Skip to main content

My Weakness and Strength: Food and other recipes

  During my year of living yoga-ly, John and I would pick an intention for our bodies: no white flour, nothing fried, no red meat, no sugar, etc.  It was actually really interesting what I missed and what I didn't miss and how you adjust and what my body felt so much better not eating.

What I learned more than anything else is that my body does not like things fried (still eat them chips though--a good salt and vinegar, oh yes, but in very small quantities), really does not do well with creamy things, sugar is a no no, and white flour, darn it, just does me no good at all.

These were devastating things to learn because I LOVE dessert.  I love rustic white breads and really all white bread.  And I live, LIVE, for cookies.

So what I've learned to do is eat the things I love but my body doesn't, very very sparingly.  And I've become very creative in my cooking.

I've got a bunch of recipes that I promise you taste amazing and are healthy or modified to the healthier spectrum.

Here is my first:

Best Whole Wheat Oatmeal Cookies in History
(I know you're thinking, wait, no way, you can't put whole wheat flour in cookies and have them taste good . . . well, I'm here to tell you, you can . . .)

1 c butter
3/4 c brown sugar (a little packed)
1/2 c white sugar

cream together

1 c peanut butter (I like Trader Joe's all natural salted, but any will do)

mix in well; add

2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

Mix.

In a separate bowl:

1 1/2 c whole wheat flour (doesn't have to be pastry or anything)
2 1/2 c oats (finely ground in a blender)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda

Add slowly to the wet ingredients.

Add 1/2 c carob chips (or 1/2 c chocolate chips or more if you like).

Scoop about 2 tbsp balls onto cookie pans and Bake at 375 for 8 minutes (you want the bottom light brown but still soft).

The cookies will be super duper breakable, but carefully remove from the pan with a spatula and let cool on paper towels spread over the counter.  Once they are cool, they'll be nice and eatable.

I'm telling you, they're delicious!  And actually nutritious.


Tomorrow, I'll give you my favorite healthy breakfast recipes . . .


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Forced Frugality

  We are going on ten months of looking for a job.   Last September, after a rather horrid ten months, John got the boot.  It was oddly and rather unfairly done, but a great relief to all of us.  Working at that company had become a puzzle that grew harder and harder each day until it was in fact, impossible.  The stress of it took a wild toll on John's mental and physical health.  By the end, he was neither eating nor sleeping.  He had strange episodes of racing heart and an inability to tell what was real and what was imagined.  I sat him down and told him I would use up every penny of our retirement and sell the house if it meant he could stop working in that environment.  And it may take all that.  And I still won't regret it.   When I feel rather sorry for myself, I remember what life was like for him a year ago and then I don't feel sad that I am once again digging through my closet to find a new way to wear old things.   In fact, there is part of me (small though it

The Best Kind of Tired

  My often daily life . . . (John is two feet away—I can’t do all of them by myself) Last week, every single time I sat down, I almost instantly fell asleep.  I kept telling John, I have the sleeping disease.  What is going on?  Am I getting old?  Is it the covid after effects?  What on earth? He didn’t have any answers for me because he was doing the same thing.   We didn’t really do anything for seven days straights.   And our kids joined us in the sleepy, do nothing, lazy slug bug state. It wasn’t until this morning as I was looking over the pictures of the summer that I realized why. . . We literally haven’t stopped ALL summer long—one awesome amazing trip/visit/fun after the other.  It’s like we are making up for last years “staycations.”  Holy hannah have we ever made up for it.  Just about did ourselves in playing and hugging and kissing and caring for babies. Highlights of the summer (in no particular order): Cousin sleepovers have resumed (most missed activity since the pandem

Midlife-Cri-sis

It's been a year.   I'll sum it up by saying that food no longer tastes good to me.   The last time that happened, I had lost three pregnancies in a row and John had lost and found a job and we had moved three times. The feeling is very similar.   There have a been a lot of losses or near losses.  Enough that when the phone pings with a text or vibrates with a call (I long ago turned off the ringer), I take a deep breath and think, you can do this .  More times than not, I need that deep breath. I am probably in the second half of my life and I feel it.  47.  My children are nearly grown.  My house is established.  Our bank accounts don't fluctuate like they used to. I don't go to the store and dream of being able to buy things.  I walk into my closet and wonder what I can do without.   I feel the finality of my existence and I wonder . . . what do I really want out of all this?   For book club, we read A Million Miles in a Thousand Years .  It's about re-writing o