Delicious Procrastination

I had a few things on today's list that just weren't resonating. Know what I mean? Since they weren't time sensitive I chose to procrastinate and modify yet another cookie recipe to make these wonders...

Hempy Cardamom Cacao Nib Cookies
Makes about 2.5 dozen cookies (though, let's face it, it all depends on your choice of cookie size)
Preheat oven to 375ºF

Cream:
1 cup of virgin coconut oil
Add gradually and beat until creamy:
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
Beat in:
2 eggs
1 generous teaspoon vanilla extract
Sift together and stir in:
2 cups + 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon cardamom powder (or more!)
Stir in:
1 cup cacao nibs
1/2 cup hemp seeds
Drop the batter from a tablespoon, well apart, on a parchment-lined cookie sheet and bake about 13 minutes. Cool on a rack and then... enJOY!

Use organic (and fair trade) ingredients as much as you possibly can. It's not just good for your body, it's good for our environment, our world community and our collective future.

Peace.

Coconut Macaroons, Bean Soup and Ease

Merry calendar flip day to you! I wish you ease in adjusting to the writing of 2015 and in all things for this experience we collectively call the "new year."

As I view all life and each day as a spiraling evolution, with no beginning and no ending, acknowledging the "new year" as most folks seem to do is a challenge for me. A welcome and comfortable challenge. All the same, in my desire to nurture deeper relationship with the collective (in all its manifestations) I'm striving toward being more accepting (and less belligerent) to the shared conventions of our contemporary tribe.

So today I invited ease into my day, to set the tone ~ not only for the day ~ but for "the year ahead" as well. I started a bean soup, a "new years" tradition I grew up with, a tradition that many of us share, and which seems to have roots that are very old and that reach very deep. Happy ham and ham stock from the freezer combined with lightly fermented organic pink beans, dehydrated leeks, lemon and caserta squash, green beans, collard greens ~ all from the summer garden, along with bay leaves, astragalus root and kelp are simmering together as I type. So there's dinner. Easy, nutritious, born from love, made with love, all the while honoring the verve of shared mores.

While I was in the kitchen, focused on ease, I was was inspired to give this macaroon recipe from Cooking with Dog a go. I mean, I had the three simple ingredients, so why not? Besides, I've been following Cooking with Dog for years now and have been delighted with every recipe of theirs that I've made. These cookies are no exception. I'll definitely make them again. Next time with cocoa or cacao, methinks.

So, yeah, that's what I made today.

Peace.

A Package of Love

The cookies that The Boy and I have been baking finally came together in adequate variety, so today I packaged some up to mail to my mom with her other holiday goodies. To my way of thinking, this is a major-mission-accomplished and I'm delighted to have it behind me for one more year.

The tin contains (clockwise from the top), chocolate chip cookies, molasses raisin bars, oatmeal raisin cookies, pumpkin pie bars, chocolate crackles, hello dollies and chocolate rugelach at the center. They look pretty good, eh?

Tomorrow I'm making mince meat so that I can make a proper, homemade mince meat pie for christmas day. But today, I made a package of love for the Post. Peace.

Rugelach

Today The Boy made oatmeal-raisin cookies. I made chocolate rugelach. I love these little cookies and I really can't believe I've never made them before. Anyway, by now I should have a variety of homemade cookies to prepare a suitable goodies package that will be sent to my mom as part of her christmas gift.

Now I'm going to knit. Peace.

Reluctant Better Balls

Snow fell from the heavens most of the day today, damp and heavy. I sipped the last of my morning coffee in my dispensary while labeling yesterday's jars and then started going through old client files, back to front, in preparation for purging those that have been inactive for two years. One of the first files to go belonged to an old friend. A lost friend.

Later I moved to the kitchen to make the little cocoa-oatmeal confections of which my mom is so fond. These will be included in the birthday package that will come together and most likely hit the mail tomorrow. They came out better than I ever remember. I snapped a shot for this silly blog and was pretty sure that I had already posted the recipe here for these little yummies.

How odd to discover the friend connection in that original recipe post, I thought, as I recalled that I added my homemade vanilla extract to the recipe this time.

And I am simply reminded that things change, even when we don't why ... and most often for the better. Go figure.

That's what I made today. Peace.

Apologies Accepted

"I'm sorry mommy, but they were so good and I only had a couple." ::groan::

Yeah ... if a couple is something close to 50.

You see, iced cookies like the Anginettes I leave out, covered only with a cotton cloth so that the icing has a day or two to set-up nice. Not only that but Halley doesn't take food from the table ... well she did once when we first got her (and that involved a loaf of wrapped banana bread), but not since. Well, that is until last night. I woke at 3:something AM to the sound of The Boy's voice saying, "What did you do?" I knew in a flash that it wasn't saint Nick.

All I can say is I hope she enjoyed them and I hope she's not too sick today. Heck, I can make more cookies.

Dumb dog.

I love her so.

Balls of Solace

It was a challenging day for me. Mentally and emotionally. I woke knowing that challenge lay before me and I was open and ready. That which I saw coming I managed with as much grace as I could muster, but it was that which sideswiped me that rocked me to my foundation.

I must be stupendously dense, for I have somehow hurt an old friend. That, in and of itself hurts - a variety of hurt that is mine and that I own. My old friend has shunned me for a while now, yet I have done my part in attempting to maintain contact. Heck, I even asked what it was that I had done that warranted this distance she put between us. She responded a while back with a hint that I had blown her off one too many times. I apologized with the caveat that I was unaware of any specific blow-offs and even asked for specifics. Unknowing of specifics I asked for forgiveness and an opportunity to talk it out and make it right. The opportunity remained ... aloof. That's OK I reasoned. Healing takes time and I'm somewhat patient. Alas, today I received the oddest and most hurtful response to an invitation to a Yule party that could ever imagine. Frankly, without the experience I could never have imagined such a response as that which I received.

Apparently I'm a manipulative, repetitive, sweet-talking, guilt-mongering bully with selective memory. Well ... I sat quietly with this for a while and was assured that these abusive accusations belong not to me. Such is life.

All this on the heals of a loving exercise in futility in attempting to help my mom procure christmas gifts for family members that consumed more of my day than seems reasonable given the rather empty outcome.

Yet amid all the silly futility and hurt I took solace in rolling sweet balls of chocolately confection for sweeter friends with whom they will be shared and who love me - as I am - flaws and all. Thank you very much. And the sweet simplicity of this recipe offered me a solace that I both needed and deserved.

Let's just call these Solace Balls, shall we?

2 cups oatmeal (and then some)

1 cup sugar

1 cup butter

6 tablespoons of good cocoa (and then some)

water to moisten - if needed

~ and your choice of confectioners sugar, cocoa & sugar, cinnamon and sugar, instant coffee and sugar, etc in which to roll the balls.

Mix all ingredients together like a loving madwoman, shape into balls and roll in your choice of ... whatever - use your imagination! And I gotta tell ya - folks love these!

That's what I made today. Damn it.

Double Chocolate Walnut GF Cookies

Somehow (and I'm really not sure how) I managed to make a batch of Double Chocolate Walnut Cookies today. They didn't come out as good as Kim's. I suspect I baked them a little to long. I'll try again I'm sure, because when Kim made them they were out-freakin'-standing - especially for a gluten free cookie!

Breakfast

This morning I made up for last night's exhaustion and made a Breakfast of Lesser Champions!

So, two batches are made and I'm hopeful that I can get at least one more in over the weekend. My morning plans have been waylaid and I am attempting to leverage that now. Even so, I still have errands, three gallons of sage ale to bottle and a river to get to ...

... and today is it - the final day to post our comments to be entered to Win a Whimsy! Thanks to all of you for your wonderful comments and for playing. Really - it delights me! The winner will be drawn and announced first this tomorrow morning.

My Cool Hut Warm

I swear summer is hiding somewhere, slinking and stalking with a vicious playfulness, just waiting to pounce on my ass. My chilly ass I might add! Spring seems to be backsliding in its final days, with weather akin to the side of the season that hugs winter, not summer. It’s been cool and damp and that tea I made for the fridge got heated up, let me tell you.

I made goddess cookies just to turn the oven on. And to try out the new cookie cutter I got this week in a goddess trade. Needless to say, this warmed my heart and my hut!

I made bread too, to keep the hut warm and dry and to make up for the shortbread debacle from yesterday.

And to keep the oven comfort steady, I made a cheddar cheese pizza with italian peppers and bermuda onions for supper.

I completed more “figures of love” and plan to get those up in my ArtFire Studio this evening. I also got some other figures primed (including those freakin’ adorable “demons” The Boy made the other day). And I still working on my silly tribal dream.

Gluten Free Cookies

Masa Cranberry Cookies - gluten free

Combine and blend the dry ingredients in an incidental bowl:

1 2/3 cups Masa (nixtamolized corn flour)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

Cream together in a mixing bowl:

1/2 cup coconut oil (or butter)

1/3 cup sugar

add

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

Add the dry ingredients to the wet, blend slightly and add:

1/2 cup of dried and sweetened cranberries

Continue blending until a smooth dough forms.

You can shape these any way you wish, but formed them into little balls about the size of a walnut.

Bake 14 minutes at 375 degrees fahrenheit. Cool, store gently and enjoy!

~~~~~

These are really tasty, though still quite delicate, yet they hold up much better than the first batches I attempted. Even so, a few crumbs on the floor of the cookie jar sure will be nice on top of some real ice cream. 

Try them and let me know what you think! Peace.

Cookies & Bread & Ale, Oh My!

A double batch of cocoa chocolate chip cookies.

Two little loaves of whole-wheat, flax seed, oatmeal bread.

Ten bottles of Cardamom Ale, ready for the ale cellar.

And the day ain't over yet!

Cookies!

Who doesn't love cookies?

Peanut butter . . . 

Cornmeal raisin . . . 

Plus a nice tomato sauce for a pasta supper tonight, made with last year's tomato harvest, a harvest that is dwindling in the pantry. Dwindling as this season's seedlings gain strength and make a stand.