A Very Non-Dairy Christmas [Cookies, Cookies, Cookies!]

Sometimes you just get a hankering. And for me, it was cookies. I wanted to make some nondairy chocolate chip cookies. That was well over a week ago. Before I could make the cookies, I was stricken with the flu and I was laid up for nearly a week. A. Whole. Week.

In many regards, this was awful. Like the fact that I couldn't even get out of bed for two days. In other ways, it was enlightening; I was reminded of how wonderful my mother and mother-in-law are to me in my times of need. They came to play with Ruby and help me while I was sick. Gotta love that.

Anyway, what does all this have to do with my cookies? Well, once I was better again, I sort of when stark raving cookie mad. Losing a week of Christmas joy has a way of doing that to me.

So I started to bake. I started with those dairy free chocolate chip cookies, which my husband professed passed the test with flying colors. He said no one would ever know! I found THIS RECIPE on Pinterest. It's easy and impresses. After that, all bets were off.

Basically, I used the chocolate chip cookies as a warm up round. Since then, I've made snickerdoodles (I subbed coconut oil for the butter in this recipe), at the request of my husband, and then I got crrrrrrazy and went for a Mexican Wedding Cake cookie, with a little twist: I added in some matcha! Then, just for kicks, I threw in a round of thumbprint cookies, made with my very own strawberry jalapeño jam!

Let's just say that I am in freaking cookie heaven over here.

If you are bit by a cookie, holiday, cheer bug and you want, for whatever reason, to keep it all dairy free, I've got your back. Heck, if you just gotta have your dairy and you wanna sub butter for the coconut oil, be my guest--I can't tell you what to do!

Here is my adaptation of the Mexican Wedding Cake cookies. They are my mom's favorite, and I am really excited to share it! I think I've turned my husband onto them too, so it looks as though they may become a new tradition.

Green Tea Mexican Wedding Cake Cookies 

{Adapted from Desserted Planet} 

Time: 45 minutes start to finish | Makes 24 (ish) cookies | Difficulty: Easy 

You Will Need: 

1 cup coconut oil 

1 cup Powdered Sugar, divided
1 Tablespoon Vanilla
2 cups All-Purpose Flour
½ t. Salt
1/2 teaspoon powdered matcha
1 cup Pecans, chopped

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle blade, cream together the coconut oil and half of the powdered sugar. Add the vanilla.

Add the salt, flour and matcha until combined. Stir in the pecans.

Form the dough into balls and lay them out on a cookie sheet (I like to use parchment paper because it's soon easy to clean up.) Bake these little suckers about 15 minutes.

When you remove them from the oven, let them cool a few moments (5-10 minutes) and then roll them in the reserved powdered sugar. Let them cool completely on a wire rack.

Serve with almond milk or a nice cup of tea!