Gluten Free Soft and Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies

One of the hardest thing to give up when I went gluten-free was baked goods.  Yes there are some good baked goods out there that don't contain gluten, like my Nutella Brownies  or my Gluten Free Peach Fritters.  They are both delicious enough you would never miss the gluten.  But a lot of recipes are just so-so substitutes for the real thing.  And most of the time I don't want to make Mr. Devilish Dish eat gluten-free just because I'm craving a sweet treat.  And I'll admit most of the time I'm too lazy to make two different things just so I can have a handful of gluten free cookies.  The exception to this is when I make my Easy Peanut Butter Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches.  A simple 3-ingredient gluten free cookie, filled with ice cream and rolled in mini chocolate chips.  It is a real treat and one Mr. Devilish Dish totally enjoys because Peanut Butter Cookies are a favorite of both he and my dad.  They happen to be my all-time favorite too, but sadly, gluten filled so I don't make them much anymore.  The 3-ingredient peanut butter cookies are a tasty substitute, but face it they aren't the real deal, and they aren't the same texture.  They are absolutely wonderful as the ice cream sandwich, but I don't particularly love them as just a cookie to eat by themselves.  Mainly because I enjoy a soft, chewy peanut butter cookie.  Which I thought I would never enjoy again until now.  A few tweaks on the 3-ingredient style peanut butter cookie has resulted in a gluten free SOFT and CHEWY peanut butter cookie!  It's a 4-ingredient cookie, simple to make and the soft, chewy texture I love! I'm so excited to have a cookie that Mr. Devilish Dish, my dad and I can all enjoy.  

Only 4 ingredients

Soft and Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies
AND
Gluten Free!

A cookie everyone will enjoy.

A few tweaks on a simple recipe.
The result is a wonderfully chewy cookie
that is soon to be a favorite with everybody!

Veggie Salad

 As many of you know, Michaela at an Affair from the Heart and I have been friends for many years. When we met her sweet daughter Kenzie was just six weeks old.  (And she was born on my birthday!) To give you some idea of our far back our friendship goes, I attended Kenzie's wedding recently!  Over the years we have shared many recipes and shared family favorites with each other.  I have a beautiful handwritten cookbook Michaela made me years ago with recipes that she is famous for, and many recipes belonging to her mom, grandma and other relatives.  It is one of my go-to recipe books and many of her long-time family recipes have been adopted and claimed by my family too.  You may also know my Devilish Nephew and his wife live in Denver.  The last couple of years we've begun a new tradition where Mr. Devilish Dish and I make a trip to see them around Father's Day and again in October to watch the OU-Texas football rivalry.  My nephew and his wife share a love of cooking like we do, and our visits consist of dining at some of Denver's best restaurants and then taking turns preparing newly discovered recipes for each other.  My nephew is quite the expert at smoking meat, and he wanted to wow us with a slab of ribs for football watching.  We built a totally Southern, football-friendly menu around his entrée, and enjoyed ribs, jalapeno pimento cheese, Coca-Cola Pickled Onions, pickles and THIS SALAD made famous by Michaela.  It's been a while since I've made this and I cannot believe I haven't shared this with you before, as it has been a pot-luck staple in our family for years.  My nephew had almost forgotten about this recipe, and he was quite glad we brought it back for his watch party.  It was the perfect accompaniment to his fall-off-the-bone ribs and a deliciously fresh and crisp side dish (far different from the usual potato salad.) Be sure and head over to An Affair from the Heart and you'll see why Michaela has been such a cooking inspiration as well as a dear friend for so long!

Coca-Cola Pickled Onions

We like to tease my Devilish Nephew about his "Bro Crush" on James Beard Award Winning Chef Chris Shepherd.  Chef Chris was named one of the 10 Best New Chefs in America by Food & Wine Magazine in 2013 and awarded the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Southwest in 2014.  In 2019 all three of his restaurants nabbed the Number 1 spots on Texas Monthly's list of Best New Restaurants in Texas.  These are just a handful of accolades awarded to Chef Chris and having eaten at one of his restaurants I can personally vouch for how divine and creative his food is.  Houston is such a diverse city and Chris Shepherd's food style reflects that.  It is a blend of Asian, Tex-Mex, Latin American and Texas barbecue traditions.  Nothing makes me prouder than my nephew sharing my love for cooking and especially his desire to follow cooking trends and be adventurous in trying new foods and recipes.  His obsession with Houston's most well-known chef is not surprising, and although we tease him about it, I'm glad to see him taking advantage of the interesting cultural influence Houston has on food.  When we visited him a while back, he prepared us Vietnamese Fajitas from the chef's cookbook.  As I was thumbing through the pages I stumbled upon this recipe for pickled onions.  I was so intrigued I even took a screen shot of the page.  Upon our return trip to Houston we planned a delicious Southern-style meal based around my nephew's melt-in-your-mouth ribs.  As we were brainstorming dishes to accompany the ribs, Mr. Devilish Dish said, "How about something simple like some pickles, or maybe some quick pickled onions?" Immediately I grabbed Chris Shepherd's cookbook and said, "I know exactly how we are going to quick pickle the onions." Making this recipe was so important to us we made three stops to find Mexican Coke.  (Everyone seemed to be out of stock) We finally bought a bottle from the taco truck near the nephew's house!  I can't say enough about how delicious my nephew's ribs were.  Absolutely perfect and worthy of any Texas barbecue contest.  We also enjoyed my Veggie Salad, which is a cool, crisp alternative to potato salad.  In true Southern style we had jalapeno pimento cheese sandwiches.  While all of these dishes were unquestionably outstanding, the Coca-Cola Pickled Onions stole the show.  This is a recipe we will go to again and again and I highly recommend you follow in the Devilish Nephew's footsteps, fall in love with Chef Shepherd and make this recipe pronto!

Two-Ingredient Lemon Bars

A lot has happened since my last original blog post. We bought a boat. Mr. Devilish Dish started his own company. The Devilish Nephew has two little boys now, so I have two grandboys. The Littlest Devils. I had major surgery on my hand on New Year's Eve. I had 12 weeks of recovery with absolutely zero to do and it got me inspired to get back to blogging. Shortly after the pandemic shutdown, we did a major remodel on our house. I packed up my old office into a closet and never looked back. Then Mr. Devilish Dish took what was supposed to be my new office as he was still working for home at the time. By the time I was able to put my office back together my old computer was obsolete. I never gave up cooking though besides those two Littlest Devils and bass fishing, cooking is still my favorite thing to do - even the last few months with only one hand to work with. We recently celebrated Mother's Day -after a super quick trip to Denver to see the aforementioned Littlest Devils. I knew after a long weekend of travel the Mother's Day festivities would need to be simple and quick. Nothing could be easier than two ingredients. I'm calling these Lemon Bars, but they aren't like a true lemon bar with a lemon curd-texture, these are more like a really moist, really delicious Lemon Brownie. They were the hit of the get-together and will definitely be made again this summer.

Two-Ingredient Lemon Bars

My cute little coordinating paper plates courtesy of Dollar Tree.

I love that the plates are shaped like a lemon wedge.

Here's my Littlest Devils coloring Crae Home dishtowels 
for their great-grandmother and great-aunt.

Proud of their work!

I've been making these little "fairy wands" to stick in
all of my potted plants on the patio.  I decided they would make
adorable gifts too, and with a little fenagling, I was able
to make these cute pots complete with the boys' pictures.
Flower Pots

I found the cutest kit on Amazon that makes 6 wands,
complete with all of the parts.  So fun and easy to do:

Fairy Wand Kit

My Mother-in-Law got a super cute MacKenzie Childs-
inspired flower pot with some fresh thyme and the cutest
pink fairy wand with crown charms!

TWO-INGREDIENT LEMON BARS

1 (21 Ounce) Can Lemon Pie Filling
1 (16 ounce) Angel Food Dry Cake Mix

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Combine dry cake mix and pie filling and mix until smooth.  Pour into a greased 9x13-inch pan and bake until top is browned and starting to split.  (Approximately 35-45 minutes) It will puff up tall like a cake but fall as it cools.  Allow to cool completely before cutting into bars and dusting with powdered sugar.  

Dreamsicle in a Bowl AKA Orange Dreamsicle Salad

If only you knew how long I waffled around trying to name this recipe.  There are as many variations on the name as there are varieties of Jell-O.  I've seen this called Creamsicle Salad, Dreamsicle Salad, Popsicle Salad, Orange Fluff, Creamsicle Fluff.  Is it a salad?  Not really.  Would I put mandarin oranges in a salad?  Yes.  They are fabulous in my Asian Chicken Chopped Salad.  Would I put sweetened whipped cream in a salad?  No.  Would I put whipped cream in a dessert?  Yes.  Same for the marshmallows.  Marshmallows in salad = bad.  Marshmallows in dessert = good.  Every fluffy combination of fruit, marshmallows and gelatin from my childhood was called "salad" but my gauge for judging salad is where it was placed on the potluck table at Church Supper growing up.  If it was next to Karen's Taco Salad then it was a salad.  If it was at the end of the table next to Margie's Peanut Butter Bars then it's a dessert.  So I'm calling this Dreamsicle in a Bowl because face it, it I called it Popsicle Salad you would break up with me.  Also is it a creamsicle or a dreamsicle?  My mom always called that delicious orange coated vanilla treat a Dreamsicle.  I did a little research and though the terms are used interchangeably, technically a creamsicle is made with ice cream while a dreamsicle is made with ice milk.  This contains neither ice cream nor milk so now you see why I struggled with the name.  The orange and vanilla flavors are definitely reminiscent of the treat we all enjoyed growing up, and to me any kind of "Jell-O Salad" is retro but always delicious.  I most certainly served this as a dessert, and while you can definitely call it a salad, kind of like my "Grape Salad" it's a fruity, creamy treat that belongs at the end of the buffet with the Peanut Butter Bars.  Like my Lemon-Strawberry Trifle I shared recently the original recipe called for whipped topping.  I'm not a fan of the texture.  To me it feels greasy in my mouth so I always take the time to substitute fresh whipped cream.  It only takes a couple of minutes with a mixer and I think the result is airier, fluffier and tastier.  Since Memorial Day weekend is upon us, and Summer gatherings are right around the corner, this is a great time to bring back a retro dessert to your next summer meal!

Call it a dessert, Call it a salad. 
Call it a Dreamsicle.  Call it a Creamsicle.
Who cares?  JUST MAKE IT!

Lemon Strawberry Trifle

Mother's Day snuck up on me this year.  I had nothing planned, nothing going on.  That is until my BFF Barb sent me a text asking, "Is there anything organized for the GMOs on Sunday?" (GMO is text abbreviation for Grandmother in my family lol) It hit me that Mother's Day was rapidly approaching.  So I quick called my Mom and my Aunt Sissie and said, "Please plan on coming over for dessert and coffee Sunday afternoon." Now gifts I had taken care of a long time ago.  I may or may not have told you that we have a new baby in the family!  My Devilish Nephew is now a Dad so we now have Baby Devilish Dish to keep up busy and shower our love on. Should I call him Baby Devilish Dish?  Little Devil is already taken even though she's now grown up.  Maybe he can be the Littlest Devil.  He's too sweet for that.  Anyhoo, I already had photo albums filled with baby pictures for the Littlest Devil's Great Grandmother and Great Aunt.  Really all I needed was a good house cleaning and a quick dessert recipe.  I asked Mr. Devilish Dish if he had any recipe ideas and his reply was, "Something Spring-y."  I always think Strawberry Shortcake for Spring. Or some variation of strawberries and pound cake but I wanted something a little different.  I thought about making a Bundt cake in one of my fancy pans but that last time I made a cake it failed to release from the pan.  Twice.  At first I thought to myself, "If the cake fails just cube it up and call it a trifle."  Then I thought to myself, "Just skip the cake attempt and make a trifle."  I just love trifles and layered desserts because they look so pretty and colorful with the distinct layers in the dish.  And believe it or not I don't even own a trifle dish.  I used to.  I think I even registered for it when I got married years and years ago.  I'm sure it was broken in one of a million moves.  I do however own a large collection of beautiful glass bowls.  Some wedding gifts, some family heirlooms.  Some vintage purchases.  I decided to skip the cake baking and use a store bought Angel Food Cake  After all the star of the show would be whatever Spring flavors I decided to use.  I wanted something just a little fancier than cake, strawberries and whipped cream layered together and not only are the flavors of lemon and strawberry delicious together, the colors look so pretty layered in the dish.  I opted to make this a semi-homemade dessert.  I doctored up some store bought ingredients and it turned out great.  After all I am a Mom too and I wanted to enjoy the day not cooking and cleaning for hours. This dessert simple to make, and it was a huge hit.  It made such a striking presentation layered in the dish and the tart lemon and sweet strawberry were the perfect compliment to the pound cake.  It definitely checked the box for "Spring-y Dessert." 

Miami Vice Cocktail

 Our town is famous for a couple of things.  Sooner Football and Swirls.  A swirl is a cocktail that consists of frozen sangria and frozen margarita "swirled" together.  Not only is it reminiscent of the Sooners team colors, it's also tasty and refreshing on a hot Oklahoma day.  A little less locally famous, but equally delicious is the Miami Vice.  It's a tropical concoction of frozen daiquiri and frozen pina colada swirled together for a fun presentation.  When I've enjoyed them out at local restaurants they are always served with a dollop of whipped cream.  Last weekend we had beautiful weather and spent the afternoon fishing.  We decided to enjoy the gorgeous Saturday evening on our patio and I was inspired to make the Miami Vice at home.  Authentic right down to the generous dollop of homemade whipped cream.  The only thing not authentic about it was my presentation.  I think I made my daiquiri and pina colada mixtures a little too thin as they didn't stay very separated in the glass.  They did taste amazing though.  Fast forward to this afternoon, another beautiful, very warm day.  Mr. Devilish Dish is busy with golf, and I had the afternoon off and decided to busy myself with plenty of backyard chores.  Lots of shrubs to trim and weeds to pull and herbs and vegetables to look after.  A big task to tackle by myself and when I finished I sat down on the patio to enjoy the weather and bask in the glow of the sun and my hard work.  The only thing missing was a chilly cocktail and then I remembered I had leftover daiquiri and pina colada in my freezer.  The concoctions never froze solid in the freezer, but they were scoopable with my ice cream scoop and it made the perfect consistency for Miami Vice presentation!  It's a super easy drink, using ready made cocktail mixers.  The extra effort of homemade whipped cream is totally worth it.  And trust me, you'll need that little garnish of creaminess on the top to cut through the tartness of the drink.  You don't need a beach to enjoy this drink.  Enjoy on your patio since summer is right around the corner.

Beat the heat and say a big HELLO to
Summer with a cool, refreshing
Miami Vice Cocktail.

Garnish your frozen concoction with
freshly whipped cream.  You'll want the
creaminess to cut the tart flavors a little bit.
It makes your cocktail look extra fancy too.
I even added some fresh mint from my
garden and a vintage swizzle stick.

Enjoy.  Whether you're in the tropics
or you just want to pretend from your patio...

MIAMI VICE COCKTAIL

1 recipe frozen strawberry daiquiri (I used the can of frozen concentrate and followed directions)
1 recipe frozen pina colada (I used the can of frozen concentrate and followed directions)
Rum - optional (follow mix directions for cocktail OR virgin version)
whipped cream for garnish

Prepare frozen strawberry daiquiri according to mix directions.  I used a can of frozen concentrate that included the can of frozen mix, a half can of rum and ice.  (I also used a very nice bottle of 15 year old Dominican Rum that may have been a little too nice for the concentrate, as my daiquiris and coladas were really strong.  Adjust the amount of rum as necessary or use water for a virgin cocktail.)  Separately, prepare frozen pina colada according to mix directions.  You want both of these mixtures to be pretty thick so they can stand up side by side in the cocktail glass.  If your mixtures are too thin, place in freezer safe containers and freeze for several hours or overnight.  When ready to serve, begin by scooping frozen pina colada into your glass that has been turned sideways.  Add frozen strawberry daiquiri beside the pina colada so that when your glass sits upright the frozen cocktails are side by side.  Garnish generously with freshly whipped cream.