Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies

 

I work in the art office on campus and things are picking up with school starting Monday.  It was an 'everyday feels like Friday' week!  So to celebrate it actually being Friday, I wanted to bring cookies in for everyone.  One of the staff is allergic to wheat and dairy so I came up with a recipe for peanut butter cookies that worked around those limitations.  And the good news is, they were good enough that the "regular" folk didn't notice anything was missing.  :)  

 

Flour-less Peanut Butter Cookies

1 c crunchy peanut butter

1/2 c brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 t salt

1/4 c (not) butter

1 c oat flour

Mix well.  Drop onto a pan, criss-cross with a fork and bake for 8 minutes at 350 degrees.

Note: If you use all natural sugar free peanut butter, you may want to leave out the (not) butter and increase the sugar to a full cup.

my FIRST gallery exhibit

Today, with the help of my husband, I will be hanging my first photo show.  It's in the gallery on the Oregon State University campus where I'm attending school.  I'm  not going to lie, I'm a little nervous.  Not because I hope people will like it...I actually don't care about that. :)  That's just part of creating art.  Some people will respond positively to it, some people won't.  I think it's more because it's a bit of an abstract concept and I'm nervous about it making sense to someone besides me.  That sounded conceited.  It's not that I think I'm super smart...I worry because I'm super random. 

Anyway...I'll take some pictures when it's up and at the reception.  I mean, if I'm going to do something that makes me uncomfortable, I may as well turn it into a party right?  Come party with me on TUESDAY October 1st.  I'll even make some cookies.

Homelessness and Charity

There are a lot of homeless people living in and around Newport.  This also means that at many of the street corners one will encounter a person or two standing with a sign asking for a variety of things. 

Last week I drove to pick up the girls from school.  As I went through the intersection I noticed a woman sitting in a wheel chair holding a sign that said, "Cat food" and a man standing with her holding a sign that said, "An act of kindness anyone?".  Well, I didn't have any cat food but I did have an act of kindness, so I said a prayer for the couple (I'm sure that's what they wanted) and continued on my way. 

Ten minutes later after I had picked up the girls, I was driving back home and I saw the same couple on the corner...with the man sitting in the wheel chair and the woman standing behind him.  Hmmm....

This past week our lesson in church was about having Charity.  The topic of how we treat the homeless people came up.  How do we know who sincerely needs help and who is just trying to get something for nothing.  The consensus was to follow the Spirit and let the Lord guide you. 

Later that week as I was leaving the Wal-Mart parking lot (a hot spot for someone with a sign) there was a kid standing there today.  He couldn't have been older than 20 and he was holding a sign that said, "homeless, hungry, hopeless.  anything helps".  The "hopeless" part struck a chord in my heart because I know what a dark place it is to be in.  I never have cash, so I looked around my car and pulled out a box of graham crackers I had just bought.  I opened my door and handed it to him and asked if that would help.  He said with a wavering voice, "Oh thank you!  You have no idea!" 

At that moment I was overwhelmed with love for this kid.  I said, "God bless you." and I really meant it and I felt the love that my Heavenly Father had for this young man.  Although he was on a street corner begging for help, he was still one of God's children.  We are reminded in Mosiah 4:19 and 21 in the Book of Mormon "For behold, are we not all beggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have? ...And now, if God, who has created you, on whom you are dependent for your lives and for all that ye have and are, doth grant unto you whatsoever ye ask that is right, in faith, believing that ye shall receive, O then, how ye ought to impart of the substance that ye have one to another."
http://lds.org/scriptures/bofm/mosiah/4?lang=eng

1 Corinthians 13:3

3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

I guess that's what charity is.  It was nice to feel...even if it was only for a minute :)

Who needs a rooster?

Who needs a rooster when you have these guys squawking outside your window?! 

Peanut Butter Choc-Oat-Chip Cookies

I think these are my new favorite cookies.  All good things rolled into one!  Naomi loved helping make this recipe up.  She listed all of her favorite cookies and we crammed them into one recipe. :)  Naturally she also came up with the name for them.

Peanut Butter Choc-Oat-Chip Cookies

1 c butter
1 c peanut butter
1 c white sugar
1 c brown sugar
3 eggs
1/2 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
2 1/2 c flour
2 c oats
2 c semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix together butter and peanut butter until fluffy.  Add in sugars and mix again.  Add eggs, baking powder and baking soda and salt.  Mix well.  Add flour and mix.  Add oats and mix.  Stir in chocolate chips.  Bake for 10 minutes.  Let cool on pan for a few minutes before moving to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Now give most of them away so you don't eat them for breakfast.  I have it on good authority this happens...often. 

A little bit like my Dad

 Last night as my sweet family was riding our bikes home from the elementary school's annual potluck, I started channeling my Dad. 

Nearly every Sunday of my childhood, if my parents drove separate cars to church, we could expect a road race on the way home.  As we would drive away from church my mom would turn right and my dad would keep driving straight.  That was the unspoken signal for, "The race is ON!"  My siblings and I would scream and yell in the backseat for my dad to drive faster, hurry up, turn here, go go GO!  The rest of my siblings that were riding with my mom would be doing the same thing in the other car.  Mind you, both of my parents were raised in New Jersey, and thirty years after moving away from there, my dad still continues to drive like he is cruising down crowded highways, weaving in and out of traffic, honking the horn and speeding through yellow (red) lights.  Yes indeed, two cars driven by nicely dressed adults, could be seen squealing down quiet residential streets at 45 mph in a mad race to be first in our driveway on west sixth street.

So Lars was riding in the front with Leah and Emilia.  I was pulling up the rear with Heidi in the trailer behind my bike and Naomi beside me.  At the corner a few blocks from home, my Father's DNA started racing through my veins and I yelled, "Beat you home!" I turned down a side street and took off with Heidi squealing in the trailer and Naomi shouting, "Wait, I can't keep up!"  We booked it and when I pulled into the driveway triumphantly ahead of everyone else, Naomi was still a good block behind me.

"Victory!" I yelled as Naomi came panting up behind me, closely followed by Leah.  Soon Lars rode in with a tearful Emilia.  "What took ya so long?" I gloated.  "Uh, I didn't race off and leave my kid behind me in the dust" he answered.  (Always so practical, that one.)  "No mercy!" I joked.  "I guess we play by different rules" he said.  "Well then, I guess I'll always win." ;)  I can't help it.  I am half my Dad, after all.

Pumping Iron

I finally got up the nerve to go to the rec. center and learn the weight room.  It's not like I've never lifted weights before, it's more that the OSU football, basketball, soccer, baseball, track, and gymnastics teams all use the weight room here...and I am a little intimidated!  There are still a few weeks until school starts up so I figured there would most likely be fewer people there now, meaning a smaller audience to my ignorance. 

As I walked in, I surveyed the area and spotted a little old woman using the circuit training machines.  Using the pictures on the machines and my best guess, I made my way around several of them ending up next to this sweet little lady.  This was a machine I was unfamiliar with, so I leaned over and whispered, "Do you know how this machine works?"  She put her hand to her ear.  The universal signal for, "What's that deary??  Speak up.  Granny can't hear you."  I repeated my question a little bit louder.  Again, she put her hand to her ear and said, "What?".  I asked again...a bit louder.  She said, "What?" again.  Finally the fourth time I practically shouted, "DO YOU KNOW HOW THIS MACHINE WORKS?" At last she heard me...along with everyone else in the weight room, the rec. center and a twelve mile radius.  

She smiled at me, shrugged her shoulders and replied, "I don't know!  I've never used it before.  Just try to look confident!"  I smiled back and said, "That's what I'm trying to do, but the machine keeps making weird noises!"  She laughed and said, "Well, I'm deaf...so it doesn't bother me!!"

Apparently confidence increases as your hearing decreases.  Good to know.