Man that was a good Oatmeal Raisin Cookie with Pecans recipe

Man that was a good Oatmeal Raisin Cookie!

Don't let a recipe that you really want to try sit around!
Go and explore! 
Enjoy your own creativity!

I was told:

Don't use That Recipe. 
Don't use the Regular "Quick" Oats.
Don't add Raisins.
Don't add Pecans or any other nut.

Shut Up.

Baking is a personal skill.  You do things different than I do.  Recipes drift over the years and you adapt things to available ingredients, equipment, and tastes.

I'm glad I made this recipe the way I did.  I have had the recipe for so long I forget how I got it, the recipe doesn't say, it's on a scrap of paper and I present it here with ingredients and process.

I actually did it so I would have something after workouts to get me back in balance, but man! that was the best cookie I've had in a long time.

Next time I make them this way. 
I give you permission to make these anyway you want to!

Enough of that...



Yield was 36 cookies using a tablespoon sized scoop, rounded.  That's about 1.4 ounces per cookie (40g) so they are really more like an oatmeal raisin bar.

Ingredients (as I made them):

• 2 Sticks or 1/2 pound of unsalted butter (room temp)
• 1 cup of Dark Brown Sugar, packed
• 1/2 cup of white or granulated Sugar
• 2 Eggs (room temp)
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• 1 1/2 cups All Purpose Flour
• 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
• 1 teaspoon ground Cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt (can be omitted)
• 3 cups Oats (quick oats, or old fashioned, not cooked)
• 1 cup Raisins (I used Baking Raisins, you may used wet or soaked)
• 1/2 cup unsalted Pecans or other unsalted nut

Process:

• Preheat your oven to 350F
• Cream together your Sugars and Unsalted Butter
• Add in Eggs and Vanilla and beat well.
• Separately, Combine Flour, Baking Soda, Cinnamon, and Salt.  
• Add to batter and mix well.
• Add in Oats, Raisins, and Nuts and mix well.
• Drop rounded tablespoon sized balls onto un-greased cookie sheet, or line with foil or bakers parchment.
• Bake 10 to 12 minutes until golden.

Yield was 36.

Did you know that before the crowbar was invented Crows would just drink at home alone.

I have a whole bunch of Animal Themed Jokes today.  I'm feeling generous, basically because Spanish was being annoying, my electronics are being stroppy, and I needed a couple jokes before the bread goes into the oven.

Yes, again, I'm stocking the freezer.  ;)




The goat

Two hunters are walking through the woods and one of them says " whoa whoa! Watch out for that hole!"

So the other guy says " I wonder how deep it is" and picks up a rusty anvil laying on the ground and throws it down the hole.

They don't hear a sound and three seconds later, they see a goat running really fast at them and jump down the hole.

So then they see a farmer calling out
"Becky! Becky" and approaches the hunters and ask " Have you seen a goat around here?"

The hunters reply " yeah it was running real fast and jumped down that hole "

The farmer replies " that's impossible! I had it tied to an anvil"



God and the animals

God is handing out characteristics to all of the animals, and he's getting close to the end of the list.

All the animals have picked except the lions, the beavers, and the pigs.

God looks up from the list and says "Who wants courage?"

One of the pigs says to another, "Ooh, we should get that!" the other one says, "Naw, who wants to be courageous? You have to strut around, humans will start hunting you, it's a huge pain. Let's wait."

The lions speak up and take the courage.

"Next up, industrious! Who wants to be known for being industrious?" The pig says, "Hey, we could definitely be that. Make stuff, stay busy, it sounds good!"

The other pig says, "Are you crazy? Get up at dawn, work all day, who wants that? I'm sure God saved the best for last."

The beavers pipe up and take industriousness, so God goes back to his list. "Let's see, claws are taken, flight went to the birds, the cheetah got speed . . . Okay, here we go. Who wants to be delicious?"




(especially with a BBQ Sauce and slow roasted.)




Two cows are standing in a field.

The first cow says to the second, “have you heard about this mad cow disease? It makes cows go crazy and then they die”.

The second cow replies, “good thing I‘m a helicopter.”



So all the animals gathered and having a party,

Everybody is drinking and talking and having a good time, suddenly a chameleon get to the middle of the room, say "check this out" and start changing color of his skin for a minute straight.

Once he done he say "Lets see any of you do the same".

Suddenly octopus appear from the crowd and says: hold my beer, hold my beer, hold my beer, hold my beer, hold my beer, hold my beer, hold my beer, hold my beer.

You know what is the loudest bone in the body called? A trombone.

So today, in all its glory, is a twofer.  There's usually a connection between the two, but in this case, I'm trying to remember why I batched them together.  See if you can figure out why?



So an old guy is walking in the woods

He hears a voice "Hey mister!". He looks down and there's a frog on the ground.
"Hey mister" says the frog "kiss me and I'll turn into a beautiful princess and make love to you all night long!"

The old guy picks the frog up and puts it in his pocket and walks on. The frog says
"Hey mister, maybe you didn't understand me. I said I'm a beautiful princess, kiss me and I'll make love to you all night long."

The old man shrugs, says "Eh, at my age I'd rather have a talking frog." and walks on.



A failed wake up call...

In San Diego to work with military linguists, my colleague and I checked into a hotel and ordered a 5 a.m. wake-up call.

The next morning, the phone didn’t ring until 5:30. “You were supposed to call us at 5 a.m.!”
I admonished the desk clerk on the other end of the line.

“What if I had to close a ­million-dollar contract this morning? Your oversight would have cost me the deal!”
“Sir,” he said calmly, “if you had to close that type of deal, I doubt you’d be staying in this type of hotel.”

Thunder And Lightning, Very Very Frightening To Rack, The McNab Dog

By this time in the day, it should be sunny.

I mean, it is supposed to be the Sunshine State.

But heck, it is also the Rainy Season.

Oh and the dog is missing.   Figuratively. 

You see it just turned to "night" again.  The yellow blob floated over me, my neighbors, and all the way to the park.  It got difficult to see across the street.  The house got dark, the security lights came up full, briefly.

Meh.  I don't have a problem with that, although I really was hoping to get to skate today. 

Nah!

As for the dog, he's an interesting beast.  You see, Rack the SuperDog (TM) is an incredibly

expressive and incredibly intelligent dog.  With Great Intelligence comes Great ... Quirks.

He's been a fearful boy since he was a puppy.  Absolutely hates noise, which is to say a loud noise will send him scurrying off.

I've noticed that his reactions have gotten less severe.  Of course they have, he's being worn down.

Like the Grand Canyon.  Constant noises.  Two months worth of fireworks leading into the Rainy Season setting up.

Fireworks?  What the heck are you people celebrating, knock it off!

We do have a routine here to deal with some of the noise, to take the edge off. 

The Rain Cookie.

Rain Cookies are a ritual.  They look like chocolate fudge, and have some weird holistic herbal things in them that should calm him down. 

I think it's partly the act of getting the cookie.  I won't walk it over to him and give it to him.  He likes the things and he has to come out of hiding to get them. 

Rattle the bag, announce "Do you want a Rain Cookie (TM)?".
He looks.
"Well?"
Stand up, stretch, slink over.
I cup his face under the muzzle.
"Rack, you are a good boy!  Remember that, Good Boy!"
Stroke his head.
He seemed to relax a wee bit as I hand him the little fudge ball looking thing.
Back in his corner.

You have to meet them half way.  It seems to help.

I did a similar thing with Lettie.  She had fear of thunder and a very strong play/prey drive.  I

can work with that.

You see "Make Rain Time Play Time" was the theory and it worked well.  I had tennis balls all over the house.  I'd hear a boom, she'd hear it first actually, and would bark at the sky.

That was my cue to have a tennis ball bounce indoors.   She eventually worked through it.  She never actually brought the ball to me for it but she did expect the play. 

But she got to the point where she'd just handle it while trotting all over the house yipping at the thunder and the sky.

So since I just had a lightning strike on my block, that's it for today.

Seriously.  When you hear a quiet "snick" before the lightning flash and then the house

shakes from the storm, it's time to boogie.

I mean Seriously.  This house is built to withstand a hurricane, and I have seen it go through one but that's a story for another day.

When you feel the percussion of the thunder in your socks while you are sitting...

I was gonna tell a time traveling joke but you guys didn't like it.

So I don't know about you, but when I read this, I read it in Hank Hill's Voice.  You know, the guy from King of the Hill?

I tell ya whut.  PROPANE!  PROPANE!  Propane is god's own gas!

The idea of Hank Hill almost tripping running up stairs... 

I really do have to get more current references!




Joan, who was rather well-proportioned, spent almost all of her vacation sunbathing on the roof of her hotel.

She wore a bathing suit the first day, but on the second, she decided that no one could see her way up there, and she slipped out of it for an overall tan.

She'd hardly begun when she heard someone running up the stairs.
She was lying on her stomach, so she just pulled a towel over her rear.

"Excuse me, miss," said the flustered assistant manager of the hotel, out of breath from running up the stairs.

"The Hilton doesn't mind your sunbathing on the roof, but we would very much appreciate your wearing a bathing suit as you did yesterday."

"What difference does it make?" Joan asked rather calmly. "No one can see me up here, and besides, I'm covered with a towel."

"Not exactly," said the embarrassed man. "You're resting on the dining room skylight."

Today I learned humans eat more bananas than monkeys. I can’t remember the last time I ate a monkey.

I have been debating whether or not to post this one. 

It's a little edgy, however, last time I was out skating I kept thinking about this when I went past the golfers at Pompano Beach Airpark Golf Course.





Two women were playing golf


The first woman teed off and watched in horror as her ball headed directly toward a foursome of men playing the next hole.

The ball hit one of the men. He immediately clasped his hands together at his groin, fell to the ground and proceeded to roll around in agony.

The woman rushed down to the man, and immediately began to apologize. 'Please allow me to help. I'm a Physical Therapist and I know I could relieve your pain if you'd allow me,' she told him.

'Oh, no, I'll be all right. I'll be fine in a few minutes,' the man replied. He was in obvious agony, lying in the fetal position, still clasping his hands at his groin.

At her persistence, however, he finally allowed her to help. She gently took his hands away and laid them to the side, loosened his pants and put her hands slowly and carefully inside.

She then administered a tender and skillful massage for several long moments and softly asked 'How does that feel'?

Feels wonderful, he replied; but I still think my thumb's broken!

How About a Non Poisonous Weed Killer Instead Of Round-Up

That picture is the whole recipe.  Borrowed from Facebook, so, thank you whoever you were!

I do however mix mine in a gallon jug so I cut it by half and then pour it into my sprayer.

It works, in fact it works well.

The Con is that it does not persist - it doesn't kill the weeds "permanently" like Round-Up Does.

Or rather that is the Pro in my view.

Ok, so here's the deal.  If you own a property and you get weeds, you have used Round-Up or a similar product.  Spray it once, it kills the weeds effectively.  They stay dead for a long time, months.

There is a lot of controversy about that stuff.  Some Say it is carcinogenic.  Some say that it remains in the environment for years.  Some Say it causes mutations.

I am not certain whether any of the negatives that Some Say about Round-up are valid, I'm just uncomfortable with using something on my soil that I don't want on my body that works quite that well.

This stuff kills MOST weeds.
It seems to work for a bit then the weeds come back or perhaps it is different weeds that come back in its place.

Not sure but I will say that I feel a lot more comfortable treating the soil with this stuff.

It is Vinegar, Epsom Salt, and Soap.

If you use it constantly on the same spot, it will damage the soil just like any "waste water" would.

In reality, you aren't going to use it that frequently or in that concentration.

So lets call this "Safe-Ish".

Safe is water, only, on your plants and your land.

I have used it very close to some food crops I have here.  Some Basil and some Green Onion I have in the front garden were close to where I spray and I won't have any personal issues with eating those when I feel they are ready.

The picture is after treatment, so you can see that it is effective.

What's the difference between a divorce and a tornado? Nothing. Someone's losing a trailer.

Thump... Thump... Thump...

A man is walking home one foggy night, When behind him he hears:

Thump…

Thump…

Thump…

He looks back, but the source of the sound is obscured by the fog. He continues walking.

Thump…

Thump…

Thump…

He begins to walk faster, and looks back over his shoulder as he hurries along. He sees the faint outline of a coffin standing upright, hopping along after him.

Thump…

Thump…

Thump…

Terrified, the man begins to run, cutting through an alley in hopes of losing his pursuer, but the coffin follows quickly.

Thump…

Thump…

Thump…

Faster and faster he goes, until he finally reaches his house. Out of breath, he lets himself in and slams the door shut behind him, locking the deadbolt. He backs away from the door as he hears banging on the other side:

Thump…

Thump…

Thump…

CRASH!

The coffin bursts through the door, unhinging its lid. The lid swings wildly as it hops after him, and he screams and runs up the stairs.

Clappity-thump…

Clappity-thump…

Clappity-thump…

He runs into the bathroom and shuts the door, cowering against the back wall. Again, it rams into the door, smashing it open. The man searches frantically for something to defend himself with. He sees a bottle of cough syrup on the counter and snatches it up.

Desperately, he throws it at the coffin, and............The coffin stops.

I had a great idea for a belt made completely out of watches. I gave up once I realized it would be a waist of time.

Border patrol stops a man on a bike


One day a bicycle rider stops at a border control.

On top of the man’s bike are two bags of powder like substances.

The border control Police demand that he open the bags so they can see what’s inside. When the man did cut the bags open, inside was nothing but sand.

The border control police work and confused but let the man go.

This continued for several weeks with each day, the man rides his bike through border control with two bags of sand which are checked every single time.

After seven weeks, one of the police officers walks up to the man. The police officer tells him “listen, every time we check your bags, there’s nothing in them. Now you seem like a pretty suspicious guy, so come on tell me what you were smuggling”.

The rider leans over...

“bikes”.

Why Does The World Smell Like Onions?

I will be celebrating my 22,000th mile on inline skates next week, it's safe to say that this is my sport.

It was a workout day.

I gathered my things together and tossed them into the Jeep.

Skates.  Three bottles of water.  Skate pads.  Sun Block.

I am in South Florida after all.

All the rest.

These days, it includes extra water because it is high summer.  90 Degrees F, 32 C in sun that is literally less than three degrees from vertical at its highest can be punishing.

I have racing stripes on my wrists, elbows, and knees from the pads blocking the sun.

Getting to the park, I put my skates on, and step down allowing the grass to stop my free rolling down hill.

Not much of a hill here, Florida "Below I-4" is flatter than anywhere else I have been.  Flatter than Kansas.

I distractedly put on the mask that has to go on after headphones and helmet, and step onto the pavement.

Heart rate monitor is on. I check to see that I am below my personal speed limit of 165 BPM.  I can easily get myself going faster than that simply by pushing a little harder, getting a little more air into my lungs, getting a little more exercise, but I don't.

I don't want to "overdrive" the trails and leave a large smear after a bounce.

The Emergency Rooms down here are filling up again with COVID-19 cases, and having me come in on a gurney because I landed badly and sprained or broke something would end worse.

Lets not.  Slower heart rate means slower skater.  I'll get enough of a burn anyway.

I get going, and push.

I noticed it.  Someone is cooking Onions, early.

Fair enough, I'm right by the restaurant, Galuppi's, at the golf course.  The wind usually comes off the ocean though and I am just to its east side.

Mentally shrugging, I enjoy burning off another sweaty 1600 calories on a short workout. 

Getting back to the Jeep, I get on my way back home.

The Jeep doesn't smell as strongly of onions.  I'm not going to crave a cheesesteak with fried onions here.  But it is just about lunch time and I have a very empty stomach to fill once I pull into the house.

Strangely, now, I put things together as I enter the house.

You see, these confounded Masks that we all wear?  I pull mine up and down when I am approaching someone on the trails.  My mask protects you.  It is a statement that I respect your humanity, or something less self aggrandizing.

If I had "it" and I cough inside of that mask, your chance of getting "it" drops significantly.  In this case, "it" is frighteningly transmissible.

Unlocking the door, I step in.

The house smells like onions.

I look at my right hand.  Keys and Mask.

I realize what it was.  Sloppy Joes.  We cook from scratch here.   The house is sealed tight here to keep the air conditioning inside.  All that onion that we needed to get into that Sloppy Joe let out a lot of scent into the air.  The synthetic fabrics...

THAT IS IT!

Ok, time to toss that mask into the hamper.  I was breathing Onion from the Mask, not the atmosphere. 

Still and all, Galuppi's is a pretty good restaurant even if the Sous Chefs weren't grilling onions at 9 in the morning.

But while you should wear your mask, wash the thing.

Even if it is your Workout Mask.  They get kind of stinky and sweaty too!

Sloppy Joe anyone?  Ok, I'll make beefy mac with the leftovers!  CYA!

What do you call an American parallelogram? A parallelo-ounce.

Strictly speaking, that would be a paralelo-28th-of-an-ounce.

Since I insist on putting Dad Jokes up here on the weekends, whether I should or not, here is a joke purported to have been shared by an Actual Dad!

Yeah, I know, but here ya go!



This is a joke my dad told me a long time ago. I hope I don't offend anyone.


A young man was inspired to help out with his church's fundraiser. He asked the preacher if he could participate. The preacher, knowing the young man had a bad stutter, only gave him 3 bibles to sell.

The following day the young man returned asking for more. The preacher gave him 5. The following day the preacher gave him 10. By the end of the week, the young man broke the church's all time record for the highest sale of bibles.

The preacher believed that divine intervention had occured. He was dumbfounded and had to know the young man's secret.

So the preacher asked the man how he was able to sell so many bibles in such a short amount of time.

The young man smiled and said,"I asked th-th-them if th-th-they wanted to b-b-buy a bible or have m-m-me read it to th-th-them."

Who is married to Antarctica? Uncle-Arctica

So this one here?  It's a two fer. 


As I like to try to find some connection, no matter how distant or thin that connection could be... this one reminds me of fathers.  

Or at least older guys.







A man gets in the hotel elevator

He hears a voice say "going up" and looks around, weirded out that he can't see anyone nearby who would have said that.
But when he chooses his floor, the voice says "door closing" and he realizes it was the elevator talking.

So, after his vacation has ended, he gets into the elevator with his suitcase.
When he pressed the ground floor button, the elevator says "goodbye son".
The man says "how can I be your son? You're just a machine."
And the elevator says "I brought you up, didn't I?"

----


There was an eighty year old man who went to the doctor for his annual checkup, and when the doctor finished checking him over, he was amazed and said


“Sir, you have the body of a 40 year old, and the physique of a 20 year old; tell me, what’s your secret.”

The old man replies “Well I have a very good relationship with the lord, so much so, that when I go to the bathroom at night he turns the light on for me.”

Now the doctor was just as shocked as you, and as shocked as me, so he went into the waiting room to tell this mans wife the news.

“Ma’am your husband is in great shape; he has the body of a 40 year old and the physique of a 20 year old, and I asked him how he kept in such good shape and he told me that he has a very relationship with the Lord, so much so that when he goes to the bathroom He turns the light on for him. So I was wondering if you knew anything about that.

The wife replied, “Well that would explain whose been peeing in the refrigerator every night!”

When Deleting Your Spare, Whether Jeep or Inline Skate, You Just May Need Them

Ok, so it's a weird collision of things that happened. 

I was thinking of how My Sport was back in the 90's.  Inline Skating was one of those things that grew rapidly and massively, and I mused often about how fun it would be to open up a Pro Shop for Skating. 

Then, the market changed, people left the sport, that dream vanished like the team that I was friendly with over the years. 

I still skate, and people are coming back but not like before.  The meets are gone, the teams are terminated, but still I roll on. 

I was out skating at the Pompano Airpark the other day.  I looked at the car, and leaned against the spare while trying to get all the crap set up to be able to "Skate At My Level" in this day and age.  A pint of ice water per 4 or 5 miles of South Florida Heat.  Two spools of surgical tape.  Scissors.  Allen Key.  Phone, headphones, padding to be able to listen to music.
Spare axles and bolts wrapped in plastic sit under the water in the "fanny pack" to carry all this nonsense.

I need to find another one that large.  While Fanny Packs are ludicrously out of style for most people, if you're on a trail working out, they can be a requirement.  You don't have enough hands to carry three sport bottles of water, and a Camelback Bladder gets "spoiled" after a couple uses.

When I was competitive back in Philadelphia through to the mid 2000s, I would skate 33 

miles, three times a week during season.  100 Miles.  162 Kms.  April to November.

That is why I have all that equipment.  I used to carry spare wheels in case I threw an axle or a wheel or...

"SNAP!".

What is going on?  I'm only two miles out. This is nothing of a distance. 

Vibration transmitted from the back wheel of my right skate boot.

"Something is going on with the push wheel, got to check at Three Mile Bench".

I was in limp along mode until then.  Vibration got really bad.  I was worried that push wheel would lock up and I'd be 100 KG of Moose Meat slamming onto the pavement.   Slowed down and sat.

I was presented with a wheel that had literally shattered and the hub had disintegrated into trail dust.

"Ho Lee CRAP! and no SPARE!".

Yes, I deleted the spare.  Just like the people who like to mod their Jeeps to go with those

tires that resemble donuts.  I was stuck on the trail and no spare to roll on.

8 wheels is now down to 7.  I removed that push wheel and moved a similar one on that boot to that spot.  I was using up my leftover wheels from the competitive era.  Down to the last of the 20 year old wheels, I was now using something I removed from a pair of cheap skates, literally.  They were set on top of a trash bin on bulk trash here.  While those boots were shredded, I was able to rescue the bearings and the wheels and use them both.

But that was years back.  I ran through all my "trash skates" and back catalog of old wheels.  They were from so long ago that the rigid plastic hubs turned into magic trail pixie dust that would trip some other poor soul if the hit it.

"Sorry!  On Yer Left!"

Got back on the trail and went a half mile.  Vibration started up again.  My Right Leg was vibrating enough to be an annoyance and looking down I saw I was back into that same problem again.

Sat down at Kevin's bench.  Wheel 2 is now shattered.  I had to scavenge a wheel from the

left boot and do a trail repair to be able to roll back to the jeep to get the spare skates.  Now down to Three Wheels On Each Boot.

Yes, I thought that having a spare pair of skates two and a half miles away was a good idea.  Usually when an inline skate wheel dies, it's due to the Urethane pulling away from the hub.  Not ancient plastic shattering away from the bearings.

Got back on the trails again and you guessed it.  I replaced that shattered push wheel again with a wheel from the left boot, and moved things around.  The Two Front Wheels were from an older set of wheels that strangely were holding up.

My last mile was in Limp Along Mode.   I had two wheels out of four on the right leg, three on the left.   Speed was shot, I was hot and tired from sitting in the sun repairing skate trucks and moving wheels around.

I rolled back to the Jeep and thought about that deleted spare.  That's why when you rework your skates, and remove one from the Truck, Rails or Frames to you noobs, you save two of them. 

In my own experience, you rest on your heels, push from them and sweep the leg so that the foot leaves the ground from the toe. 

The Push Wheel ends up being the back wheel on an inline skate and wears out fastest. 

Save that one in case of emergency...

Like this.

I won't delete my Spare again.  More crap to carry but it's worth it.

Now that I am home, I have work to do.  Each boot needs two wheels each.