K threw a cookie party where guests were to bring a batch of cookies for everyone to try. She herself made a few types of cookies to get the party started, one of them being vegan cookies because K is currently on a dairy-free diet. K's baby D is allergic to dairy, in particular allergic to cow's milk protein so this prevents K from having anything with dairy in it. Because of this I decided to also make some dairy-free cookies so she could have other cookie options besides her own to eat. After some internet searching I stumbled upon this recipe which was perfect since the party was during the holiday season. The recipe's animal free ingredients can be seen to the left.
The only ingredients that might be a little different from the norm is the margarine and the yogurt. Since most margarine has dairy in it one must pay attention to the labeling on the margarine. To be safe only buy the ones that are labeled vegan and not just labeled non-dairy. The term "non-dairy" only means less than 0.5% milk by weight (Wikipedia) so it is possible to still have a little bit of dairy in "non-dairy" products. Earth Balance is a good brand to go with. Smart Balance also has a few vegan options.
The other ingredient that you can get a vegan substitute for is yogurt. Vegan yogurts can be made from soy or coconut, found at a Whole Foods or a Trader Joe's. But again be careful and look for that "vegan" labeling because even some soy yogurts such as Stonyfield O'Soy grow their cultures in Milk so therefore have trace amounts of milk and can cause an allergic reaction (about their soy yogurt).
The recipe itself is pretty standard. One thing of note is that although it calls for a spritz gun (a cookie gun that presses out cookies with a design), if you don't have one you can just made little cookies by hand like I did. The cookies will look more like whoopie pies instead of looking like cookie sandwiches, but they still taste delicious. Another tip about the recipe is that once the filling is made it should be immediately used to fill the cookies. If you leave it out for a while it gets hard and difficult spread.
Another food show to watch! It's time for the third season of Worst Cooks in America airing Sundays at 9pm on Food Network. I've watched the previous two seasons of this show and am hooked. The show keeps me coming back because of its mixture of being able to keep me on the edge of my seat waiting for the next disaster to happen, while at the same time being able to amaze me seeing the lack of common kitchen/food sense people have (such as not knowing how a pepper grinder works, or knowing that leaving raw meat out all day is not good), but yet still be a bit heartwarming as you see how important and an amazing life changer it is for these people to actually be able to cook. Here is the Season 3 teaser.
Honestly after watching episode 1 of this season it seems that the contestants this season are better than the previous contestants, so there were less disasters and more successes than in the previous season premiers. I worry this might make this season less exciting. However the preview for the next week's episode made it seem like the contestants have to perform more difficult cooking tasks than in the previous seasons, which means disasters may ensue! One of the things they show them doing is learning how to make hand pulled noodles. That is something that even a non-worst chef in America could struggle with.
Another reason why I enjoy watching this show is that I get to learn new things along with the contestants. I am actually quite excited for next week's show to learn how to make hand pulled noodles. Some of the things I learned from this week's episode is when poaching an egg, a splash of vinegar in the poaching water helps firm up the egg quickly, and one can easily make infused maple syrup such as cinnamon maple syrup. You can also glean some easy tasty recipes from the episodes which are posted on the Food Network site. You can also watch the first episode of this season or the entirety of season two there. Go Watch! Go Enjoy!
