Sunday, June 20, 2010

oatmeal and flax seed cookies

1 cup of room temp butter
1 cup of white sugar
1 cup of packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups of flour, sifted
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 and 1/2 tsps cinnamon
3 cups of oats
1 TB maple syrup
1/2 cup of ground flax seed

Cream butter, sugars. Beat in eggs 1 at a time, stir in vanilla, maple syrup.
Sift flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon together. Stir into the butter mixture.
Mix in oats and flax. Cover and chill for at least 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 350 if you have a hot oven or 375 if it runs normal.
Place rack in middle of oven.
Spray cookie sheet with oil and spoon out in TBS. (We love great big cookies) The original recipe called for tsps.
Bake for 10 minutes or 13 if you make large cookies.
Cool on cookie rack as soon as they come out of the oven.

If you love big cookies you may want to double the recipe.

Guacamole for my friend Denise. (because she asked me to.)

3 large Hass Avocados, or 5 small
(I use only Hass Avocados. They have a buttery taste that the large green ones do not have.)
1 medium onion
2 roma tomatoes, or 1 medium garden fresh tomato
1 big handful of cilantro, just leaves
1 tsp of cumin, and 1 tsp of red chile powder
1 TB of minced garlic, or 4 fresh cloves, minced
1 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper
1 big splash of Tiger Sauce
1 small splash of Tabasco sauce
1 chipotle in adobo sauce, minced.
(I will post the recipe for homemade chipotles, later)
juice of 1 fresh lemon, or 2 limes
3/4 cup of sour cream, light or regular

Mince: tomato, onion, cilantro, garlic, chipotle pepper.
Add cumin, chili powder, tiger sauce, mix w wooden spoon. (At this point you have pico, a fresh salsa.
Scoop out avocados and add to your bowl of veggies, squeeze lemon over them.
Mash all ingredients with a potato masher, leaving some small chunks.
Not everyone likes their guac to be smooth, most like it chunky.
Add sour cream, salt and pepper, tabasco, and taste.
Adjust to your liking with more chili powder, cumin or pepper.
It's all up to you, but add seasoning slowly, little bits at a time.

Sometimes if I'm in a festive mood, I add a few splashes of tequila to the mix. It adds a little exciting taste and makes us all very cheerful when we've had a rough day at work. I only do this if its an "Adults only, Can't take another minute at work", party.

You can eat it right away, but its better if you let it chill a few hours.

Where's my margarita?
OLE!
PS: Denise, the avocados are only 33 cents today at Walmart!

Saturday, June 19, 2010

oatmeal soothes the soul

When I'm upset or sad, I bake.
It is an old fashioned thing to do, most un-modern like and very far away from the social service persona that I cultivate most of the week.
But..I love to bake.
Since my children were little I have baked to soothe away hurts, scrapes,
and bruises. Now, I have discovered that I bake to cover the emotional hurts .
Today has been very trying, too many memories, hurts and too many hard tries to be a strong, capable,calm woman. Sometimes, I have to hurt a bit and let sorrow come over me like a warm wool blanket that's seen too many winters.
I am baking at this moment, the smell of cinnamon, vanilla and oats are filling my senses. It's making me remember how it felt when my little daughters pulled at my skirts to get a "bite" of the dough as I shaped cookies. Sugar crunching under our feet, flour flying around the room, vanilla always managing to spill on the table. How wonderful it was in those days to have a pudgy,slighty sticky little hand reach up to me,begging, "mommy please, can we have a taste?"
Today, I'm alone in this kitchen. They are grown women and my husband is working.

I don't mind the solitude very much. The cookies are getting done along with the messy clean-up. No one is driving me to distraction with spills and cries for mediation of small spats between little girls.

Too bad I will have to lick the bowl all by myself. It was a lot more fun when I had to fight for the spoon.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

men and ruffled feathers

What a month this has been for injuries!
A few weeks ago a chair, with someone sitting in it, came down on my bare foot, created nice purple and green coloring, and last week I stupidly set a cooking timer while I tried to take a quick shower.
yes.....friends........
the timer went off while I was in the shower, and I ran to the kitchen, in towel, to take food out of the oven.
(Please do not try this at home. Cooking and showering..... the two do not go together.)
I slipped on my own puddle and came down hard on my ankle.  Its a  great swollen ankle to go with the yellow and blue toes.  The colors kinda match and make for interesting conversation at work. (I have to wear sandals,can't get my shoes on, hence the public viewing, lol)
Anyway....
I used the same backache salve for my toes and ankle. (See earlier posting) Everything is healing nicely.

This morning , my husband told me that he hurt his wrist yesterday while pulling on some equipment .
WOW WOW
I didn't want to show my excitement when he stated that he may have broken a small bone or popped a vein in his hand.
Been wanting to try out the power of "knitbone"(comfrey) on something like this.
It looked like a sprain, didn't appear that anything was seriously broken. (I would have sent him to our physician right away if I had seen bone or a mishapen look.)

This morning I finely cut the comfrey leaf, mixed it with my new pain killer salve and pasted the whole thing to his hand and wrist with gauze. We then wrapped the hand and wrist with an ace bandage.
I hope to see some improvement by tomorrow night.
My husband, the willing guinea pig,   gotta love him.
I am making homemade biscuits for breakfast to soothe his ruffled feathers.
Men like to have their feathers smoothed out.