Chocolate Avocado Mousse

Contributed by Kathleen Pierce
Original Source: Creative Simple Life

Chocolate Avocado Mousse

Ingredients:
3 medium ripe avocados
1 c. unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4-1/2 c. honey
2 t. vanilla extract
1/4 t. salt
1 T. milk (optional for thinner consistency)

How I did it (along with how I might do it better next time):
1. I felt just like someone from Food Network Star cutting the avocados open and removing the pits by embedding a knife in them and giving them a twist. (I don't DO avocado, you see, so this was my first experience with the mushy vegetable (?) fruit (?), and I learned the nifty pit removal technique from Bobby Flay.) Scrape all the pulp into a food processor.

2. Dump in all the other ingredients. Be sure to use at least a tablespoon of vanilla. Whip it good.

3. So I ended up using a bit more than 1/2 c. of honey. I wanted to make sure it was sweet enough that the children would actually eat it. I think next time I will try cutting the cocoa powder in half and adding some melted dark chocolate. You can't go wrong with melted dark chocolate. Especially Lindt melted dark chocolate.

4. I also added a bit more than 1 T. milk.

5. I chilled the mousse overnight. The next day it did not have the nice whipped texture it had after swirling around in the food processor for awhile. So I added a bit more milk and used a handmixer to re-whip it.

6. Then of course I served it with whipped cream. It was homemade at least. Well, homemade in that I whipped up some heavy whipping cream. It was grass-fed, organic whipping cream. OK. Enough rationalizing. Someday perhaps I'll try the whipped coconut milk recipe I keep seeing on Pinterest. Until then, grass-fed, organic, semi-homemade whipped cream it is.

GF Chocolate Cookies with Chocolate Chips

Submitted by: Kathleen
Original source: Gluten-Free Goddess

So I decided to tackle the Gluten-Free Chocolate Cookies with Chocolate Chips out of curiosity. You know, to see if I can even do gluten-free. OK, so I made this recipe my first gluten-free attempt because I need want chocolate. I justify it because all of this stress over what I'm going to feed myself must be alleviated, and I ask you, what better way to do that than with chocolate? Anyway, I got this recipe from the Gluten-Free Goddess who really seems to know her stuff. The recipe she offers is vegan. I like my animal products thankyouverymuch, so I used what I have.

Here is her recipe with my notes of course, because I simply cannot keep my opinions to myself:

Whisk together:
1/2 c. GF buckwheat flour or GF oat flour*
1/2 c. sorghum (jowar) flour**
1/2 c. brown rice flour**
1/2 c. tapioca starch or potato starch (not potato flour)***
1/3 c. cocoa powder
2 t. xanthan gum
1 t. sea salt
2 t. baking powder
1 c. cane sugar
1/3 c. light brown sugar

*I used oat flour. Howver, I haven't ventured out to Whole Foods since I decided to try to deprive my body of wheat, so my oats are not certified GF. But in my research, I learned that oats only contain gluten because of contamination. I figure that isn't as bad as actual gluten in the product, so I gambled and milled my oats into oat flour.

**I cannot find sorghum flour as is the case with many of these very weird ingredients in these GF recipes. The GF Goddess said a good substitute is white or brown rice flour. Since the recipe already calls for brown rice flour, I milled some white rice as a sub for sorghum. As a side note, one of the reasons I abhor the idea of being GF is because of the exhorbitant cost of some of these ingredients. BUT...the fact that I can take a fairly inexpensive staple item like rice and mill it into flour, I guess, somewhat makes up for the fact that I had to dip into my children's college fund to buy a measly 8 oz. bag of xanthan gum.

***Again, I could not find tapioca starch, so I bought tapioca pearls and milled them myself.

Add in:
1/2 c. light olive oil or organic shortening+
1 T. bourbon vanilla extract
1/2 c. vanilla rice milk, coconut milk, or almond milk - more as needed++

+I don't have light olive oil, and I thought regular ol' EVOO might taste too strong. I thought about using coconut oil, but then I figured my kids wouldn't eat that (which may be a good thing - more for me), so I used expeller pressed peanut oil.

++Like I said, I like my cow products. I used raw milk.

As you beat the dough, pay close attention to the consistency. Add more rice milk a tablespoon at a time and beat to combine until you achieve a smooth but sturdy cookie dough. [GF Goddess] added two more tablespoons of rice milk to [her] dough.

Add in:
1/2 c. vegan chocolate chips****

****I may or may not have used at least a cup of chocolate chips. I used Lindt chocolate because it is one brand I know is GMO-free. Plus it's yummy!

Instructions:
Stir in chocolate chips as best you can (the dough is stiff). Divide into 18 equal pieces. Roll into a ball and place on cookie sheet. Flatten slightly with palm of your hand. Bake in the center of a 375 preheated oven for about 15 minutes until the cookies are set. They will still be slightly soft in the center. If you bake two pans at once, rotate the pans halfway through baking. Remove the pans from the oven and allow the cookies to cool and "set" for a few minutes, then use a thin spatula to move the cookies to a wire rack. The cookies will get crisper as they cool.

And the verdict? Well, they are different. But they are still chocolate. They aren't half-bad. Really.