Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies {Gluten-Free}

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Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies {Gluten-Free}

Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Everyone, it seems, is on an endless search to find the perfect chocolate chip cookie. Crunchy or soft, chewy or melt-in-your-mouth, each person has a personal preference with a set of criteria to match. There is a reason why there are twelve million hits when you search for the "best chocolate chip cookies"—like a soul mate, we all want to find "the one." While the back of the Nestlé Tollhouse chocolate chip package and the New York Times' cookie recipe are among the top, most popular contenders, my cookie preferences fall into a much different camp.

Have you found your perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe?

Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

My mother's homemade cookies consisted of store-bought frozen cookie dough, already packaged to go from bag to baking sheet without needing a single utensil. To be fair, she did make her daughters cookies from scratch occasionally, but the frozen cookies are the ones we remember and hold in our hearts. When my sister and I head home over long weekends or holidays, she always has a package in the freezer waiting for us. It does not matter that I am a proficient baker and could make a batch of cookies with my eyes closed, these are the cookies I look forward to most. Nostalgia has a sneaky way of suppressing any qualms I may have about store-bought baked goods.

Truthfully, I believe the qualities of the cookies we grow up with are the same as the cookies we prefer once when we grow older. My grandmother makes delightfully crunchy cookies that baptize the kitchen table with cookie crumbs each time a bite is taken. My dad loves these cookies, calling them "milk dunkers." My sister and I make help to make a further case for this claim.

Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

When I set out to make a batch of cookies last weekend, I did not intend to create my boyfriend's perfect chocolate chip cookie, but somehow it happened. I had almond butter in the cupboard and, inspired by these flourless peanut butter cookies, I played around with a few ingredients. The batter is a bit oily from the almond butter, but the nut oil crafts the most delightfully chewy cookie once it bakes. After stealing two straight from the oven, my boyfriend asked me what was in them, astonished at how unexpectedly perfect he found them. When I told them they were gluten-free, he refused to believe me, claiming the texture was too similar to a traditional chocolate chip cookie.

He ate six more before the day came to an end. I have already purposely filed this recipe away for the future.

Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies are fantastically chewy and, shockingly, gluten-free. Almond butter forms the base of the cookies, though it adds only a subtle flavor (if any) to the final product. While sugar sweetens the cookies, a pinch of salt really helps to bring out a contrast of flavors. I prefer to use miniature chocolate chips because they provide a little chocolate to every bite, but larger chocolate chips will work just as well. These cookies are something special, trust me.

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Peanut Butter & Jelly Muffins

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Peanut Butter & Jelly Muffins

Peanut Butter & Jelly Muffins

My days are filled with adult activities: I get up early for work. I pack myself a nutritionally sound lunch. I try my best to make it to the gym after I put in my full eight hours. I pay the bills on time. I meet all of my work and school deadlines (as well as those I set for myself). Some days I even clean the house. My daily habits have evolved as I have grown older, shaping me into the person I am and who I will become. Growing up is exciting in its own sense, each stage bringing more responsibility and more freedom—two viewpoints that should be contradictory, but at this stage of my life somehow are not.

Even so, there are days that I wish I could age backwards and repeat the moments I loved that brought me here, a Benjamin Button longing of sorts.

Peanut Butter & Jelly Muffins Peanut Butter & Jelly Muffins

I was blessed with a sweet childhood, free of worry or real responsibility. I played outdoors until the sun went down. I used my imagination to invent games and produce neighborhood plays. I read books late into the night until my mother told me to go to bed. In as many ways as the activities of youth defined my childhood, so did the food.

As a picky eater, my mother often repeated the same meals at the dinner table over and over again, just to be certain some nutrition would find its way to my stomach. My father cooked dinner every so often, making the same meal each time—noodles with crackers. The plain egg noodles mixed with saltine crackers browned in butter was a smell that often greeted me when I would come home late from piano lessons. With a side of summer sausage, this meal was one that topped my childhood favorites.

Peanut Butter & Jelly Muffins

Even so, as a picky eater, I ate more than my fair share of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. When the food on the table looked unfamiliar, peanut butter and jelly would be on my menu instead. White bread, creamy peanut butter, and grape jelly were the ingredients to create my perfect sandwich. As I have grown older, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches have become much more scarce in my diet, reserved for days when the cupboards are bare or I want to reignite a bit of childhood nostalgia. Nowadays I opt for a healthier take, with whole wheat bread and crunchy peanut butter for a distinct texture.

These Peanut Butter and Jelly Muffins may have gotten a grown up makeover, but the spirit of childhood rests just below the surface, yearning for a bite.

Peanut Butter & Jelly Muffins

Peanut Butter & Jelly Muffins are a fun spin on a childhood favorite. Whole wheat flour and ground flax meal add a healthier spin to these peanut butter muffins. A spoonful of grape jelly is added to the center of the muffins, which is absorbed into the rest of the muffin while it bakes. Be careful when layering the jelly in the center of the batter; if it is exposed, it likes to spread out onto the muffin tin. These muffins may not win any beauty pageants, but the taste will absolutely make you forget it.

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Mango Lassi

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Mango Lassi

Mango Lassi

Lately I have been feeling trapped, confined within the white walls of my apartment, as the wind outside howls and the cold, winter weather lays an oppressive hand over the land. Spring has been lost, mysteriously misplaced, forgotten by Mother Nature. Instead, there are cloudy skies, a dirty snow-covered landscape, and a thermometer registering temperatures below freezing. There is a long standing joke that the Midwest has two seasons—winter and road construction—but this year it rings true. Winter arrived in October and is refusing to leave seven months later, like a bothersome friend overstaying his or her welcome.

All I wish is to trade in my heavy winter coat for a light jacket.

Mango Lassi

It is hard for me to appreciate the subtleties of life, to find the magic in everyday moments, when the weather has put such a damper on my normally cheery disposition. I find myself in sour moods for no reason at all, occasionally perked up by a loved song or silly comment, but the lack of sunny vitamin D eventually pulls it back down. This feeling is electric, affecting the people around me. They talk about spring with an infectious enthusiasm and discuss mowing lawns with an unusual fondness, staring out the windows at the winterscape with a heavy sigh.

No one, it seems, is immune from a case of the mid-April winter blues.

Mango Lassi

My boyfriend has recently become infatuated with Indian cuisine, tackling Indian dishes with a large frying pan and little success. After tossing another half-finished dish into the trash, he set his sights on something simpler—a Mango Lassi. He had enjoyed several at the local Indian restaurant over the last month and we set out to create one together. Our joint effort was a smashing success, evidenced by the fact that he made five more over the course of the next few days.

In some ways, the simple blend of a few ingredients brought a brightness into the kitchen and sparked a light into my weary soul. It was a hint of the magic I have been searching for, the beginning of a journey into the rebirth of a new season.

Mango Lassi

Mango Lassi is a refreshing, cold beverage originating from India. Lassi is a yogurt-based drink blended with a bit of spice and ice which melts quickly to cool it down. Mango pulp (pureed mango) sweetens and flavors the drink while a sprinkle of cardamom adds warmth. A lassi has been described as a lighter, healthier version of a milkshake (or a smoothie without the blended ice). This mango lassi is lovely when dreaming of hot afternoons and cool drinks in the sun.

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