Ginger Snaps

I made these a few weeks ago. It's been in my archive of vegan recipes to blog about, and today is the perfect time to write about them. I bought fresh ginger specifically for this. I had a small piece lying around from making real home made ginger ale, but stocked up on more roots in anticipation for this recipe. I'm so glad I did, since it helped me combat the stomach virus that attacked Logan last night. It was the first time he ever got really sick, so it was scary and stressful for both of us. After his first bout of nausea (at 1 in the morning- of course) I crushed up some of the root and added it to water in his sippy cup. I put a little extra ginger juice on his pacifier and he was over the sickness by 3 am. I'm convinced it would have gone on longer if I didn't have the ginger in my arsenal. 

Anyways, back to the real reason I bought the ginger. My friend Nikki gave me a recipe for ginger cookies. I really wanted to try it, but I didn't have molasses in the cabinet (nor will I ever again, since I found a great substitute- more on that in a minute). Turning to the internet, I tried to google a recipe for ginger cookies without molasses. I couldn't find one that didn't have it, so I got creative. At this point I forgot all about Nikki's recipe, and used one that I found somewhere on the internet. This recipe called for molasses, but I took a chance and made my own. I started by putting 3 Tbsp. of brown rice syrup (I use the organic Sweet Dreams brand, I hope that's not one of the brands containing alarming levels of arsenic. I haven't been following that story too well) in a measuring cup and adding brown sugar until I had 1/4 cup of the mixture. It wasn't exactly molasses, but it worked. 

With a few changes to the original recipe to make it vegan, the addition of fresh ginger, and a substitute for molasses, I ended up with ginger snaps. Not the intended result. At first I thought the recipe was a bust. The cookies ended up spreading really thin on the baking sheet, so they came out flat and crisp. They weren't the chewy, soft cookies I was expecting. I kept them anyways, since Logan seemed to like them. A couple days went by with me just staring at them on the counter, occasionally passing one to Logan. I don't know what made me try one, but they were delicious! They definitely had a bite to them, the ginger being the prominent taste, but it was balanced nicely by the rest of the ingredients. It took me a couple days to realize that just because they didn't come out how I expected, it didn't mean that they weren't good. I'm glad this recipe made so many, because I couldn't get enough of them.

Ginger Snaps

Makes 6 dozen

• 2/3 cup safflower oil (vegetable oil works too)
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup apple puree
• 3 Tbsp brown rice syrup
• < 1/4 cup of brown sugar
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1 Tbsp freshly grated ginger
• 1/2 tsp. salt

1. Preheat oven to 350º.
2. Mix oil and sugar in a large bowl.
3. Add apple puree and mix well.
4. Put brown rice syrup in a 1 cup measuring cup, and add brown sugar up to the 1/4 cup mark. Add this to the bowl and mix well.
5. Add the dry ingredients and mix until combined. 
6. Pour a small amount of granulated sugar in a bowl. Form a tsp of dough into a ball and coat with the sugar. 
7. Place dough on a greased cookie sheet, and bake for about 7 minutes. 

Keep your eye on these while they're baking. I burnt the first couple batches since the original recipe had them in for 15 minutes. Also, don't make the dough balls too big, or you'll end up with a full sheet of flat cookies, like this one.

Home Made Ginger Ale

Another great recipe I found on Big Girls Small Kitchen. I love ginger ale, but I'm not a fan of the ingredients in store brought brands, like high fructose corn syrup. Most of the store bought brands don't even contain real ginger! You're not even getting the benefits of ginger's anti-inflammatory properties and nausea reducing qualities, as well as the other numerous health plusses of the root. As I have an affinity for everything home made, I bought some ginger and made my own. It was incredibly easy and didn't require any special equipment. It tasted more like ginger beer, not necessarily a bad thing. I'm not sure what the thyme added to it, but it made it look nice. I guess you don't really need it. After making the syrup, we mixed it with club soda made with the SodaStream Genesis Soda Maker. That machine is great. It turns water to soda in seconds, and it is much more environmentally friendly than buying bottled soda. Store bought club soda would work just as well with this recipe though.

Home Made Ginger Ale

Makes 4 glasses

• 1/2 cup peeled, sliced ginger
• 2 sprigs of thyme
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1 liter of club Soda

Combine the ginger, thyme, sugar and water in a small saucepan.

Simmer gently for 20 minutes.

Pour the syrup in 4 glasses over ice.

Fill the rest of the glass with club soda to your taste.

The thing I love most about ginger ale is how well it mixes with rum to make a Dark and Stormy. My Uncle Mark turned me on to the drink when I was visiting him in the Virgin Islands. Every time I drink it   I feel like I'm back in Cinnamon Bay on St. John, even in this frigid January weather. I usually mix the ginger ale with Cruzan Aged Rum, a rum produced on the island of St. Croix. It's pretty hard to find around here (another excuse to take a trip to the USVI), so I used Black Seal Black Rum that Andrew's mom brought us back from her last cruise. It's not a bad substitute. Don't forget to add lime.. LOTS of lime!