Inky Paws

Waffles

Okay, here's the waffle recipe as promised.

Whole Grain Waffles

Wet team:

4 eggs

3 1/2 cups milk

1/2 cup canola oil

1/2 cup applesauce

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Dry team:

2 cups whole wheat

1/2 cup AP flour

1 cup oatmeal (A.K.A. rolled oats or quick cooking)

1/2 wheat germ

8 teaspoons baking powder

4 tablespoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

Spray your waffle iron with cooking spray and plug it in to preheat.

Crack the eggs into your mixer and beat them.  Add the milk, canola oil, applesauce and extract and mix well.

In a separate bowl, mix all the ingredients in the dry team.  (Sift them if you like.)  Then combine with the wet team to make a nice batter.  Using the recommended cup measure for your waffle iron, pour the batter in and cook.  Enjoy!

Now, I have some notes for this recipe.  Half the oil has already been substituted with applesauce, but you could try substituting more if you like and see how it turns out.  You can use pretty much any combination of flour here.  If you want completely whole wheat, go with that.  If you really want to you could use all white flour, but I think it's good with the whole wheat.  You could also use less common flours like buckwheat or spelt or something.  Maybe cornmeal!  Anything goes.  Now, for the oatmeal and wheat germ, you could also change those out for other grains or grape nuts or raisins or nuts or chocolate chips or whatever.  You could also make this recipe exactly as stated but add in something like nuts or dried fruit.  This recipe is WAY open for changes or additions or anything you feel like doing, so change it to however you like!  As stated this also makes a pretty big batch, so you could cut in in half.  You can always freeze the extras though.  (Oh, and be careful measuring in that baking powder - it's easy to loose count.) 

He had quite a fondness for cheese

Today, faced with absolutely nothing planned, I decided to make some art.  I was looking in Cloth Paper Scissors magazine and I saw an article by a woman who took an art class and decided to just make her pieces without planning anything or worrying if she would like what she did in the end.  I realized that I often do that - and I end up spending ten minutes desperately trying to decide if I should outline something or not, just because I can't decide if I'll like it.  I didn't really notice myself doing it, but now I know.  So, I made this today with absolutely no worrying.  If an idea came into my head, I went with it and didn't hesitate over anything.  Surprise, surprise, I think this is my most favorite piece of art that I've made, ever. 

The dog is, of course, Scrabble.  I used a photo that I took of him last year on the beach at Massachusetts.  After I cut him out and glued him on, I painted over him a bit.  Oh, and this is what the little tiny block of words at the bottom says:

"He was an unusual dog in many respects - he never barked, he weighed less than most cats, he never chased squirrels, he hated car rides, and he never ate his food quickly.  He would sometimes stand by his bowl, looking up at you as if to say, "Are you sure you don't want some?  I really don't need to have much.  You go ahead and have your share.  Are you sure you don't want any?""

The upside down words say:

"What a sweet puppy so soft and fuzzy and warm --- you just want to give him a big hug --- can't help loving him"

Blueberry Picking

On the way back from Eugene (and Not Back To School Camp, which I'll post about later) we stopped at a blueberry farm to pick, of course, blueberries.

It was a pretty spur-of-the-moment thing, although we did kind of want to do it on the way up last week but we didn't have enough time.

It was really fun, and between the three of us we ended up with one bucket full.  Which didn't look like so much until we poured it out into a cardboard box.  It was about 12 pounds of blueberries!  We've frozen half of them and the other half are in the fridge.  Mom made blueberry coffee cake with them this morning and in a few days we'll probably be making blueberry pie or maybe muffins or pancakes or waffles...

CA: Visiting Michelle

Our very dear friend Michelle happened to be in California at the same time we were, so right near the end of our trip we went to see her at her parent's house.  Ryan enjoyed it because of the legos, mom enjoyed it because she got to talk to her friend, and dad and I enjoyed it because we got to play Scrabble.

Dad beat Michelle's sister's husband and son and I played her son and beat him.  (Though I really didn't deserve it because I looked up some words.)  I did, though, get my first bingo by myself and had two other bingos that I couldn't play. 

We ate dinner and had Trader Joe's ice cream and fresh strawberries.  Even though the cat made my nose itch, we had a great time.

Does golf need to be this hot?

Dad and I headed out to watch a golf tournament just outside of town on Sunday.  It was a pretty big tournament, with lots of famous golfers in it.  (It was the older golfer's tournament, though, so no tiger woods.)  They didn't allow any cameras in (or phones or backpacks) so I just got these photos when we were driving away.

After taking the shuttle to the course from the parking lot, we had to walk past a bunch of booths to get to the actual holes.  On the way we were bombarded with a whole lot of people happily giving us free stuff.  (Among the stuff was bottle holders, golf balls, snack bars, mints, lip balm, sunscreen, money to use at a casino, cheap backpacks, and fliers.  There was also a bank that had what LOOKED like some kind of drink but was actually a fake drink can with a "How To Switch Banks Kit" inside.  It was a mean, and very successful trick.) 

We ended up watching 9 holes and buying 4 drinks because it was about 200 degrees and shade was scarce.  We walked along with the lead group, and one of the guys from that group was the one who won.  (A million dollars no less!)  Halfway through, at the 9th hole, we just had to stop.  We'd gotten back to where the shuttles run and we were practically cooking alive, so we headed back to our car.  Which felt very nice to be in after the air conditioning started.

Waffles, A.K.A. Ambrosia

It is my own personal opinion that waffles are just SO GOOD.  I love the little squares that give your mouth something interesting to chew on, and how wonderfully light and fluffy they are.  I also think the flower shape our iron gives them is pretty.  (And it's so fun to pull off a little section to eat with your fingers!)  I know I'm a weirdo, but I prefer my waffles Au Natural, as in, no maple syrup, no jam, no chocolate sauce, no nothin'.    

And don't even make me go near to a box of frozen waffles.  My sources strongly hint that they're made of recycled packing peanuts.  Why go for those when you can just make a big batch of homemade waffles and freeze them yourself?  I have this one recipe that is awesome - it has wheat germ, whole wheat flour and half the oil replaced with applesauce and you can pretty much improvise with whatever other ingredients you want to add in.  (It's amazingly forgiving.)  And the funny thing is they taste way better than a plain old white-flour-lots-of-fat recipe.  Plus they're more filling.  Hopefully I can post the recipe sometime soon.

Iced Cookies

I made cookies on Sunday.  I didn't feel like anything fancy, so I used a plain old sugar cookie recipe.  It called for ground rice - something I haven't even thought of before and definitely don't have, so I substituted almond flour.  I'm not sure if it made any difference, but the cookies turned out great anyway. 

As I was sitting there icing the cookies and listening to the radio, a show called Speaking of Faith came on.  I groaned.  Usually I never listen to that program, but I didn't want to listen to the same oldies repeating on the oldies station so I just sat and listened to Speaking of Faith.  There was this guy on, can't remember his name, who did actually make some good points.  Like, lots of people are always thinking they'll be happy in the future but then the future gets there and they're still thinking they're going to be happy in the future.  So they never really get there, and they're always unsatisfied with what is happening to them at that very moment.  But anyway.

Here's the recipe for the cookies:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

Scant 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons ground rice (or almond flour if, like me, you don't have ground rice)

FROSTING:

1 cup confectioners' sugar

1 tablespoon lemon juice (or water if you have no lemons)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy.  Beat in the vanilla.  Add the flour and ground rice and mix to form a soft dough.

Place the dough between two pieces of plastic wrap.  Roll out to a little more than an 1/8 of an inch thick.  Take the top piece of plastic wrap off.

Use 2-3 inch cookie cutters of whatever shape you like.  Now, here's where it gets a little tricky.  To get the cookies on to a cookie sheet (no need to grease your sheets here) without breaking them, you'll probably have to do what I did and pick the plastic wrap off the counter and fold it over itself a little so that one of the cookies slowly peels off.  Gravity is on your side.  If you break a few, just mush them and all the leftover scraps back together and roll it out again.  Repeat until you've used all the dough.

Bake until the edges are golden colored.  In my oven that meant 5 minutes, but the original recipe calls for 8 minutes and it'll probably be somewhere in between for your oven.  So just set it a 5 and just keep checking.

To make the frosting, put the confectioners' sugar into a bowl (sift it if you like) and slowly add the lemon juice or water until you get an icing you like.  Don't make it too thick or it will be too hard to spread, and don't make it too thin or it will just run right off the cookie.  You'll probably want to add some food coloring.

Once you take the cookies out of the oven, move them to wire racks and let them cool completely before you ice them.  Also, let them dry after icing or they'll get all messed up when you put them away.  (You can also use sprinkles if you like, when the icing is still wet.)

So there's the recipe.  Sorry it's so long; I like to elaborate on things as you can see.  (I guess I don't like writing recipes that go, "Cream butter and sugar.  Add vanilla.  Add other ingredients.  Roll out.  Bake.  Cool.  Eat.  Yay!")

CA: Ocean View

We pulled off the road to get some snacks from the trailer and take a few photos.  Boy, that wind smelled good.  (Sure better than the inside of a car, anyway.)

The seagulls waved goodbye as we pulled back onto the road...

CA: Patrick's Point

Another place that we stayed at for the night was Patrick's Point State Park.  We went on a bike ride and then after dinner we made smore's and read aloud funny stories from a camp book.

On our bike ride we went out on a short trial to the top of a rocky lookout.  I think lots of people get married up there.

Yes, our marshmallows were square.  Mom got them from Trader Joe's and we decided that they don't really work as well in smore's as regular marshmallows, but they're a lot better cold than regular marshmallows are. 

CA: Bandon Dunes

One of our first stops on the way down was Bandon Dunes.  It's a golf course that my dad goes down to play every once in a while, on the coast.

There's a campground there, though, so we stayed the night.  I liked the beach there.  It was wonderfully cold and windy.

Yes, I did say wonderfully.  I think my ancestors must have lived by the coast or something because I just love cold and windy beaches.  I love the grey skies and long walk to get to the shoreline. 

 

I actually don't particularly like swimming in the ocean that much, I prefer pools, but I think beaches aren't just for swimming.  In my mind, at least, they're a great place to get your clothes sandy and sit for a while. 

Now that I think about it, probably some of the most beautiful places I've been were beaches.  I really do like them.  You can tell.  Lucky for me I'm going to go on the beach trip at Not Back To School Camp and when we go to Chautauqua every single day will be spent primarily on the beach!  Yes!

Note:  I am actually leaving for NBTSC today but I wrote lots of posts ahead of time so they'll keep coming throughout the week while I'm gone.  And when I come back, there will be a post about that, too!