The only cookie recipe you will ever need

I really like cookies. This is a fact. At least once a month I will make a batch, bake up 1/4 of it and freeze the rest so we can have some in a time of cookie shortage. If I don't do this, I will eat all of the cookies. ALL of the cookies in the world. When I want cookies, I want them immediately and I want them to be delicious. 

This is a recipe I invented tonight on just such a cookie requiring occasion. I have been craving perfect oatmeal cookies for awhile now. I kept trying to make them with less sugar or vegan or whatever. Tonight, I said screw it, threw caution to the wind and made me some oatmeal cookies with healthy stuff in them that are in no way healthy. The original recipe can be found here this is my variation with bonus witty asides. Enjoy!

Ingredients

• 3 eggs, beaten

• 1 cup mixed fruit and nut mix (ours was cranberry, pumpkin seed, almond, sunflower seed and cashew)

• 1 teaspoon coconut extract (out of vanilla)

• 1 cup butter, softened

• 1 cup brown sugar

• 1 cup white sugar

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• a dash of ground clove

• the zest and juice from two mandarin oranges

• 2 teaspoons baking soda

• 2 cups rolled oats

Directions

1. In a small bowl, combine the eggs, fruit and nut mix, and vanilla. Cover and chill for 1 hour (or 10 minutes if you are hungry and don’t really care about trivial things like directions) .
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). You can also forget to do this, and shove the cookies into the un-preheated oven adding an extra five minutes to your timer and hoping for the best.
3. In a medium bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar orange juice and zest. If you are me, the zester was in the dishwasher so you simply scraped some skin off the oranges with a knife.
4. Pick the large chunks of skin out of the bowl, forget to turn the mixer off, shout “Fuck” again and again until you realize, you should probably turn the mixer off.
5. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, salt, cinnamon and baking soda; some would advise you measure the salt...I say, throw caution to the wind and just shake it a little, see what happens. Also, by combine i think they mean sift, I don’t sift, I fork. So fork together those things.
6. Add the forked mixture to the creamed mixture and stir until all of the things are one thing, do this gradually or else cover yourself in flour. Also, put the gaurd thingy on your mixer, or else cover yourself in flour. I am currently covered in flour.
7. . Next, stir in the egg and fruit and nut mixture, realize here that in the originaly recipe you found on allrecipes, the nuts weren’t supposed to be soaked in anything becuase they didn’t use a mix, just raisins and nuts separate. Hope to hell that doesn’t do anything wierd to them...then stir in the rolled oats. get covered in rolled oats.
8. Eat approximately ⅛ of the dough
9. Dough will be stiff. Drop by ice cream scoop fuls (it said teaspoons originally, but who are we kidding) onto an unprepared cookie sheet. That means not greased. But if yours look like mine ,that means black stuff on the bottom of them, so put some foil on the thing to protect them.
10. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven, or 15-17 min in the non-preheated oven, until the edges are golden, or you can’t wait any more. Scald tongue repeatedly eating cookies before they cool. Shout, “I win at baking!” while writing a blog post about your superior cookies.
11. serve with beer and chocolate milk, because everything is better with beer and chocolate milk.

I get the gist of it...

I have a problem. It is a problem very common to 6 year olds, meth addicts and people with dementia. It can be at its worst crippling, at its best, mildly annoying. There are no ribbons for this particular affliction, no 10k walk/jogs and no mediocre celebrity telethons. I have...

A short attention span.

Now now, I'm no hero, just your average mom dealing with a life altering affliction on a day to day basis. No big deal. Whatever.

Really, my problem is impatience, impatience and this overwhelming need to do ALL OF THE THINGS. Because I am a Capricorn, I can't just do all of the things all at once, no. I have to do all of the things, one at a time, to completion. So rather than take my time and do my best, I rush through each thing, balls out screaming and hope for the best so I can move on to the next thing and repeat.

To illustrate this issue I offer the following examples;

1) I am incapable of making a recipe properly the first time. I will inevitably not cook it long enough, be missing a key ingredient, or figure I can jimmy rig some integral utensil or cooking method and just kind of... "figure it out". Ultimately, it turns out poorly.

2) I am no longer allowed to do kitchen math. This stems back to the Thanksgiving where I quadrupled every part of the mashed potato recipe, except for the potatoes.

3) I often forget to read the WHOLE recipe. I get the gist of it...I started doubling last nights cauliflower pizza recipe assuming I would certainly need 6 cups of riced cauliflower, if 1 head made 3 and the recipe said to rice 1 head. I was halfway into my second cauliflower before Boss stopped me, scrolled down a half inch and showed me the part where she only uses 1 of the 3 cups of riced cauliflower for her pizza...oops.

Eventually the pizza turned out like this, so clearly, I figured it out. Take that math!

You can see where I am going with this.

It seems to me that too many of us are caught in this same loop these days. We are so interested in getting to the last step that we forget all of the steps in between. Knowing that patience is a struggle for me, I am looking at projects that will help me to go slowly and wait for the desired outcome, rather than my typical plan of "bust my way through until its done..ish".

The first of these projects is our much talked about vegetable garden. In years past, if something didn't blossom immediately, I lost interest and moved on. This year, we are investing a lot of time and money into making a viable vegetable garden that we can actually maintain and hopefully eat from. We also made a compost bin nearly bursting with various plant goods just waiting to be turned into worm poop and plopped upon my tender young vegetables. But you know how long we have to wait for it to be useful worm poop? like... A YEAR!!!! talk about patience.

I remember my mom always telling me as a kid, "patience is a virtue in this life."   She said it so often the words lost meaning until very recently. Even The Buddha said "the greatest prayer is for patience."

Our garden is my great prayer for patience. The energy that I put into the land, along with the love and dirt and sweat and worm poop will, eventually, yield amazing results, if only I stop...put in the effort, and wait. Good things come when they are meant to come, the universe knows when that is, I do not.

What is a challenge for you moving toward a more simple existence? Already there? What was the biggest transition for you and your family?

My Favorite Monster

Herman is amazing. Herman is my pet, Herman is my confidant, Herman is my constant companion...Herman is my sourdough starter.

My latest fascination is with fermentation. Over the last several weeks I have become obsessed with the idea of pickling, krauting, canning,kambutchaing, keifer...ing? I want to make stuff and I want it sour and I want it stewing in its own juices! This all really began with Herman.

About two months ago I ran across a recipe for a sweet sourdough stater whilst looking for bread recipes and I decided to give it a shot. I remembered my mom constantly trying to keep something she called "Herman" alive and eventually forgetting all about it in our pantry until one day she would throw it out with a look of disgust. Most people I asked about sourdough starters, including Mom told me not to bother, I would certainly forget about it and kill the thing before any tasty treats would be made. My mom however does not  have the obsession with "making shit happen" that I have. As soon as you tell me to forget something, it is pretty much a guarantee it will become my new passion.

If you have ever made a sourdough you know the basic recipe. Yeast, flour, water. Stir. Stir. Stir. Stir. Feed. Lather, Rinse, Repeat, culinary delights ensue.

I had never made a sourdough starter before. I picked the first recipe off the web and went to work. Research is NOT my thing.

The original recipe I had called for milk and sugar every 5th day. On the 15th day of the stir, stir, stir, stir feed, stir....cycle, I was super excited to make some breads  and get me some sour-dough in my face. We used a recipe from Instructables to make a no knead sourdough artisan bread. We made chowder to have it dipped in. The house smelled outstanding. We were ready for that first bite, I slathered it in butter, took in the aroma, put it in my mouth...It tasted like...nothing. Not even bread really. It had the right texture. The right chew. But it had nothing in the sourdough department or the yeasty bready department we were looking for.

Fail.

Never one to give up, I fled to the internets and searched for a reason. Turns out, most sourdough recipes do NOT call for sugar, nor milk. I was aghast. Perhaps READING the recipe, other than the instructions and ingredients may have prevented this...but who is to say really?

I started immediately eliminating the milk and sugar from Herman's feedings and instead adding only water and flour. The flour itself has enough sugar to keep the yeast going without any other help. I went back to my 4 days stir, 1 day feed schedule for 2 more weeks before attempting another experiment in Herman cooking. (so violent)

After 2 weeks, I found a recipe for sourdough pancakes that made my mouth absolutely water. Please see said recipe HERE. Warily, I approached Herman's jar. Upon opening the lid I saw that he had that fine layer of liquid on top the interwebs had said he would. He smelled like a miner from the 1800's and definitely evoked the feeling of fermentation I had been looking for.  We had a talk. We decided that sourdough pancakes were too cool to pass up. It was time he and I got down to business and started working WITH each other, and not against. We came to an accord. In the end, the pancakes were AMAZING. Sour, light, delicious. We top them with brown rice syrup or honey and we don't get that nasty carb hangover we always got from buttermilk cakes.

Over the last month Herman and I have been trying some new things. I have switched him to an entirely whole wheat diet. This seems to agree with his digestion more than the white bread flour I was using. He is always hoochy and bubbly. I also haven't divided him since like the second week I made him. I gave some to a couple of friends and then no one wanted the responsiblity of an edible pet monster so I haven't handed any out. Because I am pathologically incapable of throwing away food (or most things really) I haven't divided him at all since.  If anyone knows whether this is causing my bread to mutate into some sort of yeast beast I would like to know because all I know is he tastes awesome.

To date we have made using Herman:

Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls

No Knead Sourdough Bread (whole wheat and white) both awesome

Sourdough Whole Wheat Bread

Sourdough Tortillas-whole wheat, we are still perfecting this one

and Sourdough English Muffins

Herman an I have grown rather fond of each other. Boss refers to him as another member of our family. Pinkone takes her turn feeding him and talking to him to make sure he is well loved and cared for. In return he fills our bellies with delicious taste treats at least once a week. There are thousands of links for creating your own starter if you only consult the Oracle. I would post mine here...but it doesn't actually exist.

Here is one that is similar from My Sisters Kitchen or you can take the Gnowfglins Sourdough E-course and learn about ALL OF THE THINGS!!!

Tell us about your favorite monster?

*update: prior to this posting Herman passed on. His jar was contaminated by some unknown substance. We have not ruled out sabotage by other bread products wishing to be as awesome, or possibly the dog, looking for attention. Either way, Herman 2.0 has been created today and will hopefully live up to his predecessors delightful flavor. RIP Herman.

[caption id="attachment_975" align="aligncenter" width="540" caption="quite similar to Herman"][/caption]

The Weird Kid

Anyone who has either met our family, or read our blog with any regularity is painfully aware that Pinkone is a kid who marches to her own drummer. Her unique brand of "Pink-ness" is kind of taken for granted as normal by the lot of us who are in the trenches with her every day. Generally, there isn't a problem until she, or we, are forced to interact with the world at large. Suddenly her new found love of Swedish Black Metal is looked at as a cause for concern rather than totally bad ass.

We had parent teacher conferences the other day, always a source of anxiety for me. The teacher had already called us a couple of weeks ago to let us know that apparently, our kid had a disconcerting odor. This was news to me, as she was given a shower that very morning. When she came home, it turned out that she had decided that simply standing under the water and not actually using soap was an adequate means of cleaning ones self. As I have mentioned in previous posts, it is still shocking to me that hygiene is not something all people are inherently born with.

So after a long and detailed discussion on how to properly wash ourselves and the importance of clean socks, we sent the child back to school thinking all of our problems were solved. Parent teacher conferences come up and Boss and I go like the good Queer-rents we are. Pinkone show's us her desk, her illustrated guide to the life cycle of  a spider and the book of wacky learning songs she uses every day. We see the chart illustrating the teeth lost by each member of the class, see the quiet reading corner and learn about Kelso's choices. Kelso usually chooses to not be a jerk, so we like him.

Then comes the part where Pinkone goes to play with the student teacher and we sit down to talk to the teacher one on one. She starts off with all of the stuff we already know. Pinkone is great at math, she is super smart, has a little trouble focusing sometimes, but is generally doing very well academically.

Then we get into the bits we did NOT know. Apparently Pinkone has an issue with sneakiness. After work time the kids are supposed to bring a  crayon to the magic carpet and circle the answers they got wrong. Pinkone brings her pencil and erases the answers and writes the correct ones on the paper instead. They are supposed to put the math blocks in the box after math time, Pinkone quietly stuffs them in her pocket and takes them home with her for no apparent reason. Teacher is concerned about the amount of sneakiness Pinkone is displaying, did we think there was something going on we weren't aware of? Did teacher need to be brought in on some sort of deep family trauma that resulted in the stealing of math blocks?

Awesome.

Pinkone went through something of a Hudson Hawk phase shortly after her bio-dad left as well. There were several instances of finding small toys and things in her pockets after returning from her friends houses. She would return the toys, apologize and be grounded, eventually the phase seemed to subside and we hadn't had an episode in months.

Has our child become a criminal mastermind? Is she a tiny sociopath in training?

I don't think so. The deal here is that Pinkone has embarrassingly developed a habit I myself, and most of my family seems to have. It is an issue with scarcity. Though we have never had an instance in which we have had to truly want for anything, we are all always afraid that there will suddenly not be enough of it when we want it. If we don't get this thing NOW it won't be there when we legitimately can get it. This is the issue that most often results in shop lifting, hanging on to abusive relationships, and disordered eating.

Where does this issue come from? I see it in myself, I see it in my family, and now here it is in my daughter. I take portions bigger than I want because I am afraid the food won't be there if I want more. I hold on tight to my partners whether  I want them there or not because I am terrified they might disappear at a moments notice and I won't be able to get a new one. I either buy whatever it is I need the MOMENT I can afford it with NO research whatsoever or buy nothing at all.

While swiping the math blocks may not have been a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, the anxiety that goes along with the desire TO swipe the math blocks has the potential to be a life long issue if we don't nip it in the bud ASAP.

Pinkone has also been on a kick lately where she keeps trying to convince Boss and I that we should get married. She has even offered up her own pink plastic butterfly ring if only he would be willing to propose to me. While incredibly sweet, we aren't planning to get married any time soon, or possibly ever, its not really a priority for us. After her 11th request for us to get married. I asked her the other day, "Honey, are you worried that Boss is going to go away if we aren't married?." She admitted that yes, that was her concern. We had a long talk about  the differences between commitment and marriage, and that the two do not always have to equal the other. Her bio-dad and I were married and it didn't stop him from leaving.  Just because Boss and I are not married does not mean we are any less committed to each other than any other couple. She attended the "document signing ceremony" of our dear friends with us and we reminded her of what they told her that day. "Our relationship is no more valid today than it was yesterday. We are just letting the state of Washington know that we plan to file our taxes together next year".  A fantastic lesson the true meaning of marriage if you ask me.

As I am telling her this, I realize that I have thought and felt the very same sense of urgency regarding my relationship, whether I have said it out loud or not. If we aren't married, or working toward getting married, our relationship seems somehow...less than. That is not OK.

What do you DO when you see your kids playing out your own issues in front of your face?  How do you correct a behavior in them that is so ingrained in yourself? I didn't even realize that this was a problem for me until very recently. I have been trying to expend my energy reminding myself that if I don't have something RIGHT NOW it will either be there when I am ready for it, or if it isn't, then it wasn't meant to be. How to communicate this to Pinkone? I didn't realize I was communicating my scarcity issues to her in the first place so how do I communicate my attempts at eradicating them from my own life?

Have any of you been shocked to see your own issues mirrored in your kids? What did you do to correct it?

Apple Butter Business

Two weeks ago  I started a campaign on craigslist for canning supplies. Preserving is my cause du-jour at the moment. I am getting super excited about things like canning, fermenting, and dehydrating. Oh the possibilities!

During my quest for free canning supplies, I was contacted by a person that worked for an older gentleman with a plethora of canning business cluttering up his shop since his wife passed on. Boss and I immediately planned a trip out to the nether reaches of the county to pick up our free swag and start the canning fun times.

When we got there, we found the COOLEST gentleman either of us have had the pleasure of meeting since our own grandpa's (who are both extremely awesome mind you). Farmer Jim had not only canning supplies, but an industrial rock tumbler, gads of shiny rocks from all over the US, a stuffed owl and so many amazing handy craft projects I think etsy would blow up if it allowed him to post to their site.

Farmer Jim loaded us up with jars and a canning set up and also sent us home with a HUGE bucket of apples to start off our adventure in canning. Boss now has his old gentleman mentor, and I now have my canning supplies...all in all, a prosperous trip.

[caption id="attachment_943" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="above: a veritable shit ton of apples"][/caption]

When I got home,  I couldn't decide what it was I wanted to DO with these nifty canning supplies and all of these apples. We are big fans of apple muffins in this house, but it seemed a little silly to make 600 of them just to use up my apples. After a quick offering to the Oracle, it was decided that apple butter would be the coolest thing we could make with the ingredients we already had on hand.

The process begins with a veritable shit ton of apples. We used two bags from the grocery store as well as 10 of Farmer Jim's far superior apples. We filled the crock pot with tiny chunks of apples and thought smugly...this shall make thousands upon thousands of gallons of delicious apple butter! MWHAHAHAHAHA! It of course made...2 pints of delicious apple butter. According to the interwebs, if youw ant to make gallons of the stuff, you will need to keep adding apples as it cooks down and you will need far more than like 30 apples. SO the recipe I am posting here is for a small yield batch that you can do in a weekend with your crock pot. The apple butter purists will do it in gigantic pots over fires and such. I am no apple butter purist.

Let us begin.

Ingredients:

A bunch of of apples (30 or so) -cored and chopped. I leave the skins on because they cook down and it doesn't make any difference to me. Plus...the lazy...

[caption id="attachment_944" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="like-a-so"]