Definitely Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies

I made two half-batches of chocolate chip cookies last week.  By the time I finished the first one I was so tired of the whole thing since my brown sugar was old and packed together and not mixing well that I made the cookies huge and then left them in longer to cook thoroughly and ended up "kind of" burning them.  But I could tell they still tasted good.  The second half-batch was very good.  That's what the picture is from.  For popularity's sake around the holidays I didn't cut the sugar down too much, but I'm going to start trying to see how low I can go with it soon.

I just followed the recipe on the back of the toll-house chips bag, except that I only used brown sugar (no granulated sugar) and instead of all-purpose flour I used 1/2 whole grain pastry flour and 1/2 whole grain graham flour.  I put some extra chocolate chips in.  I was hoping with the graham and the extra chips that it would be reminiscent of a s'more, but it really wasn't.  It was still a good cookie :)

Carolyn

4 days to the New Year

New resolutions anyone????

Merry Christmas everyone!

Merry Christmas to all the Trinita Health crazies! Many good wishes and blessings in the New Year! ( I got an interesting dessert book for Christmas.....I'll be trying phyllo crusts for the first time....at some point!)

Merry Christmas!!!!!

Better products will come in heaven!

Well, I had to try some other products because of financial need! ...lol. Anyway, I will be trying a fragrance free Whole Foods hand lotion and a Whole Foods brand shampoo. I'll let you know how that goes. The most important thing I got was the chia seed. They didn't have it last time or I didn't see it there. Anyway, it was 6.99 pound. I don't think it is organic, but it will do for now. I really want to keep using it because I know my diet is deficient in Omega 3's.

Well, I hope to keep baking this weekend. I want to keep trying new Italian cookie recipes. We'll see how they turn out.

And as a side note....it is really way too cold right now!!!! Can we pitch in and buy a house down South somewhere? I was thinking out in the Southwest. We can all move there in the winter. Do I have any takers???

A Qualified Disaster

I did some cooking last Saturday!  Even though the results were not good, it gives me hope for the future.  First, let me say that I did not plan very well for this.  I modified a recipe I found in my Mom's Betty Crocker book for some kind of bread that wasn't what I made.  Also, I didn't have a real bread pan so I just guessed on the time.

Another problem was that I used double baking powder but forgot to put half as much in, so you could definitely taste the baking powder even after I "French breaded" it.  But I used a blend of whole grains from Bob's Red Mill and I think that with the right amount of baking powder and salt (I omitted it thinking it wouldn't affect the taste) this could be decent.  The French bread part was a lot of work.  I think that next time I'm just going to dip it in chicken soup or perhaps make it into a tuna melt since Catherine showed me how to do that.  Oh yeah, another thing that probably impaired the taste was that for shortening I used butter, but didn't allow enough time for it to soften, so it was still chunky when I finally gave up and just put the batter in the pan.  I'm hoping that enough things went wrong this time that next time it will taste significantly better.  

Carolyn

Winter Hand woes

Ok, here is the next big problem to solve. What does everyone use for a hand lotion during the winter? Keeping with the all natural theme, I have been using my own homemade concoction of olive oil, shea butter, and cocoa butter. It is not extremely effective on the hands. To get a true all natural product for your hands is somewhat difficult and very expensive. Any thoughts out there?