Parsley Burger Deconstructed

Today's lunch is low carbohydrate.  I folded fresh parsley into the meat.  I fried two hamburger patties in olive oil.  I served vine ripened tomato, avocado, and organic romaine hearts on the side.  I sprinkled a little bit of rice wine vinegar over the top.

Buttermilk Protein Muffins

Peanut Buttermilk Protein Muffins

This recipe is inspired by a recipe in "Just Like Mom Made 1,000 Family Favorites" which was a bargain at Borders book store.  It is on page 211, its called Lemon Raspberry Muffins.  I've modified the original recipe to include peanuts and whey protein powder.  

The ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour minus 1 tbsp.

1 cup organic granulated sugar

1 tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp. vanilla whey powder

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup Safflower oil

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 cup unsalted roasted peanuts

1/2 cup peanut butter chips

Method: Pre-heat oven 400 deg. F

Combine the flour, whey powder, sugar, baking powder and salt.

In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, buttermilk, oil, and vanilla.

Stir into the flour mixture until just moistened, do not over mix.

Gently fold in the peanuts and peanut butter chips.

Fill paper lined muffin cups 2/3 full.

Bake for 20 to 22 min.

Cool for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack.  

Makes about 18 muffins.

Tips:

1.  The whey protein browns quickly, so watch them at minute 18.  

2. Be sure to not have any air bubbles, tap the bubbles out on the counter.

Oatmeal Apple Walnut Cookies

Good afternoon, gentle readers, this morning I baked a batch of oatmeal apple walnut cookies.  I used the old Quaker Oats box recipe for oatmeal raisin but I omitted the raisins.  I also added another 1/2 tsp of cinnamon instead of the nutmeg. 

Here is the recipe from the 1988 box of Old Fashioned Quaker oats with my substitutions. 

Ingredients: 

1 1/4 cup room temperature butter

3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup organic cane sugar (granulated)

1 large egg (room temperature)

1 tsp. natural vanilla (no artificial please)

1 1/2 cup all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 1/4 tsp cinnamon

3 cups old fashioned oatmeal (soak in a small amount of oj or apple juice)

1/2 cup of Trader Joe's dried apple soaked in either oj or apple juice and diced.

1/2 cup of walnuts broken into pieces

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 375 deg. F

Beat butter and sugars until light and fluffy.

Beat in egg and vanilla.

Combine flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Whisk. 

Add to butter mixture.

Stir in oats.

Drain dried apple, then stir into the butter/flour/egg mixture.

Add the walnuts and stir into the mixture.

Onto an un-greased air bake sheet, drop by rounded spoonfuls.  Leave room for them to flatten out.  

Bake for 8 to 9 minutes.  

Cool one minute on cookie sheet, then transfer to a rack.

Cool on a rack.

I ended up with 48 cookies.  You may end up with more depending on how the size of your scoop.

Enjoy!

Tips: 

1. Do not re-use a hot baking sheet because the butter will run out of the cookie and burn instead of being baked in the cookie with the rest of the dough.  

2. Stick around and watch them bake.  Do not water the garden or feed the cat.  Just sit there because the cookies can burn quickly.

3. For an additional depth to the flavor you could substitute brandy for the oj when soaking the apples or you could use apple cider.

Conclusion:

I really enjoyed baking these.  I used a cookie scoop rather than a spoon to drop the cookies on the sheet.  The dough is a little sticky so I don't know if that was such a hot idea.  I did like that I had uniform sized cookies.  I noticed that the cookies that were baked last and were most at room temperature, flattened out a lot.