Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients:

½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
¾ cup brown sugar or white sugar with 2 Tbsps dark molasses
½ cup natural peanut butter
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 cups rolled oats
¾ cup whole wheat flour
½ cup raisins, dried cranberries or chocolate chips (or mixture of all three!)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Add the butter and sugar to a large mixing bowl. Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar for about 3 minutes, until fluffy and lighter in color. Add the peanut butter and mix until combined. Add the egg and vanilla and mix until combined.
In a separate bowl, sift the flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda and stir to combine. Stir in the oats. Gradually add the flour/oat mixture to the sugar mixture, using a wooden spoon to stir just until combined. Do not over-stir.

Scoop the batter by the tablespoon to form 1-inch balls and place them on a cookie sheet. Press down on each one with a fork to create a criss-cross pattern.

Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow the cookies to sit for 2 minutes on the baking sheet before transferring them to a wire rack to cool.

Adapted from Daring Gourmet
source

Middle Eastern Breakfast

In some parts of the world this is a fine breakfast. Read here.

In a small bowl, combine yogurt with splash of olive oil kosher salt, fresh black pepper. Eat with bread.

Good Energy Brownie Bars

My recipe is pretty loose here. You can make substitutions and have fun. Feel free to write me with your results.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup melted butter (1 stick) or half peanut butter
3/4 cup white sugar (or more)
2 Tbsps dark molasses (not blackstrap)
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt (or more)
1 extra large egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup combination chocolate chips, raisins, dried cranberries, sunflower seeds
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup plain yogurt or milk to moisten
cinnamon (optional)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees with the rack in the middle position.
Melt the butter in a double boiler or microwave.
Add the sugar and let cool a bit.
Add egg, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and vanilla.
Add flour and mix. Then add the chocolate chips etc, and oats and mix everything up. Add up to one cup of yogurt or milk to moisten the batter. Taste test for salt sweet balance.
Adjust if necessary. With a spatula spread dough evenly into a greased 8x8 baking pan. Improvise and have fun. I melted a square of bittersweet chocolate in with the butter.
The peanut butter gives this an earthy taste.

Bake at 350 for 25 – 30 minutes.

Cut into bars when cool.

Visibly Invisible

A good radio announcer like a good book designer, is invisible. There are so many who are dreadful because they must call attention to themselves destroying the magic spell of the the design and the music.

Found: Parking Lot Art

Police Cheeseburger was scrawled on a small four by six inch piece of thin day-glow orange foam with a sheriff's badge drawn below. There were four tire tread marks running diagonally over the foam. The other side was a scratchy drawing of a cheeseburger with the meat, cheese, and top and bottom buns spaced slightly for proper identification.

Time

The Secret of Great Bread: Let Time Do the Work

Read

Staff of Life

When I was 15 I discovered the joys of making my own yogurt and whole wheat bread and it is still what I live on.

Dutch Oven Sourdough

I am hooked on baking my 7 cup whole wheat sourdough in my pre-greased Dutch oven. I stick with the 450 degree baking temp and I take off the cover after the first 20 minutes. The moisture stays in the loaf keeping it springy and delicious all week.

We were given a bottle of organic extra virgin olive oil for Christmas. I dip slices of the bread in a bloop of the oil sprinkled with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper and it is divine.

Hummus Repair

I walked Lily and the wind was blowing everyone's trash around so we did a lot of picking up. When I got home I made hummus from the chic peas I boiled this morning. I accidentally added too much cayenne to the mix and so I diluted the hummus with the fresh yogurt I made overnight and it is delicious.

Later in the day the hummus mellowed and was fine without added yogurt.

Environmental Thinking

I remember asking a friend who was an avid environmentalist why are you using plastic tampons? She never thought about it but immediately stopped. I want to ask folks who buy individual plastic cups of yogurt and folks who buy liquid laundry soap etc., why? When you can be saving the planet from more plastic, and saving fuel and money by buying laundry powders. As a child I would marvel at my mother who seemed incapable of washing and rinsing pots and pans properly. I figured it was because she had a live-in maid her whole life. Convenience is a myth we pay dearly for. Cake mixes and pre-made pie crust taste like the hands of robots and ten thousand other chemicals your grandmother wouldn't recognize - or willingly ingest. If your going to be phobic about food be phobic about the chemicals and the garbage we generate, and vital resources we waste. Pay attention!

Chocolate for Breakfast

Chocolate for breakfast is allowed during the week after Easter. In fact it's required!

Sap in Loins

Lily and I ran the loop yesterday. She is an amazing runner and never tires. She reminded me to give her a few dog biscuits as a reward when we got home.

Anne Lamott

I don't know much, but I can tell you this: if someone makes you a great chicken salad sandwich,it is because they did not skimp on the mayo.
-Anne Lamott

Home Made Yogurt

I've been making home made yogurt again. I drink it thinned with orange juice. It is delicious re-hydrating and good for you too!

Sally Sampson

Sally's magazine CHOP CHOP is amazing. Visit here.

Mark Remy

Run Like a Dog
My dog, a shepherd mix named Cooper, doesn't care where we are or what time of day it is, or even what the weather is like. He doesn't know what his resting heart rate is and rarely bothers to wear a watch. He just loves to run. And every time he does, his face and his body telegraph one simple message: This. Is. AWESOME. I'm runningrunningrunningrunning!

The "Run Like a Dog" Workout (Including Warmup and Cooldown) Walk 8 seconds. Trot 4 seconds. Stop. Sniff. Sprint 7 seconds. Freeze. Walk 5 seconds in any direction but forward. Stare 9 seconds. Lunge at rabbit. Double back, walk 3 seconds. Urinate. Repeat six times. Collapse on rug.
- Mark Remy

Mark Remy

So I Went for a Run

by Mark Remy

I was angry, so I went for a run. And things got better.

I was confused, so I went for a run. And things got better.

I was exhausted, so I went for a run. And things got better.

I was lost, unsure, empty, afraid. Certain that whatever was left of my sanity had snapped, had come untethered and floated away, to a place so high and remote that I would never see it again, and that even if I did, I wouldn't recognize it.

So I went for a run. And things got better.

I felt like things could not possibly get worse, so I went for a run. And things got better.

(Another time, I felt like things could not get much better. I went for a run. Things got much better.)

After enough miles, over enough runs and enough years, I realized: No matter what, no matter when, or where, or why, I can find my shoes and go for a run and things will get better.

And that realization? Just knowing that?

It made things better.
-source

Raisin Brownies

Last night I was feeling sorry for myself having had no chocolate on Easter so I made a pan of brownies. I used a double boiler to melt the chocolate and butter on the stove top. Also, I added raisins instead of nuts. They came out "smidgy" as Laurie Colwin calls them in her book More Home Cooking. Laurie Colwin cookbooks are my favorite bedside reading.

I am sorry the chickens law didn't pass in last night's city vote, I was all ready to get a flock!

I love raisins and chocolate together!

RAISIN BROWNIES

2 (one-ounce) squares unsweetened baker's chocolate

1 stick unsalted butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/4 tsp. salt

1 cup chopped raisins (or dried cranberries!)


Directions
Melt chocolate and butter in a heavy saucepan in double boiler, stir in sugar. In a large bowl, add eggs and vanilla and beat well. Stir in butter chocolate sugar mixture and add flour, salt and raisins. Mix well. Pour into a buttered 8-inch-square baking pan. Bake at 325° for 35-40 minutes. Cool and cut into squares.

Émile Zola

The day is not far off when one ordinary carrot may be pregnant with revolution.
- Émile Zola

Mother of Yogurt

We are blessed to live three miles from Wright's Dairy farm. I buy milk and cultivate my own yogurt overnight. The results are delicious and so simple to achieve.

Directions:
Heat milk in double boiler to 180 degrees. Use a candy thermometer if you own one otherwise just stop the cooking when lots of bubbles appear around the rim of the milk. Then cool to 110. This makes the milk receptive to the culture. After heating I like to immerse my jars of hot milk in a tub of cold water and they always cool off in ten minutes. Then add a few teaspoons of an active yogurt culture to the 110 degree (or wrist temperature) milk. The teaspoons of active yogurt serve as your starter. Place the covered glass jars of cultured milk in a warm place overnight or for about 8 hours. I use an insulated picnic cooler with a bottle of boiling hot water and two towels as insulation. It works every time. If your stove has a pilot light that environment works perfectly for incubating the jars of milk. When the yogurt sets, refrigerate it. Save some yogurt to begin your next batch.

Warning: If your local dairy uses a 'fast pasteurization' process the milk will not culture. I'm not sure why but it's true. Luckily this is not common.

Magic Sauce

Olive oil and wine vinegar, favorite herbs, fresh garlic, salt pepper and raw tofu! Blend in blender and enjoy on salad and rice.

Marinated Tofu

30 years ago I was a waitress at a natural foods restaurant in Chapel Hill NC and I remember you could order a side of marinated tofu to put on your pizza! I love marinated tofu on spinach salad.

Marinated tofu:
Cube tofu add soy sauce and vinegar dash of sesame oil and dash of rooster hot sauce. shake up and marinate. Enjoy cold or warm.

Yogurt Salad Dressings

Plain yogurt, salt, pepper, poppy seeds, honey, mustard, balsamic vinegar.
or
Plain yogurt, fresh minced garlic, fresh lemon juice, freshly ground black pepper, salt.
or
Peanut salad dressing:

1/2 cup plain yogurt
1/4 cup creamy all natural peanut butter
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice
1/2 teaspoon soy sauce
pinch of cayenne pepper (optional)

Friendly Bacteria

Amazing article.
Here too.

Listen to your Body

Dancers are professional about listening to their bodies and knowing about achieving high performance.

Read.

Read.

Read.

Read.