Chef Bo's Kitchen

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Chef Bo's Gluten Free No-Bake Cookies

This is a great recipe because it is versatile. You can change it around to what you like, in fact I called an audible mid-recipe and added chocolate. These are gluten free but can also be made vegan by substituting almond milk and solid coconut oil or margarine for the butter. If you have a peanut allergy, any nut butter will do. Have fun with these because they are easy, delicious, and addictive!

Ingredients:

3 cups white sugar

3/4 cup milk (or vegan substitute)

3/4 cup butter (or vegan substitute)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1.5 cup creamy peanut butter (any nut butter will do, creamy or smooth)

4.5 cup Quaker oats

1 cup milk chocolate chips (I added this on a whim and it was a great addition!)

1 tsp kosher salt

Steps:

1. In a sauce pan mix sugar, butter, milk, salt and vanilla and over medium heat bring to a boil

2. In a separate large bowl mix dry ingredients: chocolate chips, oats, and peanut butter

3. Once the milk mixture is boiling and the butter is all melted, poor that hot mixture into the bowl with the oats

4. Stir until it is all incorporated and thoroughly combined

5. Line cookie trays with wax or parchment paper; scoop oat mixture onto line trays in heaping tablespoons or with a small ice cream scoop

6. Allow to cool for 30 minutes or more and then enjoy! They will store perfectly in the refrigerator in a sealed container

Chef notes: This is a great clean out the panty cookie. Add in whatever you like to make these your own. Shredded coconut, crushed pretzels or potato chips, any random nut you may have, white chocolate, butterscotch chips, raisins, etc. Anything you find delicious will work well in these cookies.

Ms. Cathy’s Spicy Lenten Tomato Sauce

2 large cans of tomato sauce

6 hot banana peppers

1 onion

5 cloves garlic

4 or 5 filets of canned anchovies

Olive oil

Steps:

Cut banana peppers and fry in olive oil

Add onion, anchovies and garlic, anchovies will disappear.

(DONT BE AFRAID YOU WONT TASTE THEM)

Add tomato sauce

Salt and pepper to taste

If you like it spicy add red pepper flakes

Let simmer for a couple hours.

We like angel hair pasta but you can use anything.

We also bread some kind of fish to go along with it. You could also add shrimp or any seafood you prefer.

Manga!

Chef Bo’s Extra Spiced Gingerbread Cookies

Mix the following together:

2.5 cups AP flour - sifted

1 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1 tbsp. ground cinnamon

1 tbsp. ground ginger

1 tsp. ground clove

1/4 tsp. ground all-spice

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1/2 tsp. mace

1 tbsp. ground black pepper

Beat together in a bowl:

1 egg

2/3 C dark molasses (coat the measuring cup with cooking spray or a touch of vegetable oil so it won't stick)

1.25 C light brown sugar (you could also use dark brown sugar)

6 tbsp. softened butter

Steps:

1) Add flour mixture to egg/molasses mixture and mix until well blended. In two portions, wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour or until the dough is chilled.

2) Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

3) Dust your work area and rolling pin with flour and roll out dough a portion of the dough to 1/4" thickness.

4) Using your favorite cookie cutters (we had ties and bow tie cutters handy), dip in flour and cut out dough and place the cut-outs onto a parchment lined cookie tray.

5) Bake for 8 - 10 minutes or until slightly firm to the touch. If you prefer softer cookies, cook closer to 8 minutes, for crispier cookies cook closer to 10 minutes

6) Let cookies cool on a wire rack and decorate how you would like. We used food coloring, powdered sugar and a splash of milk to make our icing. You can use raisins, candies, frostings, or leave them plain, however you like them.

7) Have fun and enjoy!

Chef's notes: I love fall flavors and if I am making a cookie like this I want to taste the spice. So I went heavy with the spices and basically pulled out all my baking spices from my pantry. These cookies, as they are, tend to be heavily spiced with some warmth from the black pepper -- I love them! If you don't like such a heavily spiced cookie, reduce your spices to your liking. Remove the black pepper, cut out what you don't have, or increase spices you like. Get creative -- if you want a warmer/smokier cookie, add a 1/4 tsp of cayenne pepper; more mild then leave out the nutmeg and mace. If you follow the basic dough recipe you can adapt to your liking. If you get festive and make these, email over a picture -- if not, then bah humbug! Stay well, Beaumont!

Chef Bo's Two Trick Oatmeal Raisin Chocolate Chip Cookies

3 eggs

1 cup raisins

1 vanilla bean or 1 tsp of vanilla extract

2 sticks salted butter -- I used Kerry Gold, it's the best.

1 cup brown sugar (I used dark -- you can use lite too)

1 cup white sugar

2 tbsp. baking soda

1 tsp.cinnamon

1 tsp. kosher salt

2 cups Old fashion oats

2.5 cups AP flour

1 cup milk chocolate chips (you can use or not use chocolate. I had milk chocolate on hand, you could use dark, semi or bittersweet if you like)

Steps:

1) gather all ingredients

2) TRICK #1 -- marinate your raisins in the eggs and vanilla for at least 1 hour. This will rehydrate the raisins ensuring that they are plump and delicious in the cookie

3) TRICK #2 -- brown your butter (beurre noisette for our French students). Life is so much better with brown butter! Throw your butter in a small pot and over medium heat, melt it and allow the natural salts in the butter to turn a nice golden brown. This will develop a rich hazelnut flavor and add some incredible depth to the cookie. Once it is starting to brown, pour the butter into a bowl and allow to cool and start to come back together. You can throw it in the fridge for 30 minutes to help it to cool.

4) Pre heat over to 350 degrees

5) Cream your room temperature butter with both the brown and white sugar

6) Add the remaining dry ingredients to the butter mixture

7) Add egg, raisin, and vanilla mixture to the bowl and mix thoroughly

8) Scoop golf ball size amounts of the batter (it will be dry) onto a parchment lined baking trays and bake for 12-15 minutes

9) Once the cookies are just starting to brown on the top and edges, remove from oven and let cool

10) Enjoy and send me a picture if you make these!