In Season Recipes

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Chocolate Oatmeal Muffins

1 1/4 c. rolled oats

1 1/2 c. boiling water

Mix in a large bowl and let stand for 20 minutes.

In another bowl, mix:

1 1/2 c. whole wheat flour

3 packets Stevia powder (or about 1 1/2 teaspoons)

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. sea salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

Add to oatmeal mixture once cooled:

1 egg

1/2 of a peach, pureed

1/4 c. grapeseed oil

1 tsp. pure vanilla

1 c. pumpkin puree

Add dry ingredients to wet and mix thoroughly. Stir in either 2/3 c. Cacao Nibs or 1 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips and 1 c. chopped walnuts.

Drop by spoonful into lined muffin cups and bake at 300 F for about 25 minutes, depending on how hot your oven is.

I use organic ingredients for this recipe and unbleached muffin liners. You can use this as a basic recipe and add shredded carrot, raisins and walnuts instead of the chocolate. Or, experiment and come up with your own delights. Very moist so be sure to refrigerate. Enjoy!

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Hi Marilyn,

Stevia is a natural sweetener derived from the Stevia plant. It is significantly sweeter than sugar, thus the need for less. When one substitutes Stevia for sugar, a bulk like pumpkin puree needs to be added to compensate. The basic rule of thumb is 1/2 to 3/4 of a teaspoon of Stevia powder for 1/2 cup of sugar. (The original recipe called for 1 cup of sugar!)  Add the pumpkin puree in the amount of sugar replaced. I like to use Stevia because there is no aftertaste, it is just a plant and it does not spike insulin levels like sugar does. Of course, the chocolate chips have sugar in them...but they're a nice treat!

Have a great day everybody!

PLJ

My friend Kathy is having a girl party tomorrow night so I made some cookies for it..She said to do something along the lines of Sex in the City.. so I did butts, lips and wine glasses.  The butts were not an original idea....in fact someone posted a picture a few years ago of cookies like that and I thought Hmmm, I am going to try those sometime and finally the opportunity came to do it.  

Sherry, just saw your post on earth worms.  My next door neighbor has been raising worms and was using their excrement as fertilizer.  I was saving my peeling and vegetables that were starting to go bad for her for the worms.  She really has a great garden.  She had so many of them she put an add in the newspaper at the school she works at asking people if they would take some of her worms.  Well, I was sort of intrigued with the idea so I took a bin of them.  They don't really require a lot of care, but evidently I am not doing it right because my worm bin got maggots and even worse attracts fruit flies like crazy.   They were taking over the place so then I started making fruit fly traps and I also decided I would just dump the worms outside so they could go into the ground.  Then my neighbor tells me Oh no, you can't do that, the worms are not indigenous to this area and will die.   So I am still battling the fruit flies, but the traps work pretty well and we now have the worm bin in the garage so at least they aren't in the basement.  I asked her then, well what good do they do for the soil then? and she explains to me how you have to sift through the muck they live in and separate them from the poop and then put that around your flowers and plants.....Now I seriously doubt this is something I should be doing with my nails that never did go back to normal after chemo.....even with gloves.   So as soon as she recovers from her knee surgery, my bin of worms is going back to her.   Anyway, that was my experience as a worm farmer. Haven't had an infestation of fruit flies like this since the time I tried to make home brew in the spare bedroom.

Marybe I love the cookies.  I have never seen butt cookies before but they sure are cute

As for the worms.  I am thinking of getting some and putting them in my composter and let them work on that and then eventually just put them in my garden.  Compost soil, worms and all.  It will be an experitment. 

Well as I said my fall garden has not gotten enough sun but we have had a warm winter so my broccoli and cabage are acctually producing.  Have the new fall garden spot picked out so hopefully DH and I will soon be building them as we want to use them for the spring/summer garden as well.

  I took the leftovers to the onco's with me today as I knew the nurses would get a kick out of them, and one nurse asked if she could have me make some of those for her daugher's bachelorette party...I said sure and am going to change $8 a dozen....can't retire on that, but if I could sell a lot of cookies (I have every shaped cookie cutter there is), I could supplement my income while getting SS.  

I LOVE homemade veggie soup in the winter.  

Marybe your cookies are cheap.  Around here those that make cookies get $1 to$1.25 per cookie.

Oh my goodness, I have GOT to take some of those butt cookies to the nurse who give me my double-cheeker Faslodex injections every month!  What a great joke that would be!

Where on earth did you find a hiney-boo cookie cutter, Marybe? 

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