Honey Roasted Peanut Butter Cookies

Yeah, I know.  It's not gluten free, or sugar free...  But peanut butter is high in protein and sometimes you just need a treat!  If you use bread flour rather than traditional all purpose it'll raise the protein count a smidge more.

INGREDIENTS
- 1 cup light brown sugar
- 3/4 cup honey roasted peanut butter (Peter Pan)
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 1 egg
- 1 1/2 cup flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
powdered sugar (to coat fork when you press dough balls flat)

DIRECTIONS

- Preheat oven to 375.
- Line 2 ungreased cookie sheets with parchment paper.
- Beat together sugar, peanut butter, vanilla, butter, and egg on medium     speed until creamy.
- Blend in flour and baking soda on low speed until well-blended.
- Shape dough into 1-1 1/2 inch balls. Place dough balls onto cookie sheets.
- Flatten in criss-cross pattern with a fork dipped in powdered sugar.
- Bake for 6-9 minutes or until set.
- Cool on cookie sheet until cookies can be moved (about 2 minutes).
- Move to wire rack to finish cooling.


I do mine in 2 batches because I've only got one true cookie sheet (no sides) and it turns out fine.  When these come out you'll think they're not done because they are VERY soft and have to set up for a couple of minutes before you remove them from the pan, I believe it's due to the honey roasted peanut butter being softer than regular peanut butter.  Bob's Red Mill All Purpose GF baking mix should sub in perfectly, I just didn't have any extra to play with and that stuff costs a fortune.  The parchment paper is a must with as soft as these are.  I bake them for about 7.5 minutes but every oven is different.  I don't know anyone that won't eat a peanut butter cookie even when it's a little overdone anyway.

Chicken Wings & Blue Cheese Dressing

I'm a bit strange, which most people already know. One of my stranger quirks is that I can not stand to eat meat off the bone.  Any time I do I start to all I can think about is tendons and muscles and... Ugh, it's all downhill from there.  Due to this, the fact that blue cheese is a fairly nasty migraine trigger and a Denny's experience that I won't make anyone suffer through I've never really given much thought to coming up with any sort of blue cheese dressing recipe.  Since cutting gluten completely out of my sons diet I've come to find that gluten is almost EVERYTHING, including most salad dressings and sauces.  I may not like chicken (even when it's not on a bone, I don't much care for it), however, my family are all nuts for chicken in any form but wings seem to be their favorite.  Any fool can make chicken wings, seriously.  Snip the tips off the end of the wings (toss those in a bag to put in the freezer to boil for chicken stock when you've gotten enough of them), season them and pop them in the oven. Some of the preferred seasonings around here are garlic, ranch, parmesan (garlic powder, Hidden Valley Ranch seasoning powder and parmesan cheese), sweet and spicy (Frank's Red Hot Sweet Chili Sauce - most of the Frank's products are GF) and good ole fashioned BBQ sauce (there are several that are GF and even a few of those are HFCS free as well - Mc Cormick Grill Mates fits that double bill and tastes amazing).  Put the seasoned wings on a cookie sheet, even just a lil salt and pepper works, stick them in a preheated oven at 400 for 45-60 minutes.  If you line the sheet with foil or parchment paper it makes clean up a breeze!  Earlier this week I was asked to get some blue cheese dressing to go with wings, of course, everything available at the commissary had gluten in it so I went to work reading recipes and what I came up with was considered one of my best creations yet.  Even I liked it, and after the Denny's incident I never thought I'd even attempt to eat it again.


AWESOME GLUTEN FREE BLUE CHEESE DRESSING/DIP

1/2 Cup Mayo (not salad dressing, real mayo - it's a breeze to make)
1/2 Cup sour cream
2 Tbsp buttermilk
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 Tbsp fresh chopped chives (or 1/2 Tbsp of dried chives)
1/4 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/4-1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1/4 tsp garlic powder
2 oz blue cheese crumbles (heaped up half cup)

Combine mayo, sour cream and milk until smooth. Stir in vinegar, Worcestershire, sugar, salt, pepper, chives and garlic till well blended. Fold in cheese crumbles. Transfer into container with a tight sealing lid and chill until serving time.  The longer it chills the better it is.  Dressing will keep for about a week in the refrigerator.