Cheer Kicks and Chocolate Chips

Gluten free, Dairy free Chocolate Chip Pudding Cookies! 

This is not a cooking blog. Trust me.  That would be the meanest prank on sweet, innocent, trusting people who need a decent recipe.  
I cook. But I am not a cook. I try new recipes. But I follow them verbatim because I just need to feed people, rather than impress them with my skills.  

However, I have always loved whipping up a batch of cookies and I have been known to make a pretty darn good one!  Baking is more my style.  I actually take a lot of pride in how a batch of cookies turns out.  I have a handful of friends who very predictably walk in and immediately ask if I've baked cookies that day. THAT my friends, does this girl's heart some good.  

Until last November. When I was diagnosed w/ Celiac Disease. Which happens to be Latin for "you can never just whip up another anything ever again".  Everything is more complicated.  

I've experimented with numerous gluten free cookie recipes for my family to enjoy.  I can always count on my sweet Ben to yell, "These are better than gluten Mom!"  That kid is the "pleaser" in the family though and I know he's actually dying inside.  The rest of my family is just quiet.  Jerks.

Things got really fun a couple of weeks ago when I had to eliminate dairy from my diet as well.  Don't ask.   I don't want to talk about it.  

What I DO want to share is that I came up with a DELICIOUS Chocolate Chip Cookie that is gluten free, dairy free and includes a little ingredient I like to call... Vanilla Pudding.  Trust me.  These cookies are "Better than gluten!" 

They are so good that yes, I did a few cheer kicks in my kitchen.  I may have swung a dish towel around my head like a helicopter too.  Old habits die hard. 

It's your call whether you tell people that they are gluten free before they taste them.  If you do wait, then you could jump up and down and point your finger at them yelling, "Gotcha fools!  They're gluten free!" ...I mean, if that's your thing.

Your happy dance is also completely up to you.  Do give yourself some room though... just in case you have the impulse to throw your leg up over your head and then point your fingers to the sky.  Anyway... 

A few tips before you start:  
1. The gluten free all purpose flour mixture is up to you.  I preferred the batch I made with the flour mixture recipe by Gluten-Free-Girl but my family preferred the batch made with Bob's Red Mill All Purpose Flour.  (Which is a heck of a lot easier if you're new to baking gluten-free.)  Whatever you do, use one that doesn't already contain xanthum gum OR omit the xanthum gum in this recipe.  
2. Use parchment paper on top of your baking sheet.  
3. The consistency of the dough is weird.  It looks gross like play dough.  
4.  Do not attempt a double batch in your Kitchen-Aid mixer.  It won't be able to handle the consistency and stiffness.  You could burn out your motor and/or not get it all mixed well enough.  
5. Here's the bummer.  And it's a huge bummer for me.  The dough tastes awful.  It really does.  Don't bother.  But the cookies are WORTH IT!  

Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups of all-purpose gluten free flour.
1 tsp. xanthum gum
1 tsp. baking soda
1tsp. salt

3/4 cup canola oil  (If you don't need it to be dairy free use 1 cup of butter for heaven's sake!!)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1-5.1oz. Instant Vanilla Pudding (Or whatever flavor you want!  Butterscotch is great too!)
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
Chocolate chips (I use dairy free)

Pre-heat oven to 350.  Line your baking sheets w/ parchment paper.
-Mix the flour, xanthum gum, baking soda and salt together in a separate bowl.
-"Cream" the canola oil and sugars together in your standing mixer.
-Add the box of pudding and mix well.
-Add the eggs and vanilla.
-Mix well and remember not to expect it to look like regular cookie batter.
-Scoop out spoonfuls onto the lined baking sheet.  I add chocolate chips to each individual cookie because I like to control how much chocolate is in each cookie.  (Add this to the list of reasons I should be on medication.)
-Bake for about 10 minutes depending on your oven.  Check them @ 8 minutes.
-I let them sit for a bit on the baking sheet before I remove them.

Please tell me if you try this recipe and what the honest response is.  I have a lot of very loving people in my life who may just like to see me dance in the kitchen.  

   

And so.

I begin again.  Without knowing where to begin.  Without knowing how.  I need to, despite.

Despite all that has kept me from opening up and out, I begin again. Despite all of the things in the past two years that have arrested my heart from writing freely-- the good that has been too good to express with enough color and the hard that has felt all too paralyzing to write through.  I must...despite.  And so...

And so this start might be my simple justification. Of my absence:  from writing, from sharing, from engaging in anything beyond soccer cleats, superhero capes and polka dotted skirts.  But to begin again, I am compelled to grieve some of what has been lost. And smile on some of what hasn't yet been celebrated in writing.  So that...

So that I can begin again.  Maybe newer.  Maybe fuller.  Wiser?  That feels like a stretch.  I'm not sure.

Jonathan and I have looked back at all that has been packed into two years.  All.  Packed.  In.  We have laughed hard at the good.  We have almost burst at what feels beyond rich in our lives.  Three of the most beautiful and amazing darned kids on this earth.  That's what they are.  I don't know why we get to be their parents.  But I'm so thankful.  We are so thankful.

Maria's advent into our life completed our home.  Really that's how it feels.  She came in like God's grace snowing down on us (and sometimes sheets of hail and wind with the sass of a pounding rain).  And this child...this child.  She is breathtaking.  She is breathtaking alone and all on her own.  The kind of beautiful that you stare and shake your head at.  Because she actually sparkles.  No lie.  Her smile, laugh and voice actually sparkle.  But what's so much more is how she fits into what we already had.  She's not a complement to it.  That makes her sound somewhat insignificant. Like sprinkles on a delicious cake.  She is a true piece of it we didn't know we needed.  That we didn't realize would be so completing.  And so...

And so her brothers continue to make me marvel.  The term 'child development' sounds so... otherly. So outside of what I'm watching when I'm watching my child, my children "develop".  Watching my children grow and learn and feel and hurt and ask and need and wonder and fear and delight.  All of these developments become more intense as my boys get older and so I feel more intense about them.  More intense around them.  The notes I send in their lunches are painfully thought out and re-written as I hope they read my love in them and not just the words.  The time I spend volunteering in Sam's classroom likely looks desperate and pathetic as I stare at him while I work with his other classmates.  The naps I steal with Ben some weekdays are totally selfish and again...pathetic as I anticipate him being in full day school next year. Because this is all happening so fast.  It's just so fast for me.  And so...

And so just those three and the immeasurable joy and awe that they bring are enough to make me feel too overwhelmed to express fully.  But there's more.  Because our lives are filled with other kids too.  Kids who fill our house every Sunday night to look deeper into who our God is and who they are as they prepare to leave for college this fall. Kids who allow us to be a part of their lives.  Kids who have way more on their plates than we did when we were their age and yet they still find time to pause with us and look at life together.  They still have time to grab coffee, a walk or frozen yogurt with us.  And in this, we are blessed richly.  And so...

And so what is all of this if I don't have someone to share it with?  But I do.  I do.  I have no idea why our love comes so easily to us.  But it does and it has and we'll fight like hell for it if there is ever a time that it doesn't.  Because there is no earthly love so safe in my life than the love I have with Jonathan.  There is no place like the home we are to each other and I don't have a home outside of him.  I don't want a home outside of him.  And so...

And so our past two years have been rich.  I use that word a lot I know.  But I really love it. Because it doesn't mean that it's been perfect.  It means 'abundant', 'highly valuable', 'deep in color'.
Deep in color.  Oh deep in color.

So much color comes from the discomfort we experience.  Yes, here it comes people.  The laundry list of woes and "Are you kidding me?" moments that have peppered our life since Maria was born.

That sweet girl's first year was filled with the pediatrician, emergency room, urgent care, etc.  Scars on her gorgeous, baby forehead, chronic ear infections and ear tubes are some of the reasons health insurance should be one of Martha Stewart's "Good Things."
Her brothers added an adorable pair of green glasses, a case of Mono and a tonsillectomy to the medical bills... and that should have been enough.  A diagnosis of Celiac disease was my contribution to the withdrawal of our health savings account.  Of course that carries with it the coinciding tidings that I can never eat anything containing gluten again.  Ever. Ever, ever.  Like...ever.  Again.  Happy Thanksgiving.  And happy grocery shopping.  And budgeting.  And learning how to cook.

Oh and our roommate/friend/brother wasn't exempt from our medical ventures as his lung randomly collapsed last fall as well.  He spent a good five days in the hospital recovering and earned the award for most dramatic ailment of the family.  Absurd right?

In February after these hurdles, we headed to Hawaii to restart and breathe. I realized almost immediately that I had put way too much stock into this trip.  I had seen it as a way to just...begin again. Start fresh. Sadly, there is nothing fresh about five people with the stomach flu in a one bedroom condo. Yes.  We all got the stomach flu.  And we kept it.  We fought it the majority of our trip and when all was said and done, we had 2 amazing days at the beach out of 10 days in Hawaii.  This is when I started getting angry.  And so...

And so that's actually not true.  That's just not true.  I was angry before we left.
Because these are just the hiccups we look back on and now simply laugh about.  Because these trials are so incredibly absurd... but they just happen.  You want someone to blame.  You want to put your finger on what in the heck we have done wrong...but there isn't anything.  So you laugh.  A maniacal kind of laugh maybe. But a laugh nonetheless.  Eventually.

I was already angry though because there are some spaces where laughter has no place.  The kind of spaces in your heart that steal your sleep and consume your moments of quiet.  The spaces that force you to fight what you know you know in an effort to just have peace.  For a moment.  There are spaces that are so precious to you that when evil has darkened even a corner of that space, there is no peace found inside. What is left, I'm embarrassed to say, is anger.  And so...

And so I was already angry.  I was angry as I grasped the details of a tragedy that shouldn't have been.  It shouldn't have been.  Angry and desperate as I watched the fall-out... so warped and sick that I've often pictured the glory some twisted author could make for themselves with this unimaginable and yet very real story.

I was angry to watch people feel betrayed in their hope and turn away from each other.  Angry to watch heartache from the edge of the woods in the lives of people I love... and to feel alone in that.  To feel hopeless in that.  To feel pitifully hopeless while claiming a Hope and Power that I still believe regardless. Angry at those who delight in the demise of love and life... for their own gain.  And to see them succeed.  To see them succeed!  And so...

And so I now know that my silence is not just because I have three kids now, an admittedly larger portion than I imagined.  But because joy in my immediate circumstances has been shadowed by a struggle of real, uncomfortable anger and despair in my surroundings.  The two have left me at a loss for how to write joyfully...with integrity.  Without betraying the honest pain and disappointment that hasn't yet, and likely never will be reconciled.  A pain that I'm embarrassed to admit, has overwhelmed me and stolen some of my joy at times. Stolen my attention.  Stolen my peace.  And yes that's embarrassing to me.  And so...

And so I begin again.  Without knowing where to begin.  Without knowing how.  I need to.

Maybe newer.  Maybe fuller.  Wiser still feels like a stretch.