Gluten free oatmeal cookies

Gluten Free oatmeal cookies
 ( By Teri Gruss, MS, About.com Guide)

This is one of the baking recipes we want to try this week, let me know if you try it and if it works out for you! we bake every Tuesday, if you care to drop by!

This gluten-free oatmeal cookie is loaded with terrific toasted coconut and fresh ground gluten-free oat flour. Make a double batch of dough and refrigerate or freeze for convenient, crunchy, toasty gluten-free cookies anytime.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups toasted unsweetened large flaked coconut
• 1 1/4 cup freshly ground gluten-free rolled oats (see cook's note)
• 1/2 cup tapioca starch
• 1/4 cup all purpose gluten-free flour mix
• 1 teaspoon guar gum
• 1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
• 1 1/2 cups butter OR 3/4 cup butter and 3/4 cup coconut oil
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon GF coconut extract
• 4 1/2 cups gluten-free rolled oats (this amount goes into the batter at the end of prep)
• Cook's Note:
• You can use packaged gluten-free oat flour in this recipe or you can easily prepare your own by grinding gluten-free oats in a clean coffee bean grinder. To prepare 1 1/4 cups oat flour, add approximately 1 1/3 - 1 1/2 cups of gf oats in small batches and pulse to grind.

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350º

Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or lightly oil.

1. Toast flaked coconut on a large baking sheet for about 5 minutes or until golden. This burns every quickly so watch carefully.
2. In a mixing bowl cream butter, sugar, eggs and extracts until light and fluffy.
3. In a separate bowl, mix all dry ingredients together. Whisk until blended.
4. Add dry ingredients (except rolled oats and toasted coconut) to sugar mixture and beat on low just until dough is well blended.
5. Stir in rolled oats and toasted coconut.
6. Use a 1/8 cup measuring cup or a measuring spoon to scoop dough and drop on prepared baking sheet. Space cookies at least 2 inches apart.
7. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheet briefly before tranferring to a cooling rack.

Tip: Use a small electric coffee bean grinder to make fresh oat flour. Add 1/2 cup at a time to the coffee bean grinder and briefly pulse until rolled oats are ground.

Makes about 28 large, 3 inch cookies.

Tip:

Can cut sugar to 1 1/2 cups without a big difference in taste.

Reminder: Always make sure your work surfaces, utensils, pans and tools are free of gluten. Always read product labels. Manufacturers can change product formulations without notice. When in doubt, do not buy or use a product before contacting the manufacturer for verification that the product is free of gluten.

Life in the country, a series of events...

Well friends,
life has gotten in the way of my favorite pastime Blogging!
Home schooling has become my main en devour these days and when I feel like I am on my last nerve I go for a walk and pray, really, really hard. :-)

I have had a few of those days lately, you know the ones where you feel like crying over a Social studies text that you can't seem to remember ever learning about....ah ya, any hoo.

So this week was pretty funny and I thought you may get a kick out of my adventures.

I was determined to deliver all of my big cluckers (AKA: Layers) in my husbands truck, by the way it is the only nice vehicle we own. I decided this because I didn't want to sit on a kids booster seat, with pillows behind me, in the actual horrid chicken van. Besides that I knew I was going through "the" drive through, you know the one that left a red streak down the side of" the van".

Well this was fine and dandy until I got to the chicken loading spot to discover lo and behold there were A LOT of crates! I am sure you remember that a country girl is full of charm and wit, not to mention creativity!
Too bad I didn't take a picture for you, cuz it was pretty funny... a truck barreling down the highway loaded to the top of the cab, tailgate open also loaded to the top bunged together with various stretchy materials, carrying like 200 chickens...feathers flying. Yep if you saw that it was me. People move when they see you coming, YEAH!

All was fine until that one person asked me to back up through the gate, that I must say was very narrow. Then things did not go so well, yes you guessed it I hit the truck..a different one this time....did I mention it was the only nice vehicle we own?
Ack oh well only a materiel thing, Life marches on!

  I still keep chuckling about unloading one customers crates, and almost took a kind store owners eye out with one of the flying bungees...hehehhehe I am so funny, I must have been a few shades of red apologizing up a storm, luckily he moved fast! It was so close I am sure he felt wind!

 I am feeling a tad better because the same day when plucking the last of the crates off I some how flamed up an old back injury and have been hobbling around like a 90 year old farmer. Glad to say I am now on the mend! God is good, could have been much worse.

So all in all it HAS been an eventful week, month day, and I have not even talked about the life chain the kids and I participated in...but I think that's enough for one night!

This silly country girl is goin to bed.

Oh and If you see any missing turkeys they escaped the "barn", run turkey run....
Because I am so not looking for you in the dark with a cougar in the hood!  Nighty night!

Romans 12:12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.

Love it! I feel so thankful I have my God!!!!

Book Review : Over The Edge

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HeSzqacHzQM
 
This is a quirky adventure full of humor and drama! Connealy has penned a Western like no other. From a forgotten wife to "crazy" cowboys, you won't want to put Over the Edge down.

The story of the Kincaid brothers continues in this, the third adventure in the series. If you missed the first two stories you need not worry, because Connealy does a wonderful job of weaving each brother's tale together, forming a complete story line.

 Oftentimes thorough the book I felt sorry for the Seth Kincaid a man who's traumatized enough to forget his own wife. His character was so loveable and real, that you just had to keep flipping the pages to find out what "crazy" stunt he was going to pull next!

That was just one of the characters of this book. Each and every character had depth and a vividness that literally had you living in the Colorado hills, right along side this cast of handsome cowboys and their wives. 

Loved this book and can't figure out why I have not read all of Mary Connealy's books. I will be taking a trip to the local bookstore, because now that I have read one of this great author's books I am hungry for more!

Thank you Tyndale Books for the opportunity to receive this complementary copy for review purposes.

From the back of the book:

Seth Kincaid survived a fire in a cave, but he's never been the same. He was always a reckless youth, but now he's gone over the edge. He ran off to the Civil War and came back crazier than ever.
After the war, nearly dead from his injuries, it appears Seth got married. Oh, he's got a lot of excuses, but his wife isn't happy to find out Seth doesn't remember her. Callie has searched, prayed, and worried. Now she's come to the Kincaid family's ranch in Colorado to find her lost husband.

Callie isn't a long-suffering woman. Once she knows her husband is alive, she wants to kill him. She's not even close to forgiving him for abandoning her.

  Then more trouble shows up in the form of a secret Seth's pa kept for years. The Kincaid brothers might lose their ranch if they can't sort things out. It's enough to drive a man insane--but somehow it's all making Seth see things more clearly. And now that he knows what he wants, no one better stand in his way.                      



 About the Aurthur:

 


I wrote my first book when I was about twelve. A romance novel. I shudder to think what a twelve year old could know about romance. I have no idea what happened to the manuscript. I suppose my mother found it, and burned it while screaming in horror, but I’ve always been afraid to ask. Was it a hundred pages? Two? I have no idea, but I seem to remember just writing FOREVER! So I’m guessing two pages long at least.

As a new bride I marched straight out of journalism school and into the kitchen, I did a lot of scribbling. I still have those heartbreaking works of staggering genius, Ode to Roast Beef, things like that, all born out of the ‘Write What You Know’ school of literature.

I began writing more seriously when my baby went to kindergarten. Not writing well of course, but just putting words on paper. No one does anything well the first time. I’m sure Babe Ruth missed the first ball pitched to him. I’m sure Picasso smeared pages with paint-y fingers when he was a kid—as I remember he went back to that later in life. I’m sure Beethoven played the eighteenth century version of Chopsticks before went for the sonatas.

My writing journey is similar to a lot of others. Boil it down to persistence, oh, go ahead and call it stubbornness. I just kept typing away. I think the reason I did it was because I’m more or less a dunce around people—prone to sit silently when I really ought to speak up(or far worse, speak up when I ought to sit silently).

So, I have all these things, I want to say, in my head; the perfect zinger to the rude cashier, which you think of an hour after you’ve left the store, the perfect bit of wisdom when someone needs help, which doesn’t occur to you until they solve their problems themselves, the perfect guilt trip for the kids, which you don’t say because you’re not an idiot. I keep all this wit to myself, much to the relief of all who know me, and then I write all my great ideas into books. It’s therapeutic if nothing else, and more affordable than a psychiatrist.

So then a very nice, oh so nice publishing company like Barbour Heartsong comes along and says, “Hey, we’ll pay you money for this 45,000 word therapy session.” That’s as sweet as it gets.

My journey to publication is the same as everyone’s except for a few geniuses out there who make it hard for all of us. And even they probably have an Ode to Roast Beef or two in their past

    

My Birthday Blessings :-)

Whew, I am so very tired!
I realised that I have not written on my little Blog in quite some time.
 Hey a new record.
I must admit I have been consumed by school work and my actual real paid job!
Who knew this could be so time consuming. I have to say though, I am enjoying the new level of closeness I have experienced with my children.

OK so there is the new level of frustration as well, but this is a happy post so we will not talk about that. Nope, not even the I hate you MOM's or the, this was the worst idea you ever Had's...haha ops. Let it slip!

But really I am enjoying the cuddling and learning going on in our home.
I especially love seeing what they are doing and being involved in the day to day beauty of growth. Ya, ya only two week I know...

But that is not what I intended to post on today.
It was my Birthday a few weeks ago, and with my birthday usually comes a touch of sadness.
Not this September!                                                                     
If you care to join me in a long story I will share.
 Call it a testimony if you will.

As I think you have probably gathered I did not have a very nurturing environment growing up.
My mom had serious health issues along with some addiction problems.
It was just the three of us my mother, my Older half brother, who was very abusive and explosive to live with, and I.
When I was 12 years old my mother told me that I was the product of a rape this information to a tender, sensitive young girl was pretty devastating.
 Prior to this she told me my father died in a war, so every remembrance day I would  grieve the "loss of the father I never knew, this was a lie.

Heavy I know! So sorry :-)

Any how this became my identity, I felt dirty, unlovable and not worthy.

 My Birthday was a reminder of this pain.
What I knew about God and his love for me could not seem to cover the sins of my father. Also the verse "Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”
Kinda haunted me growing up.
I didn't look at the whole picture. I believed God would punish me for my Fathers sins. That was a lie as well.

Through counselling, and prayer I have been freed from the pain and hurt of my childhood. But what really changed me is my Daddy.
Not my biological father but my one true Daddy the father who will never leave me, the one who held that tender young girl close to his heart.

 God was working behind the scenes creating in me a work of art, a mosaic if you will. A sculptor creating beauty out of broken pieces, fragmented bits worked together into a whole picture.
Now don't get me wrong the "project" is not completed quite yet, but I see his hand in every twist and turn my life takes! 
                                                                                                                             
So whew, long story to get to the end, but here we are. :-) Yay!

So as you can imagine every birthday I have now I want to have a party!
 A big Ol' Happy darn Birthday to me party,
why because God made me, and heck why not! It's fun......
One problem my husband really does not believe in birthdays for adults silly, silly man!

So guess what?
Yes you, Guess....
A beautiful angel sent from "my Daddy" throws ME a Birthday party!
Can you say happy, that was me!
Happy as a wet frog on a rainy day (I'm guessing here, are frogs happy when wet, What does a wet frog look like when happy?.... something to Google....never mind)

This beautiful, wonderful woman who has been put lovingly in my life, sweetly throws me the BEST birthday bash of my whole adult life, not even knowing how special it meant to me!

 So here I am to say THANK YOU!

Isn't life wonderful? So full of blessings and wonder!
My friends, I hope you are filled with the love and forgiveness only God can give,
and a big county hug to you!

Psalm 18:1-3,28,35
I will love You, O LORD, my strength. The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; My God, my strength, in whom I will trust; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised; So shall I be saved from my enemies.

For You will light my lamp; The LORD my God will enlighten my darkness.You have also given me the shield of Your salvation; Your right hand has held me up, Your gentleness has made me great.