Rainy Day Monday

Drenched.  That's the word for the day.  Not a normal one for early June in sunny Central Oregon, but we're happy to see that life-giving moisture green up the lawns and water the vegetables.  The day will come soon when we spend hours on our feet taking care of just that.  It's cool, though, and that makes us wish we had fire in the woodstove to take the chill off.  But fires in June are a waste of wood, so we fired up the oven instead.  And baked. And drank tea. And baked some more.

Here we have some breakfast cookies, which are very similar to cowboy cookies, having lots of add-ins, but are on the more healthful side.  I found a recipe on the King Arthur flour website and reduced the sugar, of course.  Add in oats, shredded coconut, chopped pecans, white and dark chocolate chips.  Pretty much a granola bar in cookie form.

Here they are baked.  They don't fall apart easily, so are nice for packing into lunches.  We find them a great source of protein and energy for the swimmer, dancers, students and working men in our family.

From scratch yellow cake for tea and dessert, with mini chips thrown in.  In the glass bottle to the upper right is the entire dry ingredients for the cake.  When made up ahead of time it is just as convienent as Betty Crocker, but better for you, as you can add wheat flour, organic sugar and a smidge of salt.  Also, there are no eggs in this recipe, which is happiness for an egg-sensitive family member.  Recipe for this yellow cake and other yummy dessert can be found at the above link.

And what rainy day is complete without fresh homemade bread?  This is my go-to bread machine recipe from Urban Homemaker.  Jasper made some garlicky lentil soup for dinner, with the ever-present home-grown greens salad. Almost as good as curling up in front of the wood stove.

Last in the oven were these gluten free snickerdoodles made by Willow from a mix (Gluten Free Mama sugar cookie mix). They are so good we would all scarf them up if she wasn't so protective.  Moving from the SCD diet, which she held to for over a year, to mostly just gluten free has brought a huge smile to her face, and so far no complaints in her tummy! 

 It's been a slow day.  Just what we needed after a non-stop weekend of Great Gray Owling on the Winema forest, swim meet, golden eagle baby banding, changing pipes at the driving range,church, more swim meet, a soccer match and a water polo game.  Whew.  If it's raining again tomorrow, I don't think we'll mind too much.