Herbs in the Garden

I've always adored herbs for their medicinal and nutritional properties, but it is only lately that I have realized that herbs are also quite beautiful in the garden.

Chives

My husband has planted a lovely, aromatic herb garden in our front yard.  Both my son and I take great joy in our daily walkabouts, stopping here and there to inhale some lemonbalm or lavender.

Sage

Our garden may be small, but we love it!  Soon, I hope to cultivate the herbs for our own use, but for today, I don't mind just drinking in all of the garden splendour.

Lemon balm, sage, and feverfew

Feverfew, so unassuming, and dainty

Sage, the great purple beauty!

A herb garden also happens to be incredibly low maintenance too! It needs lots of sun but very little tending to. Certain herbs tend to take over and need to be cut back each year.

Spelt Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

These cookies are wheat free and are truly delicious! The spelt flour and oats provide a lot more fiber and protein than your average cookie. So...feel free to have more than one! 

Also, this recipe makes almost 4 dozen cookies. If you'd like, you can easily divide the recipe in half to make roughly 2 dozen instead.

RECIPE:

1 cup sugar
1 cup butter
2 lg eggs
2 tbsp milk
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups spelt flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 cups oats
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

INSTRUCTIONS: Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream sugar and butter together in a large bowl. Beat in eggs, (one at a time) milk, and vanilla.

In a medium bowl, stir flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

Beat flour into sugar mixture until just incorporated. Stir in oats and chocolate chips.

Drop 1 inch balls of dough on a parchment lined cookie sheet.

Bake 10-13 minutes, cool, then transfer to rack.

Enjoy!

Best Gluten Free Dairy Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chewy, delicious gluten-free diary-free chocolate chip cookeis!!!

Until recently I found myself accepting the fact that gluten free cookie recipes basically suck. They produce dry, crumbly cookies with a weird aftertaste. They are expensive to make. They call for ingredients that you don't normally have in your pantry. Then throw in a dairy intolerance and it's seriously over. How can a cookie overcome so many limitations?

 But wait! After extensive research I have uncovered a good, dare I say great, gluten free dairy free chocolate chip cookie.

Honestly. It's wonderful. Everything you want in a cookie is right here: soft, chewy, chocolately goodness.

And this is from a person who doesn't even have a gluten intolerance. I don't have to eat gluten free.   I could go right now and make a batch of spelt cookies happily...but I'm not going to.  That's how good these cookies are.

So, without further ado, here is the best (yet) gluten free dairy free chocolate chip cookie recipe:


INGREDIENTS:

8 ounces melted non-dairy butter (earthbalance is a good one)
1 1/2  cups brown rice flour
1/2 cup oat flour (Cream Hill Estates has a gluten free one)
1/4 cup cornstarch
2 tbsp arrowroot flour/starch
1 tsp xantham gum
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 cup brown sugar ( before you say, "that's too much sugar"...let me tell you that this recipe makes at least 3 dozen cookies so don't worry!)
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 tbsp milk alternative
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
12 ounces dairy free chocolate chips ( Camino is quite good and Fair Trade )


DIRECTIONS: Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Sift flour, cornstarch, arrowroot, xantham, salt, and baking soda in a medium bowl.

In a large bowl, combine butter and sugar with a mixer for 1 minute.

Add egg, egg yolk, milk, and vanilla and mix until well combined.

Slowly incorporate flour mixture until thoroughly combined.

Add chocolate and stir.

Chill dough for at least 1 hr (this is critical people!).

Roll dough into balls and place on parchment lined cookie sheet.

Bake 8-9 minutes (until golden brown on the edges).

Cool 2 minutes then transfer to rack.

Note: This recipe makes roughly 3 dozen cookies so I just make a dozen at a time and then refrigerate the dough until needed (which isn't long :) ) I've read that you can freeze the dough as well but haven't tried it yet. Let me know!

P.S.  These little gems are inspired by a recipe from this amazing blog with high standards for wonderful, gluten free, tasty recipes. 

This Too Shall Pass

"Well, that was life. Gladness and pain . . . hope and fear . . . and change. Always change! You could not help it. You had to let the old go and take the new to your heart . . . learn to love it and then let it go in turn. Spring, lovely as it was, must yield to summer and summer lose itself in autumn. The birth . . . the bridal . . . the death. . ."

~Anne of Ingleside

I used to think the phrase "this too shall pass" was just something we needed to hear in times of peril and suffering, but after attending a Mother Blessing for my sister recently,  I came to see that it has a broader, bitter-sweet meaning as well.

As a few lovely women were giving their final blessings to my sister, someone urged her to keep in mind that everything changes, that there is a fluidity to life and motherhood that we cannot stop.  

Each moment seamlessly carries us into the next, and before we know it, that moment is gone.

Wouldn't it be lovely to remember that in the midst of sleepless nights and dirty dishes? Doesn't it always seem as if a bad moment will NEVER pass? But it will.

And so do good ones.  That is, the sweet tender moments where your babe is sleeping peacefully, mouth fluttering all the while. First steps, first giggles, first words, first hugs.  They go.

Why do we always wonder when our child will do this, or that. Why are we always wishing moments away when, in these tender years, we should be cherishing each moment.

When my son was born, many people told us how quickly that first year goes...and then the next one, and so on. We didn't believe it. We couldn't ever imagine our little man any different than he was at  that moment. And we didn't try to either!

And yet,  it is in our nature, and the nature of the world, to change.  Things can't and won't stay the same.  So the next time your child does something that makes your heart soar, revel in it for a little while. Let it wash over you.  Turn off auto-pilot and stay a while in a beautiful moment. Because, this too shall pass.