Peanut Butter Cookies and Fairytales

I had a major craving for peanut butter cookies last week and the craving did not go away so I, of course, made a batch this weekend. The process starts with pulling out my recipe. Wait, what? MY recipe. Why do I call it my recipe? It’s not actually mine, I didn’t come up with it. I simply follow the directions. Well, I pretty much follow the directions. There might be a couple of tweaks… like adding chocolate chips or using half whole wheat flour instead of only white flour. I also may have used only baking soda and not baking powder. Sometimes I use almond butter or cashew butter instead of peanut butter; but not if my oldest daughter or son is around because they are allergic to almonds and cashews but not peanuts (I have to keep in mind who is in the house). I also sometimes use some honey instead of sugar. So, I guess it has kind of become my recipe. With some simple changes and alterations, I turn the recipe into something that suits me and my family.

That got me thinking about my stories. I might tell a fairytale from a book, but I never tell it exactly like it is written. With some changes of words, some tweaking of characters, and a bit of magic (just go with me here) I make changes that make the story mine. Other storytellers may use the same book and story but they will make their own changes so the story belongs to them as well.

When I get in front of the audience, I still may have to make some quick changes to suit the audience that is in the house. I could tell the same story to adults as well as elementary children but I would need to change vocabulary, maybe even the length, and I may have to leave some things out.

There are a lot of peanut butter cookie recipes and each one will be a bit different depending on the recipe and who is making them. There are also a lot of fairytales but each one will be a bit different depending on the story and who is telling them.

There’s that craving again… time for some tea, a peanut butter cookie, and a book of fairytales.

Let The Kombucha Begin

At the beginning of 2020 I went for my yearly physical and told my doctor, “I know I need to take off a few pounds but I don’t want to focus on that. I want to focus on being healthy and strong.”

She said that sounded like a good plan and referred me to a facility. “Several of my patients have had good results working with them,” she said.

I have been working with a nutritionist there since the beginning of the year and I’ve had very little weight loss (remember, that’s not my focus this year), but I have had some great improvements. I’ll blog for about that at another time.

My nutritionist introduced me to kombucha, a fermented tea that contains a “symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY).” It’s the good bacteria you need in your gut. Our American diets are not all that friendly toward our guts, and medication affects that, too. I’d been drinking it for a couple of weeks and doing my best to find it on sale whenever I could since it is a bit pricy (about $3.00 a bottle) but I was feeling the benefits from drinking it so I wanted to continue drinking it each day.

Because I wanted to cut the cost of adding this healthy beverage to my diet, I looked into making it myself. I told my dietitian about my interest and to my surprise, she said, “I brew my own and if you want to try it, I’ll give you a starter SCOBY.” I was rather excited about that. I went home and found a jar to get my Kombucha started in. I also began saving my drinking bottles from the readymade Kombucha I had been purchasing from the store.

After I was given the SCOBY and I gently put it in its new home. (The SCOBY is kind of creepy looking). I brewed the tea, added the sugar, and followed all of the other directions and got it going, sending pictures to my Nutritionist along the way to make sure it was looking and doing what it was supposed to do. So far, so good. I haven’t been able to taste it yet (it is not ready yet) but it has been brewing for 2 weeks now and I am getting excited to give it a try. I’ll continue this story in a later blog when my Kombucha has reached ‘perfection’ and I no longer need to spend $3.00 a day on a bottle from the grocery store.

For now, here are some pictures I have taken of my first Kombucha brew. For sure, there will be more later on.

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Irish Soda Bread

I was making supper a couple of nights ago and I decided to make a homemade chicken noodle soup.  It was my own dump and pour method so I don’t have a recipe, but it was really good. I decided having a simple sandwich with the soup would be nice but I was out of bread. I could certainly make my own but yeast bread would take too long with proofing and such. I could make biscuits but I wanted to be able to have a sandwich. Then it came to me: Irish Soda Bread. I’d not had Irish Soda Bread in years but it sure is simple to make.  The recipe calls for buttermilk, but I replace it with almond milk and it came out just fine.

I made some more the next night but I did some alterations to the recipe. I wanted a slightly sweet chocolate bread. So to the recipe, I added a couple of heaping tablespoons of cocoa powder and about 1/8 cup of honey. It came out beautifully. While it was still warm I drizzled on some more honey and a touch of ghee. It was so good!

I remember having Irish Soda Bread when I was a little girl. It was traditional for the Irish, and there were many Irish immigrants in the town where I grew up. I also have Irish blood so I suppose it’s only natural that I know about Irish Soda Bread.  It just might end up in one of my stories one day.

Here is my recipe in case you want to try it. St. Patrick's Day is just around the corner!

Irish Soda Bread

• 4 cups flour (you can use oat or whole wheat flour for 2 of those cups of flour)

• 2 tsp baking soda

• 1 tsp salt

• 1 1/3 cups of buttermilk (You can use almond or rice milk)

Bake at 425 for about 30 minutes.

It's Better Breakfast Day

Today is National Better Breakfast Day. I like breakfast, don’t you? From bagels and peanut butter, grits with cheese, fresh cinnamon rolls, oatmeal with dried fruit and cinnamon, yogurt and fresh fruit, homemade oatmeal pancakes with berries… I could continue, but you get the idea.

Breakfast feels like comfort to me. During the week my husband makes coffee in the morning because he gets up before I do. When I wake up it’s there waiting for me. We each get our own breakfast and watch the news while we eat. On the weekends I get up first and make the coffee and Sunday mornings, I make breakfast: oatmeal pancakes with fresh fruit and homemade whipped cream.  Sometimes we even have breakfast for dinner. It might be a bowl of cereal, some toast with cream cheese, or I might make those delicious pancakes.

Tonight I think breakfast for dinner just might be in order. As I write this I’m also thinking there might be a personal story to write about breakfast. I’ll ponder that as I flip those pancakes on my cast iron griddle and listen to the sausage crackle as it cooks. A bit of orange juice in a goblet and hot tea on the side (coffee will keep me awake if I have it for dinner).  

Really, what makes it a better breakfast for me? Sharing it with someone I love.

Here are some photos of recent yummy breakfasts we’ve made!

Ernestine L. Walden's Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe

I have spent the past week craving peanut butter cookies; I am not sure why. I did my very best to ignore the desire, but alas, I gave in today. I went to my cookbooks and pulled out one of my favorites. It was one of those fundraiser cookbooks that have recipes from lots of people. I am sure you’ve seen them before or have even participated in being a contributor to one. The recipes in those books are usually contributors’ favorites, tried and true. This one was put out by the New York Farm Bureau in 1983 and given to me by my husband’s Aunt Maureen in that same year.

Over the years many of the pages have become stained, proof that I use this cookbook quite a bit. I turned to one of the most heavily stained pages, the one with the Peanut Butter Cookie recipe. Ernestine L. Walden submitted it. I don’t know her at all. I began wondering about who she might be. I called Aunt Maureen and asked her if she, by chance, knew Ernestine. She didn’t. We chatted for a while, and I hung up the phone. Just a few minutes later Aunt Maureen called me again, she had done some research on Earnestine and gave me some details.

Ernestine L. Walden was born Jan 20, 1924, to Ernest and Mary Swartz Kenyon, I am guessing she was named after her father. She died January 21, 2017, one day after her 93rd birthday. She married in 1941, and her first husband died in 1971, she remarried a year later to William J. Walden, and he died in 1996.

Her obituary stated, “Mrs. Walden was a proud homemaker who raised five children. She was a member of the Christian & Missionary Alliance Church in Franklinville and the Farm Bureau, and she delivered Meals on Wheels”. She sounds to me like she was a lively woman — someone you’d want to get to know.

I enjoyed learning a little bit of her story. I wonder how many people out there have adopted her cookie recipe and have made them part of their stories. I know it is part of mine. So, here you go! Here is Ernestine’s Peanut Butter Cookie recipe. Give it a try, tell me what you think. Will it become part of your family story?