— Patricia Zirul

Well, I happen to be a person that loves cookies. I would rather most of the time have a cookie or cookies limit myself than a piece of cake. I just love cookies and I happen to like crisper cookies. Some people like chewy cookies, that's up to you. But you know, if you're going to a a holiday cookie exchange, I would want to have a variety of cookies. I would have some that are nut free. I would have some that are soy free and I would have some that are gluten free and I would have cookies that hold nicely. So you, if you were here when we showed the photos, there was photo of that very thin cookie. It's that we call a tweel. That happens to be a lesson in essential vegan desserts. It is not made with any refined sugar. It's made with rice syrup and maple syrup. The rice syrup gives it the crunch and the ability to be actually shaped. Some of my students roll them and use them to replace a cannoli shelf or example, or they shape them while they're warm into a cookie cup. I store those the way that I showed you that I stored the nuts in a jar with the silica packs and they freeze beautifully. That cookie contains oat flour. You can buy oat flour or you can make your own in a blender, uh, rice flour, brown rice flour and oats rice. And there's something else that I just can't think of at this moment, but there's a third component. They're easy to make. The batter contains no leavening agents, which means you can make the batter, keep it in your refrigerator and bake these off. I like to make biscotti because, well, because I like biscotti and most people do as well and they are great keepers and can be done in steps. So for example, I make the dough, let it rest, roll the logs, the logs unbaked can go into the freezer or they can be baked the off the first time and then sliced and baked off the second time, or that you can stop at any point and finish them later. And I like sugar cookies too. Um, that can be shaped. Sugar cookies are very easy to make vegan when we use vegan butter. I actually, sometime I've seen some recipes that are shortbread with oil, olive oil or a neutral flavored oil like sunflower oil or grape seed oil. So I think, and then, you know, pe most people like peanut butter cookies, but if you're going, if you're worried about allergies, I wouldn't do peanut butter cookies or keep them separate. I love peanut butter cookies. So those are the cookies that I love. And when I saw your question come in, I thought, you know, this year I think I'm gonna have some friends over and I think we're gonna do cookies. I think we're gonna do cookies because I just love, to me, having a cookie at the end of the meal is like an exclamation point for the end of the meal.