Baking with Achilles: Pistachio Raspberry Thumbprint Cookies

Late on Saturday night, Achilles and I set out to try one of the cookie recipes from Better Homes & Gardens Christmas Cookies issue.

Achilles is my youngest son who has a learning exceptionality that is challenging for some main stream classroom teachers to manage. After several years of struggling to keep up with the standard, I finally put my foot down and decided to home school my child so that he doesn’t get lost in the cracks of public education. My work experience as a classroom teacher and primarily with teaching students with locally developed exceptionalities, I recognized the signs of a child at risk. With that said, I’m in the process of developing an educational program tailored specifically for Achilles by assessing his strengths, interested and capabilities.

Achilles strengths are in his creativity. Last year, he proclaimed that he wants to be an artist when he grows up. This was when he was in Grade 3. His interested are in almost everything that is tactile and visual; art, cooking, film, dancing, karate. I’m not surprised that he is capable of replicating a drawing or performing his Kata series with precision.

Since cooking and baking are on the top of his skill sets, Food & Nutrition has been added to Achilles’ home school program. When the opportunity presents itself, we make magic happen in the kitchen. To help celebrate Thanksgiving we baked a variation of Better Homes & Garden Pistachio Thumbprint cookies. We modified the recipe slightly because we’re trying to avoid certain food items that are not optimal for our health and nutrition. Instead of using granulated white sugar and all purpose flour we used monk fruit blend and gluten-free flour.

The result was about two dozen delicious Pistachio Raspberry Thumbprint cookies, pride in making something to share with loved one and adding a new baking skill. Today, we are going to venture into making Alfajores, a traditional Peruvian cookie.