Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

One thing my 'poor' little Charlie has been deprived of during his short little life is cookies. Well, he sometimes gets cookies, but they aren't the really good, chewy, gooey, chocolatey, yummy cookies. Let's be honest, it's hard to make a good cookie without butter. And most chocolate chips have milk.  After discovering the milk-free PC Decadent Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips, I knew I'd finally be able to make chocolate chip cookies for the little guy.

The next obstacle, of course, is butter. I am not too keen on shortening, it's just not the same. And most margarine is just too thin to bake properly. I'd used the Earth Balance Buttery Flavor Spread for Charlie's birthday cake icing last year and I liked it.  It's much thicker than margarine, much more like butter. So I thought I'd try it for these cookies. It was perfect! The cookies turned out so well!  Moist, chewy, just right :)  Everyone in my little family loved them - except Charlie, lol! He wasn't sure about this new treat he was suddenly allowed to have! It's really the first time he'd had chocolate (except for the few times he managed to grab something when I wasn't looking). And he hasn't really had a real cookie. I'm sure he'll be converted soon enough though ;) What kid doesn't love chocolate chip cookies?  So for the recipe... you'll notice there's no salt (which I typically omit anyways) because the butter substitutes usually have salt in them.

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies (makes about 2-1/2 dozen)

Ingredients:
1 cup butter substitute, such as Earth Balance Buttery Flavor Spread
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla (I used 2, but only because I LOVE vanilla)
1 cup dairy-free chocolate chips, such as PC Decadent Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
1-1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda or baking powder
1/3 cup boiling water
2 cups rolled oats

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Beat together butter substitute, brown sugar, white sugar and vanilla until blended well, and as fluffy as you can get a butter substitute. Blend in flour. Dissolve baking soda/powder in the boiling water and blend into the mixture. Once the mixture has cooled, stir in the chocolate chips.

Form dough into approximately 1-1/2" balls and place on cookie sheet 2" apart.  Flatten balls. Bake 10-12 minutes, until golden on top. Take out of oven, let sit for 1-2 minutes and move to cooling rack. Store in airtight container.

Finally - enjoy your yummy, dairy-free chocolate chip cookie and helps you enjoy your dairy-free life a bit more :)

Monica

Inaugural Post...

It seems fitting.  I've been wanting to start this blog for about 5 months now, but just didn't have the energy.  Or I didn't really know *where* to start.  Now I'm starting it, finally, almost a year to the day when we realized that our little guy is more than likely allergic to dairy.  He was just over 10 months old and took a sip from a sippy cup with milk.  I thought "No biggie... he's almost 1."  But then his face swelled.  And swelled some more.  Then his eye pretty well swelled shut (as I was frantically searching for the Benadryl).  When I finally found and administered it, the Benadryl kicked in and the swelling slowly went down.  But a lot of things suddenly made sense.  The weight loss.  The rashes after eating yogurt and cheese.  The reaction to what we thought was brown rice infant cereal, but was actually to the whey in the cereal.

An allergy test confirmed what we already knew.  Charlie has a severe, anaphylactic allergy to dairy.  This means milk, casein and whey.  Right there my whole life changed and my whole family's life changed.  I was still breastfeeding full time, which meant my diet had to become dairy-free, too.  And because I refused to cook two meals for my family, our while diet changed.

Having a child with a severe, anaphylactic dairy allergy can be stressful.  A peanut or tree nut allergy would be a million times easier - the world is 'designed' for those allergies.  But dairy is everywhere.  The sippy of formula left on the floor, the kids' play-place where they ban nuts, but allow Goldfish crackers.  The child with a cheesestring at the mall wanting to share.  It's all my worst nightmare...

With this blog, I want to bring you some of the recipes I've come across, some of the recipes I've modified (dairy-free has forced me to be pretty creative!), and some of the dairy-free products I've come across.  My goal is to not spend too much at specialty food stores.  I've found that more often than not, I can't find much at these stores anyhow because they're all about gluten-free, but not dairy free.

I'll finish today's inaugural post with a product I recently found thanks to a good friend - milk-free chocolate chips!  Chocolate is something Charlie has never had because most times, even the semi-sweet chocolate which should be dairy-free, is not. But...  the President's Choice Semi-Sweet Decadent Chocolate Chips ARE dairy-free!!!

I did make some chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.  I modified a butter-filled recipe.  That'll be next time's post.  But for now, maybe some dairy-free people missing chocolate can enjoy some :)

Enjoy your dairy-free life :)

Monica