Whole Grain Peanut Butter Oatmeal (Chocolate Chip) Cookies

Awhile back I ran across a recipe for whole grain pb choco chip cookies.  It looked very familiar - it was like the classic choco chip cookie recipe you find everywhere, except with some peanut butter, oats, and millet added - but the amount of sugar had been doubled!  "Pshaw," I thought, "this will be fine with the regular amount of sugar in it."  And it is.  I dropped the millet, too.  It was weird (yes, I tried it once).

These cookies are soft and chewy, so if you want to use regular whole wheat flour (made from hard red winter wheat), you could probably do so.  I'm going to make a batch of them with creamy peanut butter, no nuts, and chocolate ganache on top instead of chips inside, for Granddad.

These cookies have so much protein and fiber in them, they're more like real food than dessert.  I've eaten them for breakfast or lunch a number of times while on the road.  Very filling!  I'm also experimenting with replacing some of the flour with whey protein powder (had some sitting around in the pantry for a muffin recipe I've lost track of).  So far I've done a batch where I swapped 1/4 of a cup, and the taste and texture were fine.

I told Kira I'd get her this recipe after she visited back in the spring.  I'm not sure I've got her email address, so I figure this will make its way to her somehow or another.

Whole Grain Peanut Butter Oatmeal (Chocolate Chip) Cookies:

1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar or evaporated cane juice
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup rolled oats
2 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour (King Arthur)
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp sea salt
3 eggs
1 cup (6 oz) chocolate chips (mini-morsels are good for this) (optional)
1 cup nuts, chopped (optional)

Directions:

1)  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper, or lightly grease.
2)  In a large bowl beat sugars with softened butter for 3 minutes. Beat in eggs and peanut butter.
3)  Stir in oats, chocolate chips, and nuts. 

4)  Whisk together flour, salt, and baking soda. Add to wet stuff and stir until combined.
5)  Scoop dough into ~ 1-1 1/4" balls. Flatten with a fork dipped in sugar, or your thumb to make PB thumbprint cookies, or the bottom of a glass dipped in sugar - they will not spread or flatten on their own and will be underdone in the middle if left spherical.

6)  Bake for 10 minutes exactly if dough is at or near room temperature. With white whole wheat flour, the darker cookies will not noticeably brown at all when done - just the bare edges of the ones in the back.

7) Allow cookies to cool for three minutes before removing them from the baking sheet to a wire rack.  They can be eaten as soon as they're cool enough to hold!

Yields about 4 dozen. You can scoop the dough into balls and freeze them on a cookie sheet, then transfer to freezer ziploc once frozen. You can also make 1" thick slabs of dough, wrap in 2 or 3 layers of plastic wrap, and place in a freezer ziplock.  Allow dough balls to thaw, and flatten them before baking.

Fall season done, let the fun (and work) commence

Since the middle of August, I've done six events.  One of those was a 1-day, one a 2, and the others were 3-day.  I added a new (to me) convention in Galveston - it was in a con center right on the ocean, so after I was done packing up on the last day, I went for a walk.

Absolutely as relaxing as it looks!

Live bivalves

I think, after several years of doing conventions 'professionally', I'm finally learning just how long everything takes.  Packing, loading, unloading, setting up.  I was only almost late to an event - an hour before they opened - once, and once was enough.  Many other times, I put myself in the situation of not having enough time to set up the day before, and wound up setting up the day of.  It's all gradually coming together.


So now I have a month and a half 'off', which means doing all the other things I otherwise never have time for.  Completing garden projects, like digging the grass out of the nuisance strips and replacing them with xeriscape.  Building more sub-irrigated planters out of buckets, to grow more vegetables.  I've got red bell peppers in right now, and I got them in a little late.  There are a few full-sized green ones, but we're going to need some more sunshine down here before they turn.

The 9" of rain we got in 24 hours did a number on some of the creeks, and killed a couple of people; RIP.  The crest time for most of the creeks and rivers was around 4am.  I got out to our little neighborhood pond around 1am to take what video I could with a flashlight.  The volume and speed of water going over the spillway was tremendous - the solid rock/concrete dam that makes up the very top of the spillway was completely concealed by rushing water.  Though the footbridge that goes over the spillway sits on concrete pilings, I did not want to venture onto it.

This is the first time I've uploaded a video, so I have no idea if the quality will be any good or not.

I usually don't get anything done the day after an event, but today I decided to make sugar cookies, since the 4-year-old I live with came home with a 100-count bucket of cookie cutters.

If you like soft cookies, have I got a recipe for you!  I took this off the net and modded it on the first try to use some white whole wheat flour (doesn't have quite as much protein and fiber as WWF made from hard red winter wheat, but still has way more than regular white flour).  I have been using King Arthur brand white WWF for baking for awhile, and once you know how to use it, it works pretty well.   If you can't find the stuff (available in our grocery chain down here, but maybe only in Whole Foods elsewhere), try whole wheat pastry flour.

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup shortening

1 3/4 cup sugar (I used half evap. cane juice)

2 eggs, at room temp

1 tsp almond extract

1 tsp orange extract

(this amount of extract makes for a very prominent flavor; for a milder flavor, reduce to 1 tsp total of all extracts)

1 cup sour cream

3 cups all-purpose flour (390g)

2 cups King Arthur white WWF (250g)

1/4 cup cornstarch (30g)

1 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

I'm going to assume you know the drill with a cookie recipe.  This dough needs chilling for at least 2 hours in the fridge; less in the freezer if you've got a 4yo whose bedtime is approaching.  The dough can absorb plenty of flour during the rolling-out-and-cutting process, and needs refrigeration when you're not working with it.  If you don't like it that sticky, add in another 1-4 tablespoons of flour.   Use parchment paper or grease your cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 for 12 minutes (large cookies), maybe 13 or 14.  I think I left a batch in for 14-15 minutes and they were fine.  You'll know they've been in long enough when they start to poof up their tops some.  Makes about 3 1/2 dozen large (3.5-4") cookies.

If you don't want to mess with flour types other than all-purpose, the original recipe called for 5 1/2 cups of flour and no cornstarch.

Other projects include building a set of panniers for the motorcycle out of ammo cans.  'Real' aluminum panniers run $500+ for a pair - too rich for my blood.  I should be able to do mine for $100.  The most use these are likely to see is getting groceries, and making the bike more visible and thus safer.  But I want to take some longer-distance camping trips eventually, too.

I also want to organize my Alaska trip images and send some of them off to have a book printed, which I plan on sending to Granddad.

Call your congresspeople to voice your objections to NSA spying on ordinary citizens

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/call-now-to-oppose-nsa-spying

Calling our members of congress is basically how we as voters get things done in this country, in addition to actually voting.

The NSA completely overstepped its bounds and our fourth amendment rights.  Our outrage is the only thing that will make crap like this stop.  At the risk of invoking Godwin's law, the Nazis used metadata to identify Jews in Germany.  They don't have to have your actual phone conversation to know who you are, or, at the very least, who you associate with.  Obviously this isn't being used to harm Americans now, but it could be.  If it ever is used that way, it will then be too late to stop it.

Please call, and if you can't, you can sign this petition with an email address:
https://optin.stopwatching.us/?r=eff

Severe weather threat for Wednesday in the western half of OK is worse

Hey folks in the western half of the state - where you can get live weather updates and have access to underground shelter tomorrow afternoon.  You're now in a 'moderate' risk area, which means a 45% chance of severe weather within 25 miles of any point.  This is the same level of risk that was present when the big one went through Moore a week ago Monday.  This risk area extends south a little ways into TX, and all the way up through Kansas and into Nebraska.

With any luck, the hail and tornadoes produced will just go through some fields and not hurt anyone, but please be prepared, and spread the word to your neighbors, friends, and family in the area, post it on Facebook, etc.

As this is the forecast 24 hours in advance, it may change.  I would rather notify people about it now and have it change than wait until tomorrow morning and someone doesn't see the email or the blog post.  For now, storms are expected to start firing around 4pm, but could go as early as 2pm.  Be aware, keep your radio/TV on or set up your phone to receive severe weather warnings, and be ready to move.  Typically these storms start off heading to the NE, but as they organize they may 'turn right' and wind up heading due east.  They can also develop quickly - 8 days ago the storm in Moore went from barely there on radar to EF-4 in the space of 30 or 45 minutes.

Almost all of the rest of OK is in a 'slight risk' area as well.  'Slight risk' typically doesn't mean large tornadoes, but there are exceptions to this - an EF-4 in a slight risk area killed a couple of people in a small TX town a couple weeks ago.

Future uncertainty

The uncertainty of my business income is really getting to me (of 100 artist's tables sold, they sold in about 1.5 minutes online, and I was #66.  What happens if my internet connection goes down in that minute when I'm filling out the forms?  There goes almost a quarter of my annual income).  If I could just pop off the dealer's room wait list for two of my conventions, I think I'd be fine (read:  breaking even with practically zero disposable income, and by 'disposable' I'm including 'anything I could put into savings').  I could theoretically be making a lot more money if I could get my websites up and going... or not.  I have no idea how much I could bring in with those.  It's a complete unknown.  Which is part of the reason those keep slipping down the priority list.

If I could find other large conventions to do, that would help immensely.  Thing is, I have to go to one coast or the other to do that.  And I don't think I can legally sell my jewelry in California, because they have a lead in jewelry law that basically says I have to test *every* batch of components I use for lead content.  There is no cheap lead test.  And given that every couple of months I order several hundred little packages of jewelry components... yeah.  Not feasible at all.  The US has a similar law, but it's for children's jewelry only (age 12 and under, I think), so I can deal with that by simply saying my jewelry is for people ages 13 and up.  Can't do that in CA.  That leaves Oregon and Washington, and the east coast.

Logistics are a problem.  If it's a huge con where I'd make lots of money, I have to have someone helping me or people will start stealing stuff because I can't watch 10' worth of table all the time.  But I have no friends who would be willing, even for money, to leave town for almost a week straight to work a con.  And I can't exactly hire a stranger to handle thousands of dollars in cash halfway across the country, even if I am standing right next to them.  And I'm not even sure how I would get there (fly, and ship my setup?  drive, and risk stuff getting stolen out of my car when I'm at a hotel midway / risk getting stopped by corrupt police for having out-of-state plates, and then they do a fake drug dog alert, search my car, and seize my cash?), nor whether the expense of getting there would actually be worth it.

I am working on something else, with a friend / business partner.  If we can break out with what we're working on, I'll be able to retire some day, maybe even early.  Among other things, it's a way for companies to develop profiles for who they want to hire / put on teams, and to find people who fit those profiles.  And it goes way, way beyond what anyone else is doing.  We've spent about 4 years now teaching ourselves the material (and developing new material), experimenting, and figuring out what exactly we can do with what we've got.  My partner already has executive-type clients, so I know that what we can do works, it's just a matter of developing something we can actually sell.

The other option?  I can't afford to live here any more, and move back to OK with my mom.  In a way that would be a relief; I'm darned stressed out right now and it seems to be never-ending.  I could still do some of the larger TX events.  I have friends here, but they're all busy too, and it seems like I hardly ever get to see any of them.  This would not be the first time I've felt the urge to move to a more rural area, plant fruit trees and maybe have chickens, and have some time time and space to experiment with blacksmithing and metal sculpture and more elaborate jewelry (and if I break out with those, as in start bringing in significant income online, I could theoretically move back here if I wanted).  Not to mention, it would be waaay easier to visit family!  Every time I go home, I have to stop and think about whether I need to ask my parents for gas money.  And I hate that.  I know I'm experiencing some overwhelm at the moment (a bout of insomnia a week long, that I'm trying to fix with ambien, isn't helping), and that once I start sleeping better again I'm sure I'll be thrilled again to be where I am, but... right now it's kind of not happy-making.

I wrote the above last night right before bed, and held off posting it to give my brain chemistry a chance to reset.  Not much editing happened between now and then.  It is what it is, only now that I'm more rested, it feels like more of a challenge / more positive.  I'm forging ahead, which is what my dad has told me on several occasions:  "Forge ahead!"

Business as usual

The rest of the past 3 weeks I've spent signing up for my usual conventions - kind of stressful since with the online form-filling-out sign-ups that most cons have gone to, the tables for the popular cons sell out in a matter of minutes.  You have to type fast.  But I've made it into all of them through March of next year, so I'm good to go for that much longer, at least.  I also made it past the new jury that got set up for my largest con, this year.  Wasn't too sure about that one given the style of jewelry that makes up 90% of what I sell (it's very simple, fast, and doesn't give me repetitive strain injuries to make).

I've also been putting together this next round of supply orders - from five different companies - for the next two events.  This process takes days now, which is fine, because it means I'm selling that much more.

After this year's events so far, I started to brainstorm a little more about my business.  And came up with the radical idea to cut the number of different things I'm selling in half, cutting out the lowest sellers.  I have about 200 - 250 different charms and pendants that I sell, and that is too many to keep track of (I have no inventory control system - I can't really afford a professional one with bar codes and a reader and such).

I started on the idea once I figured out how to easily manage inputting all my sales into a spreadsheet.  The way to do it isn't to try to fit all items into a single spreadsheet - it's to have one spreadsheet for each class of items, so it's easier to look at most of the data at once.  I did this for one class of items, and noticed there were some styles that I had sold only one or even none of in the past 2.5 years.  So, out they go.  Going to do that with everything else, too.

Hopefully that will free up some display space, too, so I can experiment with other things.  It's hard to even find the time to do that, though.  Frustrating.  Then there are also the websites I've been wanting to build.  I need about 6 months to sit down and really get creative with all these jewelry bits I have now accumulated, and to get one or two functional websites up.  Maybe I'll have some time over the summer, before the next round of conventions starts up in August.  I applied for one in Tulsa in August, but they're juried too, and I haven't heard back from them.

The wait continues to get into the dealer's rooms in some of these conventions.  I'm in the artists' spaces in several of them, which means competition for tables every year when signing up.  In the dealer's rooms, once you're in,  you're in as long as you pay in advance for your spot.  The stress over whether or not I'll make it into some of the cons every year is not fun.  My big convention in June makes up 20-25% of my annual income.  I probably still have another 4 years to go on the waiting list for the dealer's room ( I got on it 3 or 4 years ago).  I have enough savings to get by for one year if I don't make it in.

Next up, the thoughts on life post.

Gardening

I survived the three events in a row in late March / early April, barely.  It's a good thing I wasn't planning on driving all the way home until after staying a few days at my mom's, because I was pretty much non-functional for those days.  I did manage a trip up to Okeene with my dad to visit Granddad, and got some spectacular pictures of the ice storm the next morning.  Mom and I cooked a bunch of stuff, and it was good.

I made it home and managed to do taxes on my own for the first time, and get them in on time.  It was a frustrating couple of days but I figure it'll get easier as time goes on.

In the past 3 weeks, I think I spent that first week recovering and doing some gardening.  I've got some flowerbeds going (2 xeriscape, 1 'regular' under the shade of a tree most of the day), and re-learned that you have to provide support for tomato plants.  One of mine snapped halfway through in the wind.  I sort of splinted the stem with rocks, and made haste to install cages in the buckets.  That plant is still alive, though it wilts if left in the sun all day, probably because it's running on half water rations.  It's blooming and growing but still hasn't set fruit yet.  The other five tomato plants are setting fruit - the first tomatoes to show up are now almost as big as my fist and have barely started to go from green to yellow-green.

I am really excited to actually be growing fresh produce, though I won't count it a victory until the tomatoes actually ripen and I get them before the birds do.  The plants are obviously happy in their 3-gallon buckets.  The soil they are in is about 1/3 composted cow manure.  That in combination with a ready water supply (there's a reservoir in the bottom) and brand-new potting soil has given them pretty much whatever they want in the way of nutrients.

I've got four red bell pepper plants in larger temporary pots, waiting for me to finish four more of the reservoir buckets.  Having the high-value vegetables in buckets is also really convenient when there's a late frost or high winds forecast - I just move them up against the south wall of the house.  Also I foresee adjusting the amount of sun and shade they're getting as high summer rolls around - the weeks and weeks of 100 degree heat that are possible down here just cook plants that are out in the sun all day, but for now, they're enjoying the light.

I've got butternut squash in the ground that's blooming, so we'll see if it sets fruit.  Kind of an experiment.  I haven't had much luck with squash of any kind in the past; I think it really needs part shade this far south.  

Well, that's the gardening post.  Next up is the business post.

The time, it flies by on jet engines

In mid-January I found out I would be moving in early February. It was an opportunity to upgrade everything about my living situation except the amount of space I had, so I jumped on it and here I am on the far side of a move - and two vending events. In my mind I still live in the same city, always have for the past decade plus, though my address has changed (I will update the contact list sometime soon).

I spent the second half of January packing and culling stuff. This is the first chance I've had as a post-college adult to actually sort some stuff and sell / give away / throw away some of it! I did not get as much sorted as I'd like, but what I did do was refreshing.

Then, eight days into February, I did a convention in Dallas. It wasn't spectacular but it's the third event of three, and guarantees me a spot in the next convention, which will have William Shatner (Capt Kirk from Star Trek) as a guest! Last year's con had Patrick Stewart (Capt Picard from Star Trek), but I did not get to see him because I was stuck behind my tables in the Dealer's Room the entire time. Guess what's going to happen this year? Yep, same thing.

After the February convention I came home and hit the ground running - did an entire week where I got up, packed, and took an entire carload of stuff to the new place every day. At the end of that week some friends came and helped me move furniture. The day after all that, I was so tired I couldn't hardly do anything. Then I spent the next 6 days wrapping up and cleaning.

The next 2 days I spent trying to organize things at the new place (I'm renting a room from friends who have a house. And a 3-year-old. So there is not a lot of space for stuff) to make my room livable, and then... two days of prep time before my next show, in Dallas again. I was so stressed about time that when I got back it took me a week to realize that I had 3 weeks between the previous event and the next event, rather than two! So after another round of supplier orders - pretty big since they have to get me through the next three events that happen on back-to-back weekends - I actually took a day off and didn't do much beyond recovering.

This Friday I head to the first event in that series of three. After event#3 there will be a family visit back in Oklahoma for a couple of days, then home in time to get my taxes done (did I mention I've been running flat-out since mid-January? Yeah, doing a tax return will stay at the bottom of my priority list until about the 12th).

 Trying one last vegetable gardening strategy since the soil in this area is crap and no amount of amendments will fix it - sub-irrigated planters. Like those pots with water reservoirs in the bottom, only you can make them out of 5-gallon buckets or old refrigerators or what-have-you. Details and pics to come!