Oat-ey Peanut Butter Cookies

Here they come people!!
Hang on for the amazingly long awaited peanut butter cookie recipe!!!
Click HERE for the printable and all the correct measurements.
I feel that I must warn you...
This is a double recipe, so you will have lots of cookies.
Feel free to share, or be stingy and cut the recipe in half... if you can live with yourself under those circumstances.

I am not much of a peanut butter gal myself, tending to steer more toward chocolate, but...
These are YUM!!!

Though I went to the store to get peanut butter, I did not think about my brown sugar stash!
I was a good half a cup shy of what was needed so I did this little trick I remember reading about somewhere.
I added just a touch of maple syrup to my regular cane sugar.
Now this is more commonly done with Molasses, but I can't stand the taste of the stuff, so it doesn't make an appearance in my house.
100% pure Grade A Maple Syrup was my stand in.

Really the best thing to do is to just have enough dark brown sugar for the recipe.
Which by the way is 11/4 cup.

First things first with most cookie recipes is to cream the butter and sugar.
In this case we get a double doozy with that creaming... bringing in two butters and two sugars! How fun is that??
When those are good and creamed add in 4 eggs, one at a time, incorporating after each egg.
And last of the wet stuff...vanilla!! 4 teaspoons worth.



Here is a rather gross looking photo!!

Ha, well it is the creamed ingredients with an extra half cup of crunchy peanut butter thrown in for good measure!! By extra I don't really mean extra. Since it is crunchy I didn't want it in the mixer while I was doing all the creaminess creaming, so it got put in after that so I didn't have to listen to those chunks beating against the sides. Don't you just love the whump whump whump sound of the mixer going around in that butter. Pay attention, you just might!
I like the occasional peanut in each cookie, my son...not so much.
Can't please everyone all the time, right?


Next you are gonna measure out the dry ingredients.

1 1/2 cups All Purpose Flour
1 1/2 cups White Wheat Flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
AND

Oats!!

I suppose you could use quick cooking oats, but I wanted them finer than that so I started with old fashioned oats and then pulverized them!!

I put them in my tiny little food processor and hit the button til they looked more like this.


Throw the oats in with the other dry ingredients and stir well to combine.
Next add the dry ingredients to the wet ones mixing until combined.

Then you will have a soft but clinging together kind of dough. It is not firm, but it does hold together well.

I have not found a need to refrigerate this dough at all before baking as with some other cookie recipes...it is good to go, straight from mixing.
I used my medium scoop to put the dough balls on the baking stone...which is my baking surface of choice.
I suppose if I had some silpat and a metal cookie sheet I might just use that, but I sure do love how my cookies turn out on my stone. (Hearken back to my old Pampered Chef days...wow, that was like 16 years ago and that above is my original stone that I took to all my parties.)

Hey listen...flatten the cookies before you put 'em in the oven.
Just do it, I know it is an extra step but the get really puffy if you don't and you will want to put the yummy icing on nice flat cookies!! So do it, okay?




Ugghhh, this photo is awful. I was in the middle of 5 things and couldn't concentrate on how it looked...my deepest apologies!!

It is the cookies right out of the oven. They need to move to a cooling rack for a bit to await the icing!

Now that icing is simply 1 part peanut butter to 2 parts powdered sugar, with some heavy cream to make it the right consistency.
Make it spreadable and easy to work with, not drippy or stiff.
If you don't have heavy cream, then by all means stop what you are doing and go get some...it is needed for so many things...or just use half n half. I suppose plain old milk would do as well, but where is the fun in that???

OOooooohhhhhhh finally, done cookies!!

Did you notice that I actually frosted the bottom of those cookies?
It makes them look upside down to me.
Upside down frosted oat filled peanut butter yumminess cookies...maybe that should be the name?!?
Nah, I will stick with what I have got.


Nutter Butterish, soft and chewy peanut-y goodness cookies!!
That was just another description for you, not another crazy long name.

Enjoy!!

Cookies, almost!!

Peanut Butter Cookie Day!!!

Well I just spent 5 minutes searching for the photos I took of the Peanut Butter Cookies.
It was some time ago, so the confusion is merited!

I can find them in one part of my computer, but not the part that hooks to blogger!
Ahhh, now 13 minutes wasted. Sometimes I do so wish I were a computer geek and able to figure such things out.
I wouldn't be a good computer geek, I am way geekier in other ways though! I got the geek covered!

So, no photo of the cookies, which is fine for me because the original cookie I made was a sandwich cookie, and really the richness of this cookie makes eating just one almost impossible in the sandwich form.

This recipe came about because my oldest child (and husband to for that matter) was whining desperately for Nutter Butter Cookies.
I heartily refused, reminding them that it is firmly in the "kill your kid" food category.
Oh, I haven't used that term before have I?? hee hee.
I try not to use it in public, but I guess I just let it out of the bag huh?
Foods from the naughty list which are so rampant in our American diet, which are doing nothing nutritionally but stand for most of the "nutrition" in the average American kids life...that is kill your kid food.
My kids know I don't buy it, but yearn for it in a most desperate way some days.
Of course my oldest has the most trouble abstaining as he was the most exposed at a very young age. That poor baby survived off of pop-tarts and lunchables and loved it.
We know better know, but still have the craving for some of those yummy tastes.
Enter the Nutter Butter need.
I know that if I can make it at home it will be way better nutritionally and way better tasting too.

And, I get accolades, which I am into!
It helps to off-set the grumbling of the poor, poor children made to do chores and homework and such.

I did a search for copycat recipes, then went to All Recipes.com to check out some of their recipes. I read and read and read and finally got to one that I thought combined the best parts of what I wanted this cookie to be.
I converted the Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookies III from that site.

You know what, I am sorry to do this to you, but I am seriously out of time for today.
I am gonna make yet another batch of these cookies when I get home this afternoon, so that I can have pictures for you, then I will post the recipe.
I know I also did not write down specific measurements for the icing (mmmm, yes there is icing), so I want to do that too for all of you specific measurer type people.

Okay, so wish me luck getting all my chores and running done...
...one of which is buying peanut butter, since I had to scrape the sides of the jar this morning for sandwiches!!
Don't expect anything until after 5ish, okay??
Oh, and the two of you sweet readers who are expecting a baby within the next 2-5 days, I hope I didn't get your cravings up to bad only to let you down.
If you lived close I would hand deliver cookies to you!!!
Oh, man I gotta go.
Be back later!!

the most lame post ever

Pond life update day 3.

Sorry, I am feeling pretty shallow this week with my writing.
So, you get frogs, plants, dead bugs and fish.
It may get worse before it gets better, but I will plunge on so as to not have you checking back again only to find the previous days strange and shallow post.

Ahhhh, the flowers made quite a lot of progress!
Very interesting flower indeed.


Here are my fish.
They know I am just about to feed them so they are circling like sharks!!



Feed me, please feed me!!!



Shelby...


My clean and fed puppy!

Yeah, it is just not happening today people.
I am typing and erasing, typing and erasing, typing and erasing.
I have plenty I could write about, so that's not it.
I am trying and trying to be funny or practical or helpful in someway and keep coming up short.
So I am gonna quit trying and go finish up that last load of laundry!

okay
bye now

progress

First thing this morning
after I got up and drank my coffee, and checked my email, and got my kids up, and made lunches, and packed snacks and water, and walked my kids to the bus stop (times 2), and walked the dog (the long way today, though I really just wanted to go home), and cleaned the kitchen and dining room, and loaded the dishwasher, and started some laundry, and fed the dog (which she hasn't at this point partaken of, I suppose she is waiting for that bath I promised first) and texted with my friend in Louisiana, and ....
...oh, I suppose that is it...
I went to the pond to check on the progress out there.

I know you are patiently waiting for the report, cause you have nothing else to do, just like me!! Right?? That was sarcasm in case you missed it.

So, this is what I found.
Not a whole lot of change, but definitive white petals showing there on the bottom bud.



Our frog was still there!

I finally figured out that my camera was focusing on a leaf and couldn't "see" the frog.
Aren't his eyes just something else!! I was so captivated by that yesterday that I didn't notice the wonderful white stripe which runs from his nose, right under his eye, and across his ribs.
Fantastic!!!

Oh, I just have to tell you there was also a very large and very dead caterpillar at the bottom of the lower pond area.
I got the net and fished it out and tried to take a photo but just couldn't stomach it.
It looked all bloated and gross.
Why would I want to put that on my blog?

Now that I type all that out I feel pretty silly that I think I can't take a picture of a dead bug.
Hold on a minute I am gonna go right back out there and face this thing.






I am back!

There he was.

Laying there, (or is it lying there) in the puddle of water he came up with, still all large and dead and bloated.

I just couldn't disrespect him like that, so I kindly flicked him into the grass.
With a stick, ewwwww!!!!
I then convinced myself that he was merely a visitor to the pond and that I found him there happily crawling from the grass, and then took his picture.



Uggghhh! I suppose he must have fallen out of the tree above the pond.
Are you still with me??

Okay good, because with only an hours time passing our lowest bud opened!!
It is a 3 petal flower!
Take a look!

Interestingly large center it has there!

I will check back later and see the progress.
Oh, also...
here is the lily pad from yesterday opening up even more.


It will probably be to the surface by morning.

If things weren't so exciting out by the pond I may have gotten a recipe posted today.

How about a tip instead to tide you over.
Wrap your celery in foil, and it will stay fresh and crisp, a way long time! There is just nothing like floppy celery!

I better go give my dog her bath now so she can eat.

Look how she is pretending to sleep while sitting.
She does this when she thinks she is getting negative attention.
Then I asked her if she wanted a bath.
You know, in that high pitched voice dogs love so!


That perked her up!!

You know what, have a great day...despite anything you may read here!! ha ha ha.

Hurry come look!

POND REPORT:


I really enjoy having this pond in my back yard.
The sound of the water falling sneaks in through my bedroom windows when they are open.
It is a constantly changing little place which makes each visit to it unique.

Late Saturday I went out to enjoy some perfect afternoon air and feed my fish, and I was pleasantly surprised by another stalk of those shimmery lavender flowers which made an appearance back at the end of June and haven't been seen since.
I do not understand when or why those flowers bloom, but will take them as they come.

This morning I went back out, knowing that those flowers would be gone, but still holding out some hope that they may have lasted more than 2 days this time.
Nope!
They were pitifully withered with the whole stalk sadly drooping down into the water.
It wasn't a sight to share, you have to trust me on this.

I was so distracted by those purple flowers that I didn't take notice of something new amidst the duck potato plant.


I just can't take myself seriously saying duck potato plant!!
Ha ha ha, they are the tall stalky guys in the above photo.
Do you see the speckly brown stalk there in the center with the bloom type pods near the top?

Anyway, if it is that plant, then those buds should turn into pretty white blooms soon.

I got mightily distracted from that stalk though and quickly when I saw what else was going on at the pond today. It is in the above picture, it just isn't obvious.
Here is a different view of the speckled stalk and it shows our new little visitor.


Do you see him. The lovely green frog!
Here, let's get closer!!
His eyes are shimmering gold and shiney black.
Oh, to have a camera someday and be able to show you what I am seeing!!!
He was very kind to be nice and still for my photography session.
I just love frogs!!!

Before I go I wanted to show you this too.
I have always noticed water lilies laying flat on a waters surface, haven't you?
Well, they don't come to the surface flat. They are curled up and slowly unfurl as they approach the water level.
I hope you can make out the purple spotted curled leaf there in the center. It is rolled from both sides toward the middle. It will open up and be a nice round lily pad.


Okay, I have got to go.
I have bunches to do today, but had to quickly share those few beauties from the pond .

No time for beans!

Wednesday night I put my beans on to soak!
A soaker of beans I am.
Yup they soaked and soaked and soaked.
Little white navy beans soaking in my blue glass bowl.

I decided that I would put them on to cook when I got home from errand running around noon on Thursday.
Because of the busy state of my life right now, I choose to cook my beans in the crockpot so that I don't have to think about them.
The result is often slightly overcooked beans, but I prefer that just fine compared to the alternative.
Of course I know that I need at least a good 4 hours to get those beans done on the highest setting.
Well...

... I didn't get home at noon yesterday.
I didn't get home at one.
Not even 1:30!
I got home around 1:45.
That is pushing it so close to 2 which is the absolute cut off for bean cooking to be ready for that nights supper.
I had this though.
I felt confident that I could get them in, dust my hands off and call it good.

It was not to be though!
A blinking red message light attracted my attention, so I went there first upon my arrival at home.
It was the message I had been waiting for since April. Some paperwork was finally, yes finally complete and my presence was requested for pick up of said papers.
But...I had to be there by 2:30, and it is a 30 minute drive to get there.

So I left the little white beans soaking in the blue bowl and rushed out to get to my paperwork meeting.
I knew in my heart, at that moment, that the beans would suffer.
What could I do?
I was bound by the circumstances of the day.
Paperwork waits for no bean!!

I arrived back home just in time to meet the school bus which drops off my two youngest children, and their slave labor amounts of homework, which includes but is not limited to math checking, book reading, spelling studying, chart making and of course all the conversation about the day thrown in along with that.
A woman can be mightily distracted in the hours just before dinner while attending to three children and their days worth of living.
I did focus long enough to take the soaking beans from the blue bowl, transferring them to my large soup pot, probably right around 4pm.
How in the world those beans were supposed to be ready for our 6pm supper, I do not know. But I was determined to make it happen.
I turned up the heat nice and high and went about my business.
Sometimes my brain seizes up and I forget obvious things.
All sense of cooking know how, exits the building like a man leaving work on Friday.

See here is the deal. I have been cooking on an electric stove for 14 years now. This house however contains a gas stove which I am simply not accustomed to.
Gas cooks different from electric. Very different!

I put those beans on to cook and left them boiling away determined that they would be ready for supper. I stirred whenever I walked past, urging them with kind words to go ahead and finish up so I could feed my family.

Then I made a fatal mistake. I walked upstairs and began to search the internet for a new cookie recipe.
I do remember at 5:09 pm hollering down to my oldest son to "please stir the beans", which he did. Of course that child doesn't yet know that if you stir the beans and there are only beans there and no apparent water that the temperature should be turned down and water should be added. (He knows now!!)
Around 5:20 I found that I was reading brownie recipes. I mean, I have three awesome cookie recipes and maybe we need a little change of pace around here...I like the pace of brownies.
Suddenly, I smelled a smell.
A burning smell.
A oh man I got so excited about brownies and forgot about the cooking beans smell.
A wow, I didn't know burnt beans smelled so bad smell.
An oh no, now what are we gonna have for supper smell.

Gas cooks so much hotter and faster than electric and my mind is not there yet to keep specific track of the cooking process.
I am never cooking beans on the stove again!!!
I am gonna cook 'em in the crockpot til the day I die!!!

I decided that the mexican food place down the road needed me and my family to eat there last night.
And, I didn't make brownies!
I just couldn't do it.
I didn't trust myself not to mess it up.
My confidence was distressed by burned beans.

So I made my chocolate chip cookies instead...and am a better person for it.

By the way....I really rushed through this post to get it up before heading out the door this morning and hope that despite that you feel to a small degree the urgency and desperation of the bean burning Thursday.
Happy Friday all!!!!

Walk everyday!

I woke up feeling better today! I am pretty excited about that.
It could be the new haircut.
Okay, it probably isn't the new haircut...that helped my mental state though!
My old hairdo was in the process of growing out.
It left me feeling what I call "mom-i-fied".
As in, I have nothing else going on in my life but being a mom and don't I look like it.
I am not hip and cool, never have been...but I am for sure not mom-i-fied.

So, since I was feeling poorly I asked Shelby if she would take a picture with me for the blog.
She wasn't thrilled about it, but did want to make an appearance and be known as something other than "that dog who looks like Yoda".
So I handed the camera to my 9 year old and got a huge variety of very bad photos!
Here is the least worrisome of the lot.

It is cut into a cute little stack in the back and tapers gently to the front.

My new orangish hair color doesn't look quite as strange I think.


This morning when I logged onto Facebook, I noticed that one of my friends had checked that they liked this photo.



I put that photo online back in March.
I can remember thinking...
This is why I write a blog.

I know that may seem random and strange to you, but I just had so much I wanted to say about this photo at the time, and so many other things, but felt limited by the constraints of facebook.

Here is what I want to say today. It is really about so much more than the bee!

My God designed and made that bee.
That design is so very amazing, beyond understanding...fantastic!!
It helps to prove that God is real.
He is who He says He is!
It gives substance to His commands for us.

The writer of Romans puts it like this in chapter 1 verse 20.
"For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse "

That same God who made that bee for me to understand his supremacy is the master and creator of all that I believe and understand.

It is becoming more and more clear to me that acknowledging His supremacy is a very very important part of my life and walk.
When we don't give Him thanks and acknowledge Him we are headed down a slippery slope of humanness and..."we profess to be wise but become fools, whose hearts become darkened".

check out verse 28 of the same chapter.
"And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper."
and continuing in verse 32 after a long list of improper things...
"and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them."

So, I guess my point here is....
God gave us plenty of evidence of his majesty.
He gave us plenty of reason to praise Him and tell of His greatness.
He asks us to be thankful and honoring of Him.
I am learning that doing this consistently and heartily draws me closer to God.
Closer to his commands and principles.
Closer to His presence.

I don't want to be put in a position of not acknowledging Him and Him being so disappointed in me that he gives me over to do improper things. I really, really even want to stay away from giving hearty (or even lackadaisical) approval to such things.

There are certainly things God calls sin, which I do not give approval to.
To do that, for me would be to deny God.
I cannot do it.
If put in a position of asking me to do that...I sincerely desire that I will learn to consistently not choose that route. If my heart is softened toward sin, doesn't it mean it is on its way to being hardened toward God.
Choosing to gloss over willful sinful behavior draws me away from God, even as sin draws the sinner away.

As I write this I understand that I am likely to be misunderstood, mainly because there is a strong sadness in my heart which I cannot share here,
and that I again see that I have so much growing yet to do in my walk with God.

But, ya know what???
Though you may not know it or see it.
I am walking.
Some days it is a slow plod, other days I feel as though my feet can't possibly catch up with my heart.
My heart which through the struggles and misunderstandings of life, longs to be completely His.
My heart which aches when trying so hard to do what is right in the sight of the Lord... but which also seems foolish to man.

Here, this verse gives me courage...
2 Chronicles 16:9
For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His.


Poor you!
You came and got stuck in the middle of my own mental arguments and anguish today.
No peanut butter cookies or anything.
Sorry, sometimes when a topic is on my heart I gotta get it off, or go crazy in the meantime.

Let's do this. Lets...

go for a walk.
A God walk.
Walk everyday.
Let the eyes of the Lord find you seeking to give your heart completely to Him...
as you are walking.

And, lets also eat cookies.
Lots of cookies.
I need to go make some cookies.