Tuesday, November 15

It's 12 degrees out there, and should be sunny and beautiful until the weekend.  My Monday was very Monday, we are getting busy at work with the impending winter season, Thanksgiving just around the corner and Guests arriving into the Lodge this weekend. 

The cookie recipe is a keeper!  Here it is.  If you live at altitude, do what is inside the parentheses so they will come out a little better:

Super Ski Cookie

2/3 cup flour (minus 2 Tbsp)
1 1/3 cup oats
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda (minus 1/4 tsp)
1/2 tsp salt (add 1/2 tsp)
1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 cup mashed sweet potato
2 Tbsp coconut oil (add 1 Tbsp)
4 Tbsp nut butter
1/4 cup honey
2 Tbsp molasses
1 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup chopped nuts or seeds
1/2 cup dried cherries
1/2 cup chips of some kind

Preheat oven to 325.

Mix first 6 ingredients in bowl and set aside.  Cream the potato, oil and nut butter until smooth; add honey, molasses and vanilla.

Add dry ingredients to wet, mix until smooth, then add in nuts, fruit and chip.

Form into 16-ish balls and place on a greased cookie sheet or parchment lined pan.  Bake 12-15 minutes.

I used almond butter, a mix of slivered almonds and flax seeds, and a mix of white chocolate chips and peanut butter chips!  For all my Hawaii friends, these are kind of dark and dense and you might not want them until those rainy cool winter evenings roll around!

Last night JC had band practice in Ophir and I worked on eliminating more crap from my life - specifically in our bedroom and closets.  Our house is so small there is literally no place for anything to linger or pile up, so semi-annually, like 2-3 times each summer and winter season, I routinely go through all my crap and make some hard decisions about whether I can live without something or the other and end up taking a huge pile to the freebox and then moving the remaining piles around to look like I own less stuff.  I

It kind of feels like I have to break up with someone over and over again throughout the year.  Kind of exhausting.  But our home is tidy and we possess only that which has immediate use or very potent nostalgia and meaning.

Off to work now.  JC got the leaks in the Forester tires fixed yesterday because I am going to Montrose tomorrow for 2 appointments and to buy groceries.