Stumbling through the GF

What this post should be titled is stumbling through the goddamn forest. What I'm talking about here is gluten free.

Forty is a beautiful thing, y'all. It's when I stopped caring what other people thought and started caring about myself. Good thing, because about six months in I had this crazy idea to get in to shape. I started exercising, boxing, jogging sweating - all the things. It made a difference too! I met some cool new peeps and felt oh so good. Then, heart burn.

Being the reflective forty-something spaz that I am, after about a month of heart burn every day I started to think I was having symptoms of a heart attack, or the universe was trying to tell me to stop working out, or something!? I couldn't figure it out. I tried everything. I quit everything to try to figure out what my malfunction was.

Turns out gluten is the culprit. While this makes me wonder how many other fabulous drug companies are making fortunes off of people who haven't figured out that gluten is causing their malfunction, I had no idea one could develop an intolerance to gluten mid-life. I mean, I know I can't have lactose. Pregnancy changed the game on that one. My fighting power after lactose makes it abundantly clear that it isn't for me. Actually, it hurts my people more than it hurts me. (HA!) Gluten on the other hand stops me in my tracks.

In real life, con gluten, I'm a decent cook and baker. I can't hold a candle to Kat's cooking skillz, but I'm not skinny cook either. I enjoy baking (and eating baked goods - herein lies the problem). I can't cook or bake gluten free. I know I have to figure this out, because sleeping standing up just isn't an option, but still. I'm grieving gluten. Where's my personal chef when I need her?

I admit that I will eat the gluten for one thing - cookies. I care not about the heartburn or sleeping vertically, if it's for a cookie. We have mom to thank for that one! Damn cookies.

Given that it's my kryptonite, I figured I best start this GF thing with cookies. I've been looking for recipes that don't taste like cardboard or feel like sand in my mouth for a while.  I've tried a LOT of flours and recipes. Recently, I stumbled upon this incredible blogger who has made a living out of modifying recipes to be awesome. I ordered the flours, etc., because if I'm going to give this a go, I better do it right? (Ok, let's be real. I ordered all of the shit she recommended because at least I will LOOK like I know what I'm doing!)

Here's the verdict...

Chilling the dough matters.

Size matters. I made 1t size and 1T size. The 1T size makes for the perfect chewy chocolate chip cookie. Mom and kid approved! (Kid might even like these better. WHAT?!)

Awesome.