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

What to eat for breakfast (when all you can think of contains dairy, wheat and eggs)

Breakfast is our trickiest, head-achiest, carb-loadiest meal of the day. But it's also when we take all of our supplements, so it evens out, right? Right! Seriously, though, breakfast is tough. Especially when you've been roused out of a sound sleep by one child incessantly flopping and the other potty-dancing in her sleep. At some variation of the 6 or 7 o'clock hour. But, that is why I go to bed at 10 or 11. And I digress.

The breakfast market seems to be aimed at those among us who are addicted to wheat and/or dairy. Traditional breakfast items include:

• wheat-based cereal with cow's milk
• cow's milk yogurt
• oatmeal (unless GF oats are usually wheat-contaminated)
  
• granola (with wheat-contaminated oats & wheat flour)
• smoothies (with cow's milk yogurt)
• eggs & wheat toast
• wheaty bagels with cream cheese
• wheat toast and butter
• wheaty, buttery pastries & danishes
• wheaty pancakes & waffles with butter
• fruit
  

Of that entire list, the only thing we can safely consume right now is fruit. Or oats if they are GF, but 2lbs of GF oats costs $7, so we only splurge every now and again - say for oatmeal-chocolate chip (sorghum flour and palm oil shortening) cookies! Speaking of: I know what recipe I'm posting tomorrow. These things are outrageously good and you would never guess they are allergy-friendly.

My point is, it took me a really long time to widen my breakfast repetoire beyond rice puffs with fruit and rice milk. But, now that we've been on our fully restricted diet for almost nine months (aside: wow), I think I have some good suggestions.

What to eat for breakfast when everyone else is eating eggs, wheat and dairy:

• The obvious: GF cereal with milk substitute.
  
• Hot cereal: GF oatmeal, cream of rice, or cream of buckwheat with maple syrup & coconut oil
• Homemade granola (recipe to come)
• Pancakes with GF flour (see: cherry pancakes - can easily omit eggs)
• Muffins with GF flour (see: cherry muffins - can easily omit xanthan gum & sub flax meal gel)
• Hashbrowns (or other potatoes) in oil with greens
• Coconut milk & tapioca "pudding" (porridge really) with jam stirred in
  
• Dairy-free Smoothies (future post dedicated to smoothies soon to come)
• Breakfast burritos (recipe/filling ideas to come)
  
• Blended soups - as the weather gets cooler, I will start posting lots of yummy soup recipes
• Dinner leftovers

In the last few days (i.e. as far back as I can recall) we have had: cream of buckwheat with maple syrup & coconut oil; rice puffs with rice milk & blueberries (2 days in a row); cream of buckwheat with honey & coconut milk; "breakfast fries" with ketchup & sauteed kolrabi greens plus raisins on the side. Once you get used to having to actually work for breakfast, it's automatic. Especially if you remember to soak your grains or flours the night before. (Or if you keep your house fully stocked with GF cereals and dairy-free milks. Haha. Although, remember: convenience comes at a price. Those prepacked allergy-friendly foods are not cheap.)