"Allergy Cooking With Ease"

So my brilliant husband gave me the idea to go to the library for cookbooks. I told him I was going to Barnes & Nobles to check out a cookbook from a gluten-free bakery in New York and he flipped out. Ok, it's not as bad as I make it sound. But he was appalled that I might possibly buy an over-priced cookbook there. I told him I wanted to SEE the cookbook before I bought it. I didn't want to just buy it on Amazon.com or Half.com and then realize none of the recipes were any good. Once I explained this to him, he mentioned the library and found that one St. Louis Country branch had a booked called "Allergy Cooking With Ease" by Nicolette M. Dumke. Underneath the title it says "The No Wheat, Milk, Eggs, Corn, Soy, Yeast, Sugar, Grain, and Gluten Cookbook." So I drove to a branch in Normandy because they had the only copy in library. While I was there I found other cookbooks and checked out five others. Two of them are primarily for diabetics and I thought this would be useful on the no sugar side of my 'diet'. I haven't had time to read through all of them, but I will be compiling recipes and trying some new things, and hopefully during this process, I will find some great alternatives, especially in the area of DESSERTS!

That being said, I compiled all the ingredients I needed to try my first sugar/gluten free cookies. Not impressed. The recipe I tried today was "Quinoa Carob Chip Cookies". I should have divided up the dough, but I didn't think about this until after the fact. I just mixed it all up and put the carob chips in it. It left me with a thick dough that I couldn't really add to. I've learned my lesson. The dough was really easy to mix up and looked like chocolate chip cookie dough.

And then I baked them. They don't look horrible, and they didn't really taste horrible either. But they did NOT taste good.

I will probably make the dough again and try adding some toasted pecans and something else-some sort of flavor (vanilla, almond). I don't really know yet. But when I try it again, I'm going to get a little braver and try to make them taste much better.

Here is the recipe for anyone that might be interested:

Quinoa Carob Chip Cookies

3 c quinoa flour

1 c tapioca flour

1 1/2 tsp. baking soda

31/2 tsp. unbuffered Vitamin C crystals (these are in the vitamin aisle)

1 3/8 c water plus 3/4 to 1 tsp white stevia powder

1/2 c oil

1 1/4 c unsweetened carob chips

In a large bowl, combine the quinoa flour, tapioca flour, baking soda, Vitamin C crystals, and stevia. In a separate bowl, stir together the water and oil, then stir them into the dry ingredients until they are just mixed in. Fold in the carob chips. Drop the dough by tablespoonfuls onto an ungreased baking sheet and flatten them to about 1/4" thickness with your fingers held together. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes. Make about 5 dozen cookies.