Snowflake Cookies

Hi! I did some Christmas baking this week, how about you?
I love to bake and wish I had more recipients for breads and cookies, but health is a virtue, sooooo---the days of me baking bread are over. Recently I was asked to make gluten free foods. The friends and family who do gluten free do NOT have celiac disease, this is solely a fad/ lifestyle choice/ paleo nonsense*. On the other hand, I enjoy trying new things!

*I should clarify calling paleo food ''nonsense'' just in case you guys are devotees. I became very disillusioned when Mel sent me a recipe for paleo Devil's Food chocolate cake! Or the other day, "paleo pumpkin spice triple cream latte". Right, Ancient Man would stop by Starbucks on his way home to the cave, enjoying non-dairy, non-flour yummies? I don't think so.

Anyway, I give myself a little holiday pep talk:  "New things are fun, don't insist on tradition, no one eats what you used to make anymore! In with the new, out with the old!" And I saw this mix for gluten free cookies at the grocery store:

I texted my friend, If I make these for Christmas, will you eat them? She said Yes! despite the fact that they have white rice flour, cornflour, sugar and assorted oddities added. Oh, okay...

I made the recipe with vegan soy free fake butter. And I used this lovely vanilla another friend brought me from Curacao. [but on close inspection, made in Mexico! huh!]

And miraculously found rice flour in my baking drawer for rolling out.

It was a little sticky but rolled out okay.  was so happy to use my new thrifted Snowflake cutter!

I put the cookies in the oven and OMG they swelled and ran and puffed up like little fat pillows, all remnants of snowflakeyness gone. I blame myself. The recipe called for one egg. I've been baking sugar cookies since I was 4 or 5 years old. I know that one must never put an egg in cutout cookie dough, because it puffs up and the shape is lost.

My personal heirloom recipe does not use eggs, just flour, sugar, ice water and baking powder. Pinch of salt

 Those  cookies stay sharp and perfect and cool down to crispy perfection.

Another issue, gluten is the substance that makes baked goods hold together. It makes bread both high and dense. In traditional bread making, low-gluten flours like rye and some whole wheat flour need gluten added to form an edible and visually appealing loaf. Of course if one is gluten intolerant, something baked is better than nothing, I'm sure!
So there I was with Blobs. I decided to quickly cut the soft but cooked dough again, into snowflake shapes and it worked.

Sort of. The cookies are very fragile, again maybe bec of no gluten?. I only got I think 8 whole ones out of twenty four made. And--they tasted awful,  with a nasty grainy texture.

As usual I was annoyed, was gonna dump them but no.

I wanted my friend to see I had tried for her special diet needs. desires. I wanted to please her. I kept the 8 best, then the next day I brushed them with egg white and dusted them with cane sugar.

As my dad would say about butter on artichokes, anything with enough sugar is pretty tasty, especially for me, as I almost never consume plain sugar. The sugar helped a LOT.

I also went back to the store and got two dozen tiny French pressed cookies. Classic and pretty [snowballs, holly leaves,and so on.] Yummy I expect.

And I got a jar of mincemeat! In the English blogs and novels I enjoy, people are always having mince pies for Christmas.

This mixture is rum and Pippen apples, much more appetizing than my mom's version that had dried fruit soaked in brandy, minced pork and beef and chopped suet! Just, just, eeeeew.  [I admit I never tried mom's version, though I liked the brandied hard sauce topping. I plan to make 6 little pies long with tomorrow's [gluten free] lasagna, for Christmas Eve!

Have fun weekend! Get the prezzies wrapped! Oh here are the gifts I made for girlfriends. Thermos bottles from S'well with little quilted carriers. Makes the bottles easier to hold and keeps them from rolling around on the car floor. The thermoses make an annoying hollow clang beyond what their size might imply.  .

PS Mel, maybe some quiet winter weekend I'll make my regular sugar cookie recipe for you and me to have our Snowflakes, as we had envisioned. Authentic!

Mo isn't into human cookies, though he loves a treat we call cranberry flowers, from Wellness at Chewy.com. here

love

lizzy

gone to the beach....

 More cooky woes HERE   I just never learn, do I?

Lights in the Darkness

Good evening! I have taken over Mo's bedtime walk now. It gets dark so early that he has his dinner walk early at sunset, then it is dark.

We go out again at 8, or 9 , or even 10. It doesn't matter because it's dark, the depths of black winter. Somehow the cold and snow make it seem more forbidding.

This week Mo is wearing his reindeer sweater. I made the armholes bigger so it's more comfy and he seems to like it!

I adore Christmas lights. A residual paganism, I believe, a desperate attempt by humans to add light to the December nights. [hard to photograph!] One year I was hospitalized from Halloween thru most of December. From my high hospital window I could see all the Christmas lights that December. It brought such joy to my narrow world. This my town's square, where the farmers market is in the summer.

The Town Tree. They decorate a real tree that grows in the plaza. I like that! Each year it gets a bit taller.


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I didn't get a picture yet but the street light pole decorations are lighted outlined motifs, all beach inspired, like starfish instead of just a star; and the light poles in front of the various surf shops all have lighted surfboards. There are dolphins and anchors and sailboats. So cute!
......

Last year I saw no Christmas lights at all, being housebound by illness. So it is with great excitement and pleasure that Mo and I go out on our walking/ peeking adventures, to admire everyone's lights.

This is one of my favorites.

This house looks out at the beach like my house does and this 8' angel of lights is on their dark raised deck, looking out at the ocean. It must be visible for miles, to all the boats and planes that pass by our unlighted beach.

These folks have lights on their poor frost nipped palm trees.

And it's fun to see the grey fences and white shell edging, lit and glowing.

Also some simple wreaths. My mother loved wreaths and each year it was her special task to decorate the live wreath my dad would make for her. She was fond of boxwood and often inspired by Colonial Williamsburg wreaths here, using apples, oranges, kumquats. My brother still makes wreaths like this each year, so beautiful.

By the time Mo and I have briskly walked around a block or two, we are warmed by the exercise and cheered by the cold fresh air. Mo struts along so fast on these cold nights, visiting each little snow drift to leave a ''tinkle message'' for his doggy friends. The darkness has become fun, invigorating. Once home, I have a cup of hot tea, Mo has ''snackeroo'', his evening snack [since dinner was at 4] and then he gets out his chew stick, and we write to you all.

Merry Christmas, Blessed Solstice, Happy Holidays!

love

lizzy

gone to the beach...

***Snackeroo is a word Mo knows. I use it to lure him home when he'd be off to the koi pond or down to the beach. He loves the cold nights.