Oatmeal Cookies

I bake these healthy oatmeal cookies and loved them. Kaydn and Roland discovered them and they were vanishing fast from my pantry.  I wanted Cassidy to try them before they were gone, so I asked her to have a taste. She politely said "no, thank you." Later on, I try to get her to eat these cookies again when she was reaching for some corn bread. She had a funny look on her face and said "thanks, but I am not in the mood for oatmeal cookies." I really wanted her to try it so I followed her around in the kitchen and kept saying "try it, you've got to try it." It was almost like the book Green Eggs and Ham, I followed her around and repeatedly say "try it, try it, you will like it, just take one bite!" She said the cookie looked "funny", too chunky, and "too healthy." I should started to quote Green Eggs and Ham and made a joke about it but my drill sergeant instinct won and I tried to "order" her to eat the cookie. Of course this did not work. Roland heard the commotion and came upstairs to see what was going on. He was able to persuade Cassidy to have a bite. Once she had one bite, she was hooked. I tried to stop her from finishing the rest of the cookies but she said they were so good and she could not stop eating them. The recipe is adopted from Alicia Silverstone's Oatmeal, Walnuts, and Dry Plum Cookies recipe form The Kind Diet.

Dry ingredients:
1 cup quick cooking rolled oats
1 cup whole wheat flour (from white wheat)
1/3 cup date sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon Real Salt

Wet ingredients:
1/3 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup safflower oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon molasses

1/4 cup chopped dried plum (dried plum = prunes or other kind of dried fruit)
1/4 cup finely chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 350F and line the cookie sheet with parchment paper.
If your date sugar is clumpy, place the 1/3 cup date sugar in a blender with 1 cup of flour and pulse until date sugar and flour are well blended with no clumps. Mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Combine the wet ingredients in a separate medium size bowl, mix well and add to the dry ingredients. Stir the mixture well and fold in the dried plums and nuts. If the cookie dough is to crumbly, add 1 - 2 teaspoons of water, one teaspoon at the time, until the dough stay together.
Use a small ice cream scooper and drop the dough onto the cookie sheet. Lightly press down to flatten the top. Bake for 10 minutes or until lightly browned on the edges. Let cool on cookie sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely. Make about 30 cookies.

I think we should re-read the Green Eggs and Ham together as a family :-D
I would not, could not, in a box.
I will not eat them with a mouse.
I will not eat them in a house.
I will not eat them here or there.
I will not eat them anywhere.
I do not eat green eggs and ham.
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.

What do you do with your basil harvest?

I am sad to see the temperature droop as we get more into the fall weather. Not only it means cold winter months are heading this way, it also signal the end of cutting fresh basil from my herb garden whenever I need basil for cooking. It's especially sad when unexpected cold nights freeze my basil plant and turn the whole thing black before I get a chance to harvest them. To not take the chance of loosing basil to cold nights, I started harvest my basil plants this weekend in mid October. I'm making a batch of regular pesto to freeze and a batch of almond tomato pesto for pasta.

I was wondering what else to do with them so I can enjoy basil in the winter months since freeze them in the freezer turn the herb black. I google "how to preserve basil" and learned a few things from articles on the internet. I froze a batch of basil leaves after I rub olive oil on them. They did not turn black!

http://www.herb.co.za/herbal/basilsweet01.htm,

Harvesting and preserving your Sweet Basil

Don't try to dry your sweet basil as the flavour is not the same as fresh basil. You can keep the leaves briefly in plastic bags in the refrigerator or you can preserve them in olive oil or vinegar. To freeze you can puree the leaves with a little water and freeze them in ice cube trays or you can cover both sides with olive oil and freeze them whole.

http://www.justhungry.com/preserving-shiso-basil-lemon-verbena-and-other-herbs

Basil puree 
For every 2 cups of fresh basil leaves (lightly packed into the measuring cup), use 1/2 cup of light olive oil (I prefer a light, relatively flavorless olive oil so that the basil flavor really shines through, but you can use an extra virgin if you prefer.) Be sure to pick the leaves only from the stems. Wash the leaves then pat them dry with kitchen towels.
If you are a purist you will mash the leaves with a mortar and pestle, but I use the food processor. Whiz up the leaves until chopped, and add the oil to make a puree. Add a few drops of lemon juice, and a little salt (1/4 tsp. or so per 2 cups of basil).I freeze this spread thinly in plastic zip bags. To use, just break or cut off as much as you need. You can turn this into pesto by adding freshly grated Parmesan, crushed or grated garlic, and ground pine nuts. (The easy way of course is to whiz everything together in the food processor.)

Hearty Pinto Bean Stew

I opened a can of pinto beans by mistake thinking that it was refried beans. As I was contemplate what to do with a can of pinto beans, I saw this recipe in The Kind Diet and decided to give it a try. It was so good! I modify the recipe to use canned instead of dried beans and enough to serve 4. It's a very quick and easy soup.

2 teaspoon olive oil

1 small onion, diced, medium size
2 cans of pinto beans
4 cups of creamy tomato soup; Imagine Creamy Tomato Soup is dairy free. Pacific Creamy Tomato Soup is not. I use Pacific Creamy Tomato soup; it available @Costco.
4 teaspoons shoyu
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil or 1 tablespoon dried
1/4 teaspoon of dried oregano
dash of red pepper flakes

Lightly sauté the onion in olive oil in a 2 quart sauce pan. Add the rest of the ingredients: pinto beans, tomato soup, shoyu, garlic, basil, and red pepper flakes to the onions, cover and simmer for 30 minutes over medium heat.

You can substitute 2 cups of dry pinto beans for the canned beans. Cover the beans in water and soak overnight. Drain and rinse the beans. Bring the beans and 4 cups of water to a boil over medium heat, reduce the heat to medium low, cover and simmer for 30 minutes or until the beans are tender. Drain the water and use the beans in the above procedure. You can also cook the soaked beans with a pressure cooker.

Here is a link to more information about cooking with beans: http://missvickie.com/howto/beans/beanframe.html

Cheesy, Oozy Guacamole Bean Dip

This dip really surprised me, it was deliciously good, my whole family loved it. I made it recently for a Lia Sophia Jewelry Party and all my friends loved it too. So many people requested this recipes to be added to my blog so here it is. The recipe is from the book The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone.
When I make it, I always make two versions, vegan version for me since I am staying away from dairy and regular version for the rest of the family. When my family finish the regular dip, they all help clean out the vegan dip. Kimberly especially likes the vegan version; she says it has less fattening. I use Follow Your Heart vegan gourmet cheddar cheese alternative. It is so much better than the soy or rice cheese we used years ago when we were on a dairy free diet because of Cassidy's allergy to milk. It also freezes well; no crumbling or falling apart after thawing. One thing about store bought taco seasoning, I was reading the label and was surprised to find that it contain milk product. I make my own taco seasoning and included the recipe below.

1 can refried beans or refried black beans, I prefer the refried black beans
3 large avocados
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 - 8oz containers nondairy sour cream
1 package taco seasoning
1/2 cup diced mild green chiles, drained
1/2 cup sliced black olives
5 tomatoes, chopped
2 cups shredded vegan Cheddar cheese

Spread a layer of refried beans in the bottom of an 8x13 quart glass baking dish. I use two round 9.5" Pyrex pie pan since I make regular and vegan versions, you can also use 8x8 pan for thicker bean dip. Mash the avocados (pitted and peeled) in a bowl, add the lime juice, mix, and spread on top of the refried beans. Stir together the sour cream and taco seasoning and spread over the avocado.  Sprinkle the green chilies, olives, and tomato on top of the sour cream mixture and top with cheese.  Heat the dip for 15 - 20 minutes in preheated 350F oven until the dip is heated through and the cheese is a bit melted. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Taco Seasoning ( recipe is approximately equal to a store bought package)
1 tablespoon ground chili pepper (I use Ancho Chili Petter)
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon black pepper