Health and Beauty

Men, women and children from all of the country are making the switch to gluten-free eating. Some of them are diagnosed with celiac disease; some have issues with ADD etc. At first it looks like you can no longer enjoy some of your favorite comfort foods like paste, pizza and cookies. We’ve come a long way since the early days of gluten free living. There are now thousands of products and many thousand gluten-free recipes out there for you to enjoy. Here’s one of my favorites, for a delicious gluten free oatmeal cookie.

Gluten Free Oatmeal Cookies

* 1/2 cup margarine
* 1/2 cup light-brown sugar
* 1/4 cup sugar
* 1/2 tsp vanilla
* 3/4 cups gluten free flour
* 1/2 tsp baking soda
* dash of salt
* 1/2 tsp cinnamon
* 1 large egg
* 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
* 1 1/2 cups gluten free oats
* 1/2 cup raisins (you can leave these out)

Preheat the oven to 350 Fahrenheit. Soften the margarine either by sitting it out for 30 minutes or by sticking it in the microwave for a few seconds. Get out a large bowl. Add the butter and both types of sugar to it and use a hand-mixer to cream everything together. Add the vanilla and the egg next and blend again until you have a creamy light yellow colored mixture.

Sift together the flour, soda, salt, cinnamon and gum in another bowl. Give those dry ingredients a good stir, then work it into the egg mixture. Finish the batter by adding the oats and raisins and mixing everything together.

Scoop one tablespoon of batter onto a greased baking sheet per cookie. Keep working until you have your cookie sheet filled up. I like to work with two large spoons to do this, but a melon scooper or small ice cream scooper work as well.

The cookies will need to bake for about 12 minutes. A golden brown color will let you know that it’s time to take the oatmeal cookies out of the oven. Let the cookies cool for a good five minutes on the sheet, then move them to a wire rack. The cool cookies can then be stored in an airtight container.

This recipe makes about 2 dozen cookies.

If you don’t like making a recipe like this from scratch, you can also find delicious cookie mixes in all sorts of different flavors (including peanut butter, chocolate chip and of course oatmeal) at your local health food store and online. They are a great alternative. You can even find some gluten-free cookies, already baked and everything that taste pretty good.

In short, you do not have to give up on your favorite treats when you have to switch to eating gluten free.

Last but not least, I would like to invite you to read about another yummy and good-for-you recipe. This one is for quinoa muffins which you can make gluten free by making them with gluten-free flour. And here are more quinoa recipes for you.