipe after the jump….

Great Food Fast: Peanut Butter-Brown Rice Crispy Bars, Easy to Make, a Treat to Eat

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Rice crispy bars have been around since the 1950′s, but here’s an updated version full of the protein goodness of peanuts,  the crunchiness of crisps made from organic brown rice, and mildly sweetened with grains as well. Cut these small, and they’re elegant enough to serve with Japanese tea, cut a little bigger, they could be after-scho0l snacks for kids.  You’ll like this too: once your ingredients are assembled, you can make them in about 15 minutes.  If you don’t feel like making bars, press them together like popcorn balls–fun to eat either way (recipe after the jump).

Energy Bars– Why Not Make Them at Home?

This past week I was cooking for ninety hungry guys on retreat and I bought them a couple of packages of surprisingly good energy bars at Costco. They were full of dried fruits and seeds, with no preservatives or corn syrup. I decided to try to reproduce them, using whole grain products, natural sweeteners and mostly organic ingredients.  As research, I must have read 20 recipes on line and wasn’t satisfied with any of them.  So, as usual, I made up my own.  Here it is, see what you think…

Kitchen Basics: Bob’s Red Mill, For All Your Baking Needs (And Then Some)

A display of Bob's Red Mill products at Whole Foods, Walnut Creek

Bob’s Red Mill made news a few months ago, when the 81-year old proprietor, Bob Moore, announced that he was turning over the company to his 209 employees who would become employee-owners.  And that’s just one more reason to love the suburban Portland, Oregon company which sells the widest selection of organic, quality baking supplies and other whole grain foods in North America, more than 400 products in total.  Their grains are grown largely by farmers in the U.S. and Canada with whom they contract and are ground on Danish-built stone grinding mills using quartz grindstones. The breadth of their product line is illustrated by their range of flours: almond, amaranth, black bean, buckwheat, coconut, corn (in a dozen different colors and grinds), and that’s just the first three letters of the alphabet!

Coconut-Almond Macaroons, Vegan and Wheat Free

For those who have sensitivities to wheat or to gluten, most baked desserts are a no-no.  For centuries in Europe and America, wheat flour has been the  go-to ingredient at the heart of our baking culture. But we live in a new world now, exposed to myriad food cultures, and more and more my baking will reflect these widening horizons. These cookies, for example, in addition to being vegan and naturally sweetened, feature rice flour rather than wheat. Try them and let me know what you think. Your comments and criticisms will lead  me to retest and improve my recipes–and that process is incomplete without your feedback. Full recipe after the jump…