Oat Tales: GF Oat Cookies with Coconut, Pecans and Raisins

Oatmeal is a lot like Uncle Fergus – you either love him or run for your life when he shows up at the door.

I grew up hating all things oatmeal. When I was forced to eat the stuff, it was like chewing the inside of the sofa stuffing (don’t ask how I know that). Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that the same Quaker Oats container sitting on the pantry shelf had celebrated more birthdays than I had.

I met my first commercially made oatmeal cookie when I bought school-lunch the day the new cafeteria opened.   I loved cookies, but this thing was dreadful. Soft, squishy and stale, it was the color of tired beige with tiny dark specks.  Oats and I were finished.

That is, until I grew up and found out that oats were actually tasty. My mother-in-law, the original granola queen, used oats as much as she used lemons or mayonnaise (which in her house is a food group). She taught me the rules of food-cooperatives and how to chase the good stuff – think organic mills before organic was a type of certified product.

Gluten Free Ratio Rally – GF Potato Pancakes

logo designed by Anile

It’s been a long time coming actually.  Moving from the system of measuring everything by cups to weights has made a huge difference in the outcome of gluten free baking.  Heck, it makes a difference in any kind of baking.  And now we get to start thinking about food making in terms of ratios with thanks to Michael Ruhlman.

Ratios are like the blueprint of cooking.  Think of it as the bones of recipes.  If you become comfortable with ratios – any food preparation becomes your own customization.  No recipe needed.

Take pancakes, for example.  The typical ratio is 4:4:2:1.   That would be 4 parts flour to 4 parts liquid to 2 parts egg to one part fat.  As long as you know that particular ratio = pancakes you can make the quantity as big or small as you want.  You can customize it any way you like.

We enjoy our weekend pancakes, but we love potato pancakes even more.  We usually only eat them around Hanukkah and call them latkes.  But they’re good any time of year and sometimes on a cold weekend morning, a potato pancake seems perfect.

Baking Wreck: The GF Croissant that Wasn't

19 hours of labor later

They look quite like about-to-be croissants in this photo.

Those three in the back were set to become little pain au chocolat.  It took over 19 hours to make them that pretty.  First there was the top dog secret dough prep by Captain Awesome.  Then came the chilling, then the folding, then the chilling.  That included making sure the marble board was ice cold for each turning so the result is a zillion layers folded in loaded with good unsalted butter.  They were left to rise, slowly overnight, ready to bake in the wee hours of the morning.

Captain Awesome is on a mission to create a gluten free puff pastry and croissant that reminds him of Paris.  These little pastries came out of the oven looking like perfect little gluten free imitations of a French croissant.  Small, crispy, flaky on the outside and the smell would have made you swoon with lust.  For croissants, that is.

A Hanukkah Miracle: Gluten Free Latkes

sombrero boy lights menorah on Hanukkah

In December 1960, I unofficially borrowed the Ad Man’s best scissors for the event that would change my world.  I had been invited to share my first tree trimming duties at a neighbor’s house when I was five years old.  Having no idea what tree trimming meant, I wanted to be properly prepared with a sharp instrument just in case I had to actually cut the tree.  Turns out trimming meant something else entirely, and from that moment on I was completely sold on the all aspects of decorating a holiday tree, eating Christmas cookies, and sharing candy canes with both the tree and my pocket.   Hanging stockings was not only brilliant, but something I could easily do at home.

In fact, I was so smitten with the whole process that I campaigned mercilessly in my Jewish household for at minimum the hanging of the stocking ritual.  After all, filling a stocking with treats wasn’t apparently religious, something I reconciled in my mind and tried to sell to my unwavering parents.  Stubborn was my middle name and on Christmas Eve I took my biggest knee sock and hung it on the end of my bed since we were missing the all important fireplace.  Sadly, the next morning it was a dusty heap from falling on the floor during the night and as cold and empty as my little heart.  I vowed to never mention it again, but I also vowed that when I was grown up I would have a fireplace and a stocking that would be filled with treats no matter what.