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.