Cranberry Cornmeal Cookies

I checked a gluten-free Christmas cookie cookbook out of the library.  Most of the recipes had ingredients I didn't have (particular flours) and/or were just normal cookie types, gluten freed.  These ones caught my eye though -- they weren't like cookies I'd seen recipes for before.  They're delicious.  Like little bites of cornbread, with a crispy outside & a fluffy inside.  I tweaked the recipe to work with what I had around.

3/4 cups dried cranberries
1/4 cup Southern Comfort
1 1/2 cups cornmeal
1 1/2 cups corn starch
3/4 cups sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick butter
2 eggs (or egg substitutes)
4 tbsp milk (I used almond milk)
1 tbsp orange zest
1/2 tsp vanilla

Put cranberries & SoCo in a bowl together so the cranberries can soak it up.  When I did this, I accidentally put in a half cup of SoCo -- when it came time to add the cranberries to everything else, I fished them out with a fork & left behind some cranberry infused SoCo (which you could use for mixed drinks).  I think this resulted in the cookies having slightly more than a quarter cup of SoCo.

Put the dry ingredients (cornmeal through salt) into a food processor; process until they're mixed & the cornmeal's as finely or coarsely ground as you want in the final product.  I didn't have a big enough food processor, so I put in everything except the corn starch & mixed in the corn starch afterwards.

Add the chopped up butter to the food processor; pulse a couple times to chop it in.  Again, I have a small food processor, so I did this by halves.  Pour into a bowl.  Add wet ingredients (eggs through vanilla); mix until it makes a nice dough.  The recipe as written above is what I made; it includes 2 more tablespoons of milk than the original recipe, because my dough didn't come together well with just 2 tablespoons.  I also didn't realize how much moisture the cranberries would add -- if I were making them again, I might just do 3 tablespoons at this point & only add the 4th if there was still dry mix after adding the cranberries.

Add in the cranberries & mix to combine.  If you only used 1/4 cup SoCo, add any remaining liquid in the bowl to the cookies as well.

Form cookies on a silpat lined cookie sheet.  These cookies don't really grow much, so you can put them pretty close together; they also don't change shape much, so if you put them in with little spiky bits of dough sticking off, the spikes will still be there when they get out.  Bake for 20 minutes or so at 350 until they get a little golden brown around the edges.  Best as dough (note: boozy dough) or when fresh & warm out of the oven.

The original recipe calls for rum rather than SoCo, but I was lacking in the rum department, so I ate a couple cranberries and sniffed different liquors while I was chewing them so I could imagine what the final result would taste like (rejected possibilities: Fireball whiskey & cinnamon spice Kahlua, because I felt both would overpower the other flavors).

This was also my first use of fresh orange zest -- I happened to have an orange around, so I zested it then ate the rest.  I ended up with slightly less than a full tablespoon, but I feel like the cookies had enough orangeiness to them with just that.  And it made the kitchen smell very fresh.

Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

This is the second batch -- the first batch had those little spiky bits I mentioned.

Lentil Loaf

I was reminded this weekend that lentils exist.  So I browsed a bunch of lentil recipes & found one that looked interesting.  I've made a lot of pseudo-meat loaf in the past, but I'd always used frozen veggie meat crumbles.  This turned out pretty well.  It was a bit too salty/savory for me, and I'd already cut the broth back from the suggested amount.  I'll probably cut it out completely next time -- the BBQ sauce already adds enough saltiness.  I'll probably also take a suggestion from the comments & use this recipe to make veggie burgers rather than a loaf.  It had that trademark bean-based squishiness that a lot of homemade veggie burgers have.  I couldn't get it out of the pan without it turning into just a pile of lentil stuff, but it was still good.  I think you could also make this in different flavors by replacing the onions/garlic/BBQ sauce with other stuff -- chopped + pureed pineapple is what came to mind first for me, to make funky burgers that you could put grilled onions, peach salsa, and guacamole on.

Original recipe here.

• 1 1/2 cups dry lentils
• 1 cup vegetable broth
• 2 1/2 cups water
• 1 large onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 2 cups pre-cooked mixed wild rice (I cooked this with half broth, half water)
• 1/4 cup barbecue sauce
• 1 tsp Italian seasoning

Cook rice if you haven't already.  Mix lentils, broth, and water together, and cook until lentils are well done (squishy), about 30 minutes.  Chop up the onion (a food processor works great) & the garlic.  Sautee onion & garlic until they're softened.  Once the rice & lentils are done, mix everything together.  Oil the sides & bottom of a loaf pan -- this will fill the loaf pan all the way to the top, and maybe beyond that if you have a stumpy pan.  Bake at 350 for 1 hour.

Vegan Cauliflower Pizza Bites

So here's a recipe I wouldn't recommend:

http://www.damyhealth.com/2012/06/vegan-cauliflower-pizza-bites/

Firstly, 2 cups of super-fine cauliflower is closer to 1/3 a head than a full head.  I followed the recipe pretty closely -- I substituted Italian seasoning for the oregano + parsley, I used butter instead of coconut oil, I used a different brand of hot sauce, and I used egg substitute instead of a "flax egg", but otherwise I followed it exactly.  This is what I ended up with:

You might notice that it's not even vaguely muffin shaped once it comes out of the pan, but I'm not big on presentation so I don't mind (yes, I did wait to take them out of the pan like the directions said to).  The bigger issue is that it tastes like slightly burnt cauliflower and a little bit of oregano and nothing else.  It would've been better to just bake & eat the cauliflower, tofu, and chickpeas separately, with or without the hot sauce + spices.  So don't make this.  It's gross.