I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts

I've been on a baking kick--three treats in three weeks!  In the interest of trying to be a little healthy, and reading some books about the Paleo diet over break, I've been experimenting with gluten-free baking.  A few weeks ago, I made these delicious gluten-free peanut butter (/almond butter because I ran out of peanut butter in the middle) cookies (I just used one cup regular PB and one cup almond butter), and this week I decided to go (coco)nuts.

I used this recipe (yup, five ingredients and TWO steps):

2 cups coconut flakes
1/2 cup sugar
3 egg whites
1/2 tsp. vanilla
pinch of salt

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and adjust the oven rack to the middle position. Line a baking sheet with silicone baking mat or lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray. In a small bowl combine the coconut, sugar and salt. Add the egg whites and vanilla. Mix to combine the ingredients.

2.Drop heaping teaspoons of the batter onto the baking sheet spacing them about 1/2 inches apart. Bake until cookies are light golden brown, about 20 minutes. Place the cookie sheet on a wire rack to cool.

Here's how they turned out:

The verdict:  they taste delicious, but they are a bit smushy--they fall apart a little bit when you take them off the tray.  Maybe because I used the ventilated baking sheets, the bottom didn't crisp up as much as they would have on a regular baking sheet.  But they also didn't burn, which also would have been terrible.  I'll have to think about what I'd do if I made them again (maybe dip the bottoms in chocolate and let it harden?  Muahaha!)

The best part is, I can use the baking time (20 minutes) as downtime to write this up AND watch half an episode of Breaking Bad (I'm blazing through season one this weekend).  The recipe was super easy--the only thing I needed to buy was coconut   And I still have 2/3 of a cup left, so I'll have to find a use for them in next week's baking adventure...

Essex Street Market Take Two

We went back to Essex Street Market today pre-blizzard.  We started at Shopsin's, which has THE most ridiculous menu.  It's just one page, front and back, so it looks manageable, but then you realize that it is entirely covered in 2-point font and has about a million options.  We decided on lunch, which narrowed down the menu by half, and eventually both went with variations on BBQ:  Kari with pork and me with duck.  Not only was it HUGE and delicious (we both saved half for later), it came with a party on top:

We then did our grocery shopping for the next week.  Highlights include $10 for her and $15 for me on ARMFULS of produce, a $1.60 center-cut pork chop, and less than $3 for over a pound of fresh ground beef.  We both also stocked up on fresh herbs and will be cooking and baking up storms during the storm.  More posts to come on what we come up with!