Coconut Funyuns

Once again I needed to find a recipe for something that I had a lot of... and yesterday I felt the need to make something with a lot of onions (or at least 1).  So I opened up the Wheat Belly cookbook to see what recipes could be made and lo and behold I reached Onion Rings.  Perfect! Sounded sooo delish and I knew Taylor loved onion rings so I hoped for the best.  It says to first dredge the sliced and separated rings in a mixture of coconut flour and paprika.  Then dunk them in melted coconut oil mixed with egg and then dredge in a mixture of coconut flour, ground flax seed, and almond meal (which I excluded because I no have it).  Then they are to baked at 450 for like 12 minutes.  So everything is going great and I'm dunking those rings and they look so cute and onion ring-y. (You've got to watch out for that coconut flour though, little by little, some was tracked into the egg mixture and pretty soon it turned into a thick paste and then I add to remake it and keep one hand for the wet and one for the dry dredging. Can you say hassle?!) I put the first cookie sheet of rings in and forgot to lightly spray them with cooking oil like the recipe says.  Oh well.  They should be just fine right? Umm... kinda right.  I pull the rings out of the oven and they don't look bad.  See:

But I bite into one and it is just like "pwaaahhhhhhhh" with powder.  Like talking once you bite into a graham cracker.  NOT crispy like a good onion ring should be. They don't taste bad though.  Taylor comes over, who is already super skeptical of coconut flour and thinks it turns everything it touches into a "macaroon flavored sponge," takes a bite of one and then immediately spits it all out and berates the poor powdery onion ring and its coconuty coating.  "They are horrible, they are ruined, and they are a disgrace to onion rings everywhere!!! I miss when you used to make food that was edible.  I have been so spoiled by your good cooking before this whole gluten-free thing, I should just go to Bojangles (super greasy southern fast food place) and get some REAL onion rings. etc, etc." is practically what he said.  So, feeling a chip on my shoulder to make them palatable to Mr. I hate everything, I heated up some coconut oil and "fried" that first batch.  This is then how they looked:

They got a little more color on them, were a little crunchier, and had no powdery texture in your mouth. Dunk them in ketchup and they are pretty good (according to me. Taylor was not satisfied.)  I enjoyed them and Taylor ate them begrudgingly because I made sad faces throughout the whole meal because he made me feel bad for my cooking. ("It isn't you that is the problem, it's just the ingredient... and the recipe")

So we eat that first batch and then there is a whole other tray of sad onion rings to do something with.  I didn't want to use more coconut oil because dang that stuff is expensive and I just  bought a jar of it and felt like I had already used soo much so I asked Taylor what he thought if I tried to fry them in vegetable oil.  He gave me the go ahead and so I fried them in it.  BLECKKKKK.  Soooooo NASTY! They had such a greasy feeling and tasted fishy to me.  I spit it out in the sink.  Taylor ate the whole pan, bless his heart, because he knew I tried so dern hard to fix those nasty onion rings after he gave me such a hard time.

Moral of the story: Get your rings glutenous or don't get them at all.

P.S. I did enjoy lathering my legs with coconut oil every time I had to get it out of the tablespoon.  It would be all over my fingers, so I would just use it to moisturize as I went.  SO versatile!