Sweetener-free Peanut-butter Cookies

Sweetener-free Peanut Butter Cookies

Every January I convince myself that it is a good idea to give up all sweeteners for the month, including Agave.  This is typically a direct result of having eaten enough sugar between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve to stock a soda factory for a month.  It is probably not a good thing that I make a killer chocolate frosting from 3 simple ingredients, none of them being sugar.  The hard truth is that chocolate frosting, no matter if sweetened by sugar, maple syrup, or agave, is still addictive and should not be eaten as a main course...every day of the week for an entire holiday season.
After three weeks of no sweeteners, I am back to enjoying my morning steel cut oats with nothing but berries or raisins and nuts.  The fruit is plenty sweet (I am also down a quick 8 pounds).  Other foods are also tasting might sweet, like raw, unsalted cashews or hazelnuts.  Eating raw snap peas feels like a guilty pleasure.
This weekend, we made peanut butter cookies for a potluck.  In doling out the leftovers to the kids yesterday, I had a very strong craving to eat them.  How annoying is that?  Three weeks of abstinence and the craving hasn't subsided?  Ahhh.... but, upon further reflection, I realized that what I really wanted was the peanutty goodness.  I wasn't all that interested in the sugar.  That, combined with the fact that  I am in need of several containers of easy, bite-sized sweetener-free snacks with which to stock a cooler for an upcoming road trip, sent me spinning into action late yesterday afternoon.  A half an hour later, the kitchen was filled with the exact same olfactory pleasantries that had filled the house a few days before when we made the original potluck batch.
My kids, who had been eating the sugar-filled versions, even liked these.  This surprised me because I thought only those of us who were slowly forgetting how sugar tastes would enjoy them.   Either my kids are little freaks of nature (not altogether unlikely) or I was wrong.  They did comment that the cookies were more like scones in terms of level of sweetness.  To me, they tasted decadent.  Now, if I can just keep myself from making the aforementioned frosting and using it as a dip for these babies...
Sweetener-free Peanut-butter Cookies
Makes about 2 dozen cookies
Ingredients:
5 oz. pitted dates
1 c. natural peanut butter, creamy or chunky
a scant 1/3 c. millet or corn flour (we grind millet in a coffee grinder to make the flour)
1 flax egg (1 T. flax seeds plus 3 T. water, blended to a gel in the blender)
1 t. baking soda
1/2 c. raisins
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Line cookie sheet with parchment paper, grease with vegan margarine, or use a silpat liner.  Combine all ingredients in a blender, adding baking soda and millet last.  Drop by tablespoon-fulls onto cookie sheet.  Press with a fork or your good old fashioned fingers.  Bake about 10-12 minutes.  Do not, I repeat -- DO NOT -- make chocolate frosting!
Enjoy.

Millet Minestrone

"Hey you there...there's some soup here for you."

-- Mother Courage and Her Children, Bertolt Brecht --

In a home with no gluten, bread is not the staff of life.  Soup is.  Instead of breaking bread together, we spoon soup.  Lots of soup.  Ladles and ladles of soup.  Besides being cheap to make and relatively easy to convert for our dietary needs, soup packs a hearty nutritional punch.  Plus --  one can hide a variety of left-overs, slightly old vegetables, and traditionally unpleasant vegetables in a good pot of soup.
For picky eaters, I recommend blending your favorite recipe of vegetable soups and adding something creamy to the blend, like almond milk, cashew cream, or coconut milk.  Once they develop a taste for the blended, creamy soups, you can make the same soup by chopping the ingredients really really small.  Eventually, they might like the taste of the soup as is.
My kids are not all that picky, but I can get my son to eat more vegetables if they are blended.  Still, when the wind-chills hit anywhere below the magic zero, as they have all week here in the mid-west, I want a soup into which I can really sink my chattering teeth.  In my book, that means Minestrone.
Of course, the hearty part of minestrone is played by the noodles.  Unfortunately, gluten free noodles don't hold up all that well in a soup.  It is necessary to cook the noodles separately and then ladle the soup over the noodles.  But when the weather is this cold, I get a bit perturbed at making such concessions.  I just want a huge pot of soup or stew that everyone in the family can dip into whenever hunger or hypothermia hit.
In this recipe, millet replaces the noodles, offering both a meaty texture and a grain that stands up to time in the pot or re-heating in the microwave.  It is also much healthier than its more emaciated cousin, corn.  I have replaced kidney and white beans with azuki beans for a bit of interest.  They are slightly sweet, which lends a nice flavor to this stew.  You will want to rinse and then soak them overnight to cut down on cooking time.  I like to rinse, soak, and boil a large amount and then freeze two-cup portions separately.
This recipe makes a thick soup-cum-stew.  If you like yours more soupy, add extra broth to your liking.
Millet Minestrone
makes 15 servings
Ingredients:
1 large onion
4 stalks celery
2 T. Olive Oil
2 large carrots, shredded
6-8 cloves garlic, chopped
2 c. cooked azuki beans, rinsed well (this helps prevent gas)
4 c. vegetable broth
8 c. water
2 c. crushed tomatoes
2 c. chopped green beans
8-10 mushrooms, sliced
1 2/3 c. dry millet
1 t. sage
1 1. thyme
1 t. parsley
1 t. oregano
1 t. basil
2-4 T. black bean sauce (if you can do soy, use Tamari Sauce instead)
Saute the onions and celery over medium heat until the onions are translucent.  Add the garlic and saute one more minute.  Add all other ingredients, except the beans.  Bring to a boil and simmer for about 15 minutes.  Add the beans and simmer another 10 minutes.
This soup holds up well if you pour it into a rice cooker set to "warm" so people can serve themselves.  It also freezes well and is great for left-overs.
I'll post a picture when I eat my next bowl.