my very own chocolate chip cookie recipe

These are so good that it's just kindness to share the recipe.  I experimented a loooong time to get these cookies to turn out just the way I wanted them to.  [and continue to tinker with the recipe!  Just updated 10-4-2014]  I hope you like them as much as we do.

I am listing the brands that I use because it's so disappointing when I try someone else's recipe and it turns out all different.  I can only assume that if I followed the directions they gave me, then it must be a difference in ingredient brands, and I want to save you that frustration.  So - if you follow the recipe exactly and don't love the cookies, at least you won't have to wonder what you did wrong - you'll just know that you and I have a different taste in chocolate chip cookies.  Alright.  Here goes:

My Very Own Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

1 cup natural peanut butter

1/2 cup salted butter, softened

1/2 cup peanut oil (or coconut, if it's liquid)

1 1/2 cup raw (demerara) sugar

1/2 cup raw honey

3 small eggs (or two large ones)

2 tsp. real vanilla

Mix all the above well with an electric mixer.  If you didn't let the butter soften enough (as happens sometimes in households where the cook is both spontaneous and impatient), try to smash the resulting lumps with a spoon to somewhat integrate them.  Now, stir in:

2 cups King Arthur's ("white") whole wheat flour

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1 tsp. Arm & Hammer baking soda

1 tsp. salt (I use the pink Himalayan now, but I'm not sure it makes any difference)

12 oz. bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips (Shurfine works, but Hershey's Special Dark is better, and Ghiradelli is best)

I usually chill the dough till I'm ready to dive in to the business of cookie-baking, but that's only because I tend to do jobs in small increments.  You can bake these right away.

Whenever you're ready, turn the oven on to 350 F.  I use AirBake pans (because that's what I was given waaaaay back at my bridal shower) and the cookies take 12-15 minutes to cook, switching pans halfway through, so if you use thin aluminum you may need to watch them for burning bottoms.  Also, if you put fewer cookies on the tray, they'll bake faster.

For the peanutiest flavor, let them cool to room temp.

Enjoy!

an ounce of prevention .... again

Two nights in a row now, I've stayed up late doing unnecessary things (sitting in a parking lot with friends, painting a suncatcher, and watching a movie, if you must know).  I just felt like it.

Not that I want to base my life on what I feel like doing, but for someone who lives largely (or, more accurately, "small-ly") within the confines of her children's needs, staying up late was oddly liberating for me.  Normally I go to bed in good time to prevent feeling sleepy the next day.  A good habit and one I heartily recommend breaking from time to time.

Maybe conscientiousness is like exercise - if you do the same routine too frequently, your body falls into a rut and stops being trained by it, sort of develops an immunity.

In my post yesterday, I quoted The Princess Diaries' Eduard Christoff Philippe Gerard Renaldi, Crown Prince of Genovia:  "Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something is more important than fear.  The brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all."  In this recent season of my life, I have been living in the ranks of the cautious.  

What, then, is more important than prevention, that can propel me out of caution and into liberty living?

Letting the baby explore, no matter the dirt and (unlikely, after all) disease.
Staying up late sometimes, to see an eclipse, fireworks, or just the magic of lightening bugs.
On special occasions, serving sugar with enthusiasm!!
Allowing a margin for liberality in the spending plan.  Then, being liberal!
And sometimes, daring something big.  Pray, then leap!

(original post on this subject here; follow-up post here)

fresh perspective

It doesn't take much to get my eyes off the ground.

a night out at the pottery studio
pizza made by friends' hands & baked outdoors in a clay oven
a suncatcher for me to paint, gift from my daughter
husband's hand on mine
children dropped off happy at Grandma & Grandpa's
us, let loose from schedules, lunching with newspapers spread
cheese from the Savory Gourmet
a drive through the park, looking for (and finding!) mushrooms
the "ahhhhh" of a quiet house
a great illustrated book on pottery techniques
nap on the livingroom floor
chocolate for tea, and mushroom leek cheese
the possibilities of two unplanned days


All these, consecutively, work wonders.  I pray God the days' refreshment will translate into something more lasting - patience, maybe? for the multitudes of wrinkle-makers sent for my refinement.

In the meantime, gratitude, deep and sweet.

Thank you, God above.  Thank you, potter friends.  Thank you, daughter of mine.  Thank you, "Ba."  Thank you, my Farmer, my hero, my friend.

Thank you, God above.

an ounce of prevention ....

.... is worth a pound of cure.  Right?

So I put rugs down by every major entrance into the farmhouse to catch the dirt as it comes in on our feet - before it gets to the carpets.  We walk shoeless inside and my Farmer brushes weedbits off his clothes after he's been taming the wilds with the string-trimmer.  We rinse each meal's dishes before stacking them so the food doesn't dry on.  Train the children from the first whine to use a nice voice.  Keep flora and fauna out of the baby's mouth in case of mysteriously transmitted feline diseases.  No waving sticks around in case you hit someone.  Wash your hands before meals.

Strict bedtimes avoid meltdowns.  Ration sweets for healthy teeth.  No running in the house.  Censor books to build good taste in literature.  Dose with elderberry when flu rumors start to fly.  Ginger before a road trip prevents motion headaches.

Budget strictly to avoid financial tension.  "Tell your money where to go."  Wait to launch the home business until the plan is detailed out on paper.  Dream big but start small.

Trust God, but have a backup plan.

Wait a minute.  Back up.  Somewhere in the continuum something valuable has been lost.  "Prevention" turns so quickly into "fear" and "control."

"An ounce of prevention..." but also "nothing ventured, nothing gained."

And how about that more important Proverb by far:  "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths."  (Proverbs 3:5-6)

Reminders of truth come in the unlikeliest of places.  Last night I laughed through "The Princess Diaries" and watched a 15-year-old learn a lesson I lack.  To quote her father, Eduard Christoff Philippe Gerard Renaldi, Crown Prince of Genovia, "Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something is more important than fear.  The brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all."  (part of this quote may have better-known origins, either Albert Einstein or Mark Twain; sources disagree)

It's one thing to "look before you leap" - it's a very sad, entirely different thing to never leap at all.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

[And that, my dear readers, is my string of platitudes for the day.  Truth lives even in the trite.]


(follow-up posts here and here)

trade-off?

The traffic is busier in the mornings going to work, my Farmer tells me. School has started up again and the buses are out in full force, figuring out their routes and complicating everyone else's. I wouldn't know. I'm at home, teaching my three daughters and caring for my little son.

This is the time of year when I alternately question our decision to homeschool and rejoice that such a privilege is available to us. When you've never had the opportunity, homeschooling can look a lot like insanity. Why in the world would I trade my “freedom” for the enormous extra responsibility of teaching three students on my own? Especially when we're in such a good school district?!

Here, to remind myself as much as to inform you, is why:

~ for the joy of hearing Sugar sing to Lil' Snip while she sweeps the back porch

~ being able to hold Spice on my lap in the middle of the morning and talk about whether the glass is half full or half empty, whether the sky is mostly sunny or mostly cloudy, and how gratitude can help train us to optimism

~ vast quantities of free time for all four, today to make ink from pokeberries (“I read about it somewhere” says Sugar) and, using quills they made from feathers they found, write notes to their friends

~ the friendships cemented between sisters and brother, caring for each other and learning to “fight nice”

~ watching Nice religiously shepherd Lil' Snip and try to practice her reading on him

~ a chance to discover, again, to learn things I missed the first time through

~ flexibility to add to the curriculum spontaneously when my Farmer spots a new mushroom species or we find a caterpillar on the flowers Grandma helped them pick

~ an intimate knowledge of creation that is only possible through constantly touching it, smelling it, hearing it, and tasting it – and the opportunity to give credit to the Creator

~  and the harder joy of sacrifice, learning not just penmanship but patience

It's not all roses, of course. If it were, there would be no need for me to write this list. We passed a bus the other day, full of small children on their way to school. Their mothers were probably shopping. Or sipping their first cup of coffee at the quiet kitchen table, musing, able to hear their own thoughts, mapping out their day till 3:30.

I was taking a meal to a friend, then home to work on figuring area and doing multiplication, learn about the history of coal mining in Pennsylvania and read aloud the next exciting chapters from George MacDonald's The Princess & Curdie. We'd study nature and sketch it, write down our observations about weather conditions, practice penmanship and memorize poetry. After Sugar and Spice made lunch, they'd wash up the dishes while Nice gave Lil' Snip a ride in her dolly stroller.

In the afternoon we have an hour or so of Quiet Time (which I always think of capitalized). Sugar and Spice read on their own, Nice listens to music and looks at books, and Lil' Snip, we hope, sleeps.

I read, or nap myself, and sometimes . . . I take the time to count my blessings. The trade-off is worth it. I'd rather have my children home, learning life together, no matter how much leisure I give up.