As Promised

For the past couple of months, I have been asked several questions by my lovely blog readers.  Today is the day I am going to answer all those questions as well as put the recipe for my 'healthy' cookies I have been making for some time now.

First, the questions:

Dee asked if the monsoon dust storms put dust over everything.  Yes they do BUT, the rain that normally follows washes it all away.  Unfortunately, this also means the dust creeps into the house through those minute cracks in doors and windows that the human eye can not detect.  We dust our house twice a week during the monsoon season for this reason.

Stefanie wants to know what goes on at the prayer shawl meetings.  We work on our shawls and lapghans that are to be donated to the cancer ministry at our church.  After they are blessed by our clergy, the items are then mailed to people who have requested them for people diagnosed with cancer and other serious//terminal illnesses.  The requests usually come from family or friends.

Stefanie also asked if the weather in Vegas was just as hot as in Arizona.  Yes BUT, Vegas normally has a bit of a breeze which moves the air.  Arizona looses their breeze from July until September so it is just HOT!

Sam wants to know if I think the 9" circular needles could have contributed to my Carpal Tunnel.  They sure didn't help it.  I held them much tighter than I needed to.  The other issue I had........my knuckles are pretty big from my RA so they were always knocking into each other.  I could only knit with them for about 20 minutes before I had hand cramps.

Sam also asked where I learned Portuguese knitting.  I taught myself using YouTube.

I have had several requests for the cookies recipe so here it is.

Malachi's Cookies (Named for our nutritionist's son who had the idea)

Ingredients:

1/2 stick unsalted butter (room temperature)  (I actually melt mine in the microwave)

1 C coconut palm sugar

1/4 C Agave Syrup/Nectar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 C Spelt flour (You can also use garanzo bean/flava bean flour but it upsets my digestion)

1/2 C milled flax seed

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

3 cups oat meal (not the quick cooking type.)  (Use gluten free oats if needed)

1/4 C dried cranberries

1/4 C pepita seeds

1/4 C chopped walnuts

1/4 C dark chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350

Combine and beat butter & sugars until creamy.  Add eggs & vanilla and mix well

Add flour, flax seed, baking soda, salt & cinnamon.

Add oats and last 4 ingredients,mix well.

Drop by teaspoon onto cookie sheet about 2 inches apart.

Bake for 8-10 minutes.  Let rest for 2 minutes before removing from cookie sheet.  Keep in an airtight container.

Enjoy!

I mix mine with my Kitchen Aid mixer.  The dough gets quite stiff towards the end and my hands can not even begin to stir it and my hand mixer would burn up.  Normally, I double the recipe as they go pretty quickly.

The past couple of days I have been busy catching up on laundry.  I am finally all done and it feels good.  Hubby has one last medical test this Thursday and then we should have some answers as to what is going on with him.  He is so done with doctors by now and I can't blame him.  I have been on 'after school Grand duty' this week as well as 'dog feeding' duty.  All of my 'duties' stop Thursday night.  Friday is looking better and better to me.  I might actually get a day off.

Today, I finally got my journal dated for the remainder of the year as well as getting washi tape in to to decorate it.  There is still some more decorating I want to do but it is not anything that needs to be done today.

I worked on my prayer shawl as well as the Rising Tide scarf.  The US size 3 needles are a little hard on me which is why the prayer shawl with it's size 10 needles was thrown into the mix this week.  Still using Portuguese style knitting though.  So much easier on the hands and wrists!

Until next time..........................happy crafting!!