My son's friend Sam has Celiac Disease, and when he was initially diagnosed, I tried to accomodate his nutritional needs as much as possible. I bought gluten free snacks, cereals and even flours so that he could enjoy waffles and pancakes. I didn't notice a huge taste difference, but the texture was...off. One product in particular made my tongue feel as if it was coated in a fine talc. Regardless, I wanted to make sure that Sam never felt as if he didn't have any food choices when he spent the night. My kids love to make homemade chocolate chip cookies when friends stay over, but after one try with the gluten free flour we abandoned that effort. I did a little searching of my cookbooks and found an old favorite that is gluten free and almost as well loved as toll house cookies.
I've made these No Bake cookies for years after finding the recipe in a little self published community cookbook. You only need one pan to cook them in, so there's no big mess to clean up afterwards. We're all about scatalogical humor here at Chez Harrison, so we frequently refer to these as Dump Cookies, because, well, they look like little piles of poo. Aesthetics aside, they're a wonderful marriage of peanut butter, chocolate and oatmeal. Speaking of dumps-they also act as a mild laxative. Ahem.
No Bake Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies
1 C granulated sugar
1/4 C Hershey's cocoa
1/4 C milk
1/4 C butter
1/2 C Jif peanut butter
2 C rolled oats
Mix sugar and cocoa in a medium sized saucepan. Add milk and butter, then bring to a boil over medium low heat. Boil for one minute, mixture should look glossy. Take pan off the heat, stir in the peanut butter until thoroughly blended, then add the oats. Working quickly, drop the batter onto waxed paper covered cookie sheets. As the cookies cool, they'll harden. Makes about two dozen good sized cookies.