Dear Beer, I miss you.

As someone who prides themselves on eating, or at least trying, everything, I have a shameful not-so-secret: I'm gluten free.

I'm that person, the one who orders her burgers without buns, who can't have beer at the local brewery, and who makes sad faces when other people snarf cupcakes.  You can find me in the grocery store, walking around aimlessly, trying to figure out how people managed to get gluten into every single condiment and most of the canned goods. This is what I look like:

It gets worse. I don't have celiac's disease. Or a wheat allergy. As a result, I often look like one of these lame people who display their commitment to a certain diet like a badge of honor.

This gentleman is a devotee of the Paleo Diet. Other Google image searches for the Paleo diet looked like NSF selfies taken at your local Gold's gym so I went with this guy, who's on lunch break from his job at Brooks Brothers

Life long story short, my stomach is often upset and non-functioning. I decided to cut out the gluten as part of an experiment to see if my digestive system would improve (it was either gluten or dairy, and I'd shank anyone who got between me and my cheese). And my digestive system has improved. Please note, my hair is not shinier, my skin is not clearer, and angels do not sing to me every time I pass on a doughnut.

It's actually reasonably simple to be gluten free, with the following three exceptions:

1. Breweries: You can enjoy really overpriced gluten free beer that usually sucks 
2. Restaurants: Welcome to your own personal hell of ordering like Sally from "When Harry Met Sally", you'll have the burger, no bun, and fries, but not the cajun fries because you've heard those are sometimes coated in flour. 
3. Baking: Invest in Xantham gum. It's expensive. And your bread will bake up like a brick if you try to skip it because you're cheap.

I've found a couple of gluten free "ready to make" baking solutions that I love and regularly employ (Thank you, King Arthur Flour Company, for your idiot proof Gluten Free Bread and Pizza Mix, for allowing me to continue to enjoy sandwiches). But I have been slightly less successful with my own impromptu baking. I've accidentally made hardtack more than a few times and experiments with improvised gluten free flour mixes of my own making have led to some very dense, crumbly bread.

Because of these many failures, I get really excited when I stumble upon a successful gluten free baking recipe. Recently, I saw a lot of posting on Facebook about the best Paleo chocolate chip cookies. Intrigued, I set off to the grocery store with the intention of making them. But the bag of almond meal was $14. And I am cheap. And there was a bag of gluten free muesli that was only $3.49. And frugality is the mother of invention.....

Obviously, taking out the almond meal and adding in the muesli (Bob's Red Mill) resulted in some substantial restructuring of the initial recipe. And by substantial, I mean the recipe I developed isn't Paleo. But it is gluten free. And more importantly, it was successful and the resulting cookies were delicious. I swear. Several people in my office ate them and said so. And they didn't look like they were humoring me.

I do not think this is what happened. You may need to check with my co-workers before making the recipe yourself. They might be really good liars....

Recipe: Formerly Paleo, Now Just Gluten Free, Best Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever

Hardware: Large Plastic Bowl, Cookie Sheet, Ice Cream Scoop

Ingredients:

2 cups gluten free muesli (Bob's Red Mill)

3/4 cup gluten free flour (King Arthur)

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

5 tablespoons honey

1 egg

3 teaspoons vanilla (or could be one seeded vanilla bean and 3 tsp water)

6 tablespoons coconut oil (melted)

1 large chocolate bar (your fave) chopped into chunks.

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 
2. Grease your cookie sheet 
3. Mix muesli, flour, soda, cinnamon, salt in a bowl. 
4. Add honey, egg, vanilla, and oil and stir to combine. 
5. Mix in the chocolate chunks last. 
6. Use an ice cream scoop to portion onto your greased baking sheet. 
7. Bake for about 12 minutes or until they are golden brown around the edges. 

Makes 12-15 cookies.If you didn't eat all the raw dough first.