Peanut butter oat cookies with shredded carrot - Lockdown baking

Here is my favourite peanut butter cookie recipe. It includes shredded carrots and somehow my four-year-old loves them. 

I'm saving the recipe here it so that, should I have a dithery day, I can find it here. Reader, you might like it too. Who knows, maybe this blog will still be here, floating around on the Interwebs when I'm long gone and my son wants to bake his mom's peanut butter cookies for his loved ones. Maybe he'll make them even better. 

This peanut butter cookie is my little family's favourite. The inspiration came from another Monique, of the famed Ambitious Kitchen blog, and her delicious peanut butter cookie recipe. I made lots of changes, but these are the most important ones: 

• There's 1/2 cup less peanut butter (it's cheaper and the cookies contain less fat that way)
• The addition of over 1 cup more oats (I get more cookies out of a batch). 
• The addition of shredded carrot - It adds moisture and ups the healthy nutritional and fibre content (plus it's a great way to sneak veg into your family's diet). 
• There's no need for baking powder (I found you don't really need it for this chewy cookie). 

Ingredients 

• 2 - 2,5 cups of oats 
• 1- 2 grated carrot 
• 1/2 cup of peanut butter 
• 2/3 cups of sugar (I use white sugar but brown is good too) 
• 2 large eggs 
• Optional: a teaspoon of vanilla essence 

Mix all the ingredients together (by hand or in a processor) and bake at 180C for 10 - 12 minutes. Enjoy! 

P.S. You might like to try Wheat-free oat chocolate muffins

Stepping off the path

I wanted to write about how I've been finding calm in the midst of this covid pandemic and how it's lead me to embrace my anxiety as a superpower of sorts, but who am I telling? I feel like Shirley Valentine talking to a wall (great movie that), so I'll tell my son, in case he ever reads this.

I wrote about my anxiety during this weird and wonderful time on Instagram. Right now, as a four-year-old, you think Instagram is where mommy goes on her phone to check the weather. 

In case it's no longer, or I delete my account on a whim (I'm like that), here's what I wrote back on 10 October 2020... 

Tiny treasures 

These flowers are so small that, had we not stepped off the path, I would never have spotted them in the grass.

Sometimes, stepping off the path is the best thing, even if you're forced to.

It's what I'm learning during this pandemic - to notice beauty and make the small things the big things. I listened to a talk about happiness that reminded me of what God told me back in early March - focus on the big things. As a key to happiness, Dr Rick Hanson suggested creating 'beneficial experiences' and then making the experiences big, letting them resonate.

That made it click for me, what God was saying all along - the small things are the big things. It's all the good small things that make us happy, but they need to be magnified.

I'm trying because I'm not naturally a happy, easy-going person. I am anxious, analytical, serious, easily overwhelmed by too much sensory information and an introvert - INFJ/upholder. So I read articles on how to be a more fun parent and stop shouting (I'm a shouter), I take too many photos of flowers, landscapes and my kid climbing trees, I plant weeds in my garden because I think they're pretty and why the heck not, and I paint. It's what's keeping me going.

I'm sharing this because it's World Mental Health Day and I want to say 'Hey, it's okay if you're struggling - I'm struggling too.' I think we're all struggling. It's been a heck of a year so far, so do what you need to do. Look after yourself. Find a hobby that you can get lost in, get out into nature, bake a cake, wear your fav outfit (even if you're staying in), put on some lippy, pray, read, watch a good movie, garden, have a roll in the hay and remember that life is still beautiful.

P. S. Check out how small these little orchids are in comparison to my hand.

Good night, I love you.

P.S. You might enjoy reading Are we playing for an audience?

Are we playing for an audience?

How much we do or do not do because we thinking about an audience - real or imagined?

Last night, my husband was telling me how international soccer has started up again, in stadiums without fans due to the pandemic. It means no more cheers, songs or booing from the crowd. Then he mentioned a stadium that put cardboard cut-outs of people in the stands – a fake audience.

Thinking about the effort taken to make faux fans for a stadium got me thinking about how much we do or do not do because of the presence of an audience - real or imagined.

Before he mentioned this, I had been composing an Instagram post with a collection of images only to decide not to post it. This happens often – I question the quality of the content and then why would I need to post it. The moments were lived, the images taken and the memories saved, but does it have to be shared? Do I need an audience for it?

Social media’s split personality

This has been a question on my mind for years as I grapple with my love/hate relationship with social media.

On one hand, it’s a great way to connect with people, share ideas and inspiration and be inspired while simultaneously being a vehicle of distraction and narcissism. This is social media’s split personality.

When I’m online, I try to stay on the good side of it – follow people who inspire creativity rather than envy, share honestly and respectfully – but I still wonder if I’m falling for a time and soul-sucking vacuum.

I don’t have ‘the answer’ to social media  – I’m no hypocrite and admittedly love scrolling Instagram, but I do think it’s important to keep social media in perspective. 

Not everything needs to be shared to be important. And sometimes, the time spent sharing and scrolling can stop the doing of what's important.

Related: The small things are the big things

What can we learn from lockdown? 7 Lockdown life lessons

 Lockdown hasn’t been easy, and COVID-19 is scary, but being stuck at home has had some benefits...

This virus has freaked me out ever since I learnt about it, and we've been taking precautions – like avoiding crowded spaces - since February. So, when lockdown started on 26 March, I felt oddly relieved. Finally, the virus was been taken seriously. 

The relief didn’t last long though -  this pandemic is an emotional rollercoaster. Some of the lockdown regulations have sucked – like being deprived of wide, open natural spaces - and I worry about how social isolation and pandemic fears could all affect my child’s mental health. However, I'm grateful to be able to stay safe at home and for what lockdown has taught me...

Wheat-free chocolate cupcakes

Here’s a surprisingly delicious wheat-free chocolate cupcake recipe (despite being egg- and dairy-free).  

I’m not much of a cook (I don't enjoy it), but I go through phases of baking. There was a year - I think it was 2014 - that I refer to as 'the year of baking.' I was baking bread, biscuits and making up cake recipes. It was lovely. I had no gluten issues back then. 

Living with gluten intolerance is a blessing and curse -  I can't eat cake at kids' parties, but I also can't eat cake at kids' birthday parties. But this mama has a sweet tooth. So, I’ve been tweaking some of wheat-free recipes and, before I forget, I thought I'd save them here. I still feel a little sad about the apple cinnamon oat cake I made once and can’t remember how I did it.

This is a quick and easy oat chocolate muffin recipe I tweaked from Power Hungry. 

It's wheat-, egg- and dairy-free, but the addition of coconut oil or olive oil and a little more sugar make the muffins a little less healthy but mouthwateringly good.