GF Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Sorghum Cookies

These cookies are amazing. Really, really amazing. It's the only allergy-free food I make that you could easily mistake for the "real" thing. (Aside from rice noodles... Those things are fantastic.) Without further ado:

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/2 cup palm oil shortening
• 1/c cup sugar (organic & fairly traded, if possible)
• 2 eggs (organic & free-ranged/pastured, if possible)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup GF oats (soaked overnight in water with a little lemon juice, if possible)
  
• 2 cups sorghum flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 cup Enjoy Life chocolate chips i.e. the only Dairy, Soy & gluten-free chocolate chips I've found. You could always find a "safe" chocolate bar or bakers' chocolate and chop it up yourself. In which case, you would have chocolate chunk cookies. Ooh la la.
  

DIRECTIONS:

1. With a handmixer, cream shortening and sugar.
   
2. Add eggs & vanilla. Mix well.
   
3. In a separate bowl, mix flour, soda & salt.
4. Add flour mixture a little at a time to the shortening mixture.
5. Add oats. (If you use dry oats, you can mix them in with the flour in step #3.)
   
6. Add chocolate and mix lightly just to evenly disburse chocolate.
   

I use a tablespoon to scoop up the dough and put it on my very lightly greased cookie trays a dozen at a time. Flatten dough balls so they are more like pancakes and less like spheres. Bake for roughly 8-10 minutes (until edges are golden brown) at 350*F. Transfer to a rack to cool.

Yield: Approximately three dozen, I think. It's hard to say. Much dough is consumed in the process when you have a little helper (or two). Also, cookies seem to disappear off the cooling rack before the entire batch has been made. Hmm. Mysterious!

ALTERNATIVES:

• (Vegan): Omit eggs and use a flax meal gel (1Tbsp of flax meal + 3 Tbsp of water per egg)
• Try rice or quinoa flour instead of sorghum. Or mix & match.
  
• Try coconut oil instead of palm oil shortening
• Omit oats for plain chocolate chip cookies