Susie Homemaker

I’ve been sitting/walking/laying around my apartment for the last thirty minutes or more trying to think about what to write about today. I think for some reason I had it in my brain that being that this is the second to last day of my challenge, that I should have something heavy or meaningful to say…not at the moment. I’m tired. Not tired of writing or of the challenge, just tired. 

Today wasn’t particularly notable or tiring, though I did make a bunch of snickerdoodles. And by ‘I’, of course I mean I had help from a friend with a lot more kitchen/baking experience than I have; ie a girl, hah, boom, sexist joke achieved! Moving right along...I’ve been trying to come up with healthy ways to still eat like a fat kid lately. I still love sugar and crappy foods, I just keep myself away from them and then think of ‘healthy’ ways that I can still have them. A couple weeks ago, me and a friend entered and won a cupcake contest with a gluten-free avocado, coconut and pistachio cupcake. Since then, I’ve wanted to get back in the game and come up with more ideas that people haven’t really messed with yet, at least not in the gluten-free/health food world. Then, I started thinking about basics, foundational knowledge, and thought it might be a good idea to start with something super basic and see what we could do with it and then go from there. That’s where the snickerdoodles came in. Basically we just subbed out ‘bad’ fats, butter and shortening, for ‘good’ fats, avocado and coconut oil, and instead of white sugar, we used half the recommended amount and used brown sugar and a little stevia. If we had subbed out the eggs for almond milk or something, the cookies would’ve been vegan, but I have no desire to go full-throttle into the world of the vegans; I have no problem with eggs, so they stayed. Anyway, we kept the cinnamon and sugar on the outside of the cookies and cut down the temp and cooking time and these guys turned out pretty good, especially for a first batch. Using these for reference, now we can go back and make little revisions to try to really dial it in and formulate our own reliable recipe. Finishing this first run also gave us some further ideas for future cookies and breads, which I’m definitely excited about trying out.

I’m excited that I might be able to help create some healthy, not cardboard, tasting treats because a lot of what’s available to us, even with all the gluten-free and vegan options, are just crap. They’re ‘healthier’ but they’re just as processed and just as full of shit I can’t pronounce as the ‘unhealthy’ stuff. Ideally, I’d like to take things as far back to basics as possible and still make them tasty. I want to remove all the extra crap and just come up with some recipes or guides that provide full taste and less mental and physical grief afterwards. For now, this is all just a hobby, but I love to cook, and I love to eat…If I had more hours in the day, or did crack or something, I could do music and create the healthiest best tasting cookies ever…I think I can still make that happen, it might just take me a little longer than I’d like. Until then, no Oreos are safe...especially those birthday cake ones.