Cookie Swap 2014

At the end of February, I hosted the Annual Cookie Swap.  This year marks the 11th year of me hosting or attending the Cookie Swap.  Wow!

This year's theme was a Valentine's Day one, where we had the baking challenge of incorporating a candy into our creations.  As always, all the cookies & bars were delish!

Here are some of the gals that were in attendance:

I like to refer to us as the "usual suspects", but in a good way!  There were Chris and her daughter Danielle, Myself in the purple, Sheri, Cathy & Crissta.  Other gals that were there were Vince's mom and his daughter Cris and Gen, a bowling buddy Kelly, Sheri's mom Shirley.  My friends brought their baby & toddler daughters to top it off: Ines, Keira & Vivien.

Let's show the cookies (I mean, isn't that what this was all about anyway?!):

Crissta baked Flourless Triple Chocolate Cookies with a Werther's Twist:

Werther's Originals

 



Cathy baked Heart My Heart Healthy Oatmeal Raisinets Cookies:

 

Raisinets



Chris baked Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies:

Butterscotch Chips

Cris baked Turtle Cookies:

Caramel Cubes

Gen made Candy Sushi:

Fruit Roll-Up, Swedish Fish, Gummy Sour Worms & Nerds

I made two things, first was Chocolate Cloud Cookies:

Junior Mints

Second was GF Minty Brownies:

Junior Mints

Sheri baked Starbursts Cookies:

Starbursts

Shirley baked Rootbeer Barrel Cookies:

Rootbeer Barrels

Lastly, Kelly baked Conversation Heart Brownie Cookies:

Conversation Hearts

My favorite was Crissta's Triple Chocolate Cookies.  The most creative were Gen's Candy Sushi.  She spent hours working on them, making rolls out of Rice Krispie mix. 

The girls played so well together.  They were a bit hopped up on all the sugar, but, hopefully they fell asleep in the car.  I know I was ready for a nap after the party.

If anyone is interested in the recipe's to these cookies, let me know, I will email them to you.

Any ideas for next year's theme??

Coconut Shrimp

I love hot cooked shrimp.  Cold cocktail shrimp, not so much.  Since I started eating gluten-free (GF), lots of batters are on my no-no list.  This means that my shrimp has been either grilled, sauted or baked, but with only some seasoning or marinated in a GF sauce.  That's not a bad thing, but battered shrimp, fried is so good and I was missing it.

Recently, I searched for a Coconut Shrimp recipe that was GF and sort of healthy.  I found one. Googling is a great thing!  I found one that is baked, not fried and I substituted with some GF breading mix and it came out delicious!  I would love to share it with you so here are the details:

This recipe can be found at About.com.  It is under the Thai food category.

Easy Baked Coconut Shrimp

Yields: 18-24 Coconut Shrimps

• 18-24 medium to large shrimp, butterflied (may leave tails on)
• I did not butterfly them and left the tails on; they still came out great
• 1/2 cup shredded coconut (kind used for baking)
• 2-3 eggs

Coating Mix

• 1/2 cup breadcrumbs (dried, refined crumbs, such as Panko)
• Substituted with GF Panko Breadcrumbs.  Can make own by processing GF crackers.
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp garlic salt
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper or dried crushed chili
• 1 tsp sugar
• pinch white pepper
• I used regular black pepper, no difference

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.  Cover a cookie sheet with parchmanet paper or spray with non-stick cooking oil.
2. Stir the Coating Mixers in a bowl and set aside.
3. Get 2 more bowls:  the first of these bowls, beat 2 eggs and in the second bowl, place the shredded coconut.  Keep the ingredients out, you may need to prepare more in the bowls as you go.  
1. I set-up an assembly line of the bowls to make it easier.
4. Grab a shrimp and dip it in the egg mix, then in the Panko breadcrumbs, coating the shrimp.  Then dip the same shrimp in the egg mixture again and then roll in the coconut.  Place on baking sheet.
5. Repeat the dipping for each shrimp.  Your fingers will get caked with the breadcrumbs and coconut, but keep going, putting a light coat on each shrimp.
6. Bake on the middle rack in the oven until they are lightly toasted.  Total time should be about 15 minutes, turning half-way through.
7. Can be served with Thai sweet chili sauce.

In the above pic, are the bowls set-up and the ingredients still out.  I had to keep adding more to each bowl.

I used frozen shrimp and I did not butterfly them.

I coated each shrimp, which was a pain in the butt, but it was so worth it.

The shrimp, uncooked, ready to go on the backing sheet.  The parchment paper worked like a charm.  No mess to clean-up.  This was an easy recipe, healthier than fried coconut shrimp from your local Chinese or Thai restaurant.

Go ahead and try it and let me know!!