Treat Food That's Really a Treat

Becoming a parent transforms the way you look at the world. As you clutch your newborn baby to your chest, the world becomes, in the blink of an eye, a frightening place, fraught with lurking dangers. Things which you never gave a thought to, prior to childbirth, now seem ominous. A staircase is a place of peril, with the possibility of tripping and falling ever before your eyes. The person sneezing in the grocery store might be spreading killer germs. Driving down the freeway with your infant strapped into the carseat brings on visions on car crashes and fiery death as you struggle to rescue that new, precious, helpless bundle. Why do you think there are so many cars on the road with Baby On Board signs?

As your child grows, you continue to keep a part of your heart in his or her body, cringing at every stubbed toe, bleeding at every scraped knee, wishing desperately you could protect him or her from all harm.

I think that parents of kids with food sensitivities have it even tougher than regular run-of-the-mill parents. A friend of mine discovered her son had a violent allergy to peanuts when a day care worker wiped the face of a boy who'd eaten a peanut butter sandwich and then used the same cloth to wipe her son's face. His face inflated like a playground ball! Panic!!

Always on guard, vigilant against what might be lurking inside a "treat" that's given to your child, early on you have to teach them the litany of "I can't have" foods. What a blessing, then, to find some "I CAN have" treats. Especially if you don't have to go to a specialty bakery and pay $6 a muffin for it!

The obvious solution for kids with special dietary issues is to make it yourself. Then you know exactly what went into it, you know it's safe, and if you find the right recipe, you can also make it delicious. (And, trust me, not every $6 muffin is delicious!)

I recently made these as a thank you for a super sweet mom who took my son for a week to a Vacation Bible School. Her son has gluten, soy, and egg allergies. She shared them with some other moms of food-issue kids and they all clamored for the recipe, so I'm bumping it up to the head of the posting queue.

I had a muffin before I gave them away (I can't give away untested food - it might be nasty!) and they are really good. Not just in a "not bad for gluten-free" way, but truly good. Moist, tasty, studded with blueberries, with a good texture, not gluey or brickish. Even if you're not going gluten-free, you'll enjoy them!


GF, Egg-free Blueberry Muffins
- adapted from The Spunky Coconut

1 cup almond meal flour
1/2 cup tapioca flour (the same thing as tapioca starch)
1/2 cup coconut flour
1-1/2 tsp baking soda
1-1/2 tsp baking powder*
1/2 cup dried blueberries
3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 tsp xantha gum or guar gum (they're interchangeable; the xanthan gum is more expensive)
1 Tbsp flax seed meal
2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup milk (substitute coconut milk if dairy is an issue)
1/2 tsp Vanilla Creme Liquid Stevia
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup coconut oil, liquified

*If corn is an issue, you can make your own baking powder. Substitute 1/4 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp cream of tartar, 1/2 tsp tapioca starch.

1- Preheat oven to 350 deg. F. Grease a 12-well muffin tin.

2- In a medium bowl combine the almond meal flour, tapioca flour, coconut flour, baking soda, baking powder. Whisk together to break up any clumps. Stir in dried blueberries.

3- In a bowl combine the applesauce, guar gum, flax meal, and apple cider vinegar. Make sure there are no lumps.

4- To the applesauce mixture add the milk, stevia, honey, and coconut oil. Stir well.

5- Divide the batter between the muffin cups and bake for about 22 minutes.

They are delicious warm, or you can let them cool on a cooling rack.

Party Paranoia

For the most part I am a fairly rational person. I can look at situations and think through the possible outcomes, arriving at conclusions supported by data, probability, and experience. There are, however, a few cases that defy logic. Heights, spiders, and birthday parties.

We recently visited Hoover Dam. Did you know that thing is freaking tall? And that above it they've built a brand new bridge that spans the gorge? And that unwary fools can walk out onto that bridge, cluelessly taking pictures, seemingly unaware of the perils posed by the combination of strong, gusting winds and extremely high bridge? I suppose they just think logically that, hey, if it was dangerous, people wouldn't be allowed to walk out there, right? Or that since thousands of people have done it before without dying, the odds are that they'll survive. I know all these things, and yet I just can't get my brain beyond, "high, windy, slipping, falling, plummeting to certain, splatting death below."

It's the same with spiders. I've been through the exhibit at the zoo, designed to soothe the arachniphobe with informational plaques about the harmless, beneficial spiders, placed right next to the case containing the "HOLY COW! There's no glass on this case! That huge, hairy spider could jump right out and land on my face!! What kind of place is this, putting innocent kids at risk?!! Someone give me a shoe so I can smash that thing!!" My husband had to escort me out and put a paper bag to my face so I wouldn't hyperventilate and pass out. (If I had, I'm sure the spiders would have rushed out and dragged my body away to be wrapped in the spider equivalent of Tupperware to be sucked dry at a more convenient time.)

Perhaps you're wondering why birthday parties might fall into the same category as heights and spiders. Let me clarify - it's not all birthday parties that reduce me to a quivering wreck, huddled in a corner, rocking and sobbing. Just the birthday parties that I have to put on for my children.

My first two children were born in the same month and it ruined that month for me. I dreaded having to put on their parties and the dread swallowed up the whole month in a cloud of worry, guilt, and dread. (Yes, I know I've said dread 3 times, but I really, really dreaded those parties.)

First of all, there was the question of theme. What would be fun? What would be different? What wouldn't break the bank? And what would make all the kids happy? I've done basket weaving, tie-dyeing, card making, nail decorating, American Girl doll, and several piñatas. There's been playland, beach, pool, and backyard parties. I've done theme cakes till I see Pixar toys in frosting in my dreams.

Through all my years as a party planner, I've learned that the key to happiness is low expectations. I no longer do huge shindigs. We alternate friend party years with family party years. And I strive for the lowest stress possible. For my youngest son's birthday we invited friends to come to the pool. I brought cupcakes and watermelon slices. They swam, opened presents, and ate cupcakes. Ahh, the sweet smell of another birthday party over!

I ended up making three different kinds of cupcakes. I wanted to make minion cupcakes, not because they fit so naturally with a pool party theme, but because they're cute. So I made Twinkies, doubling the recipe, and making cupcakes with the rest of the batter. Then I made strawberry cupcakes, because I had strawberries in the fridge that needed to be used up. Then I made chocolate gluten-free, egg-free cupcakes for a guest with special dietary requirements. After all, what fun is it to go to a party and not be able to eat cake?

Today you get the strawberry cupcakes and next time I'll give you the chocolate speciality recipe. So you'll be doubly prepared next time you're called on to throw a party. Do not fear, they're easy to make and even with lousy decorating skills like mine, you can still wow the crowd.


Strawberry Minion Cupcakes
- adapted from Sky High, Irresistible Triple-Layer Cakes

1/4 lb strawberries, hulled and halved
2-1/4 cups cake flour
1-1/2 cups granulated sugar
2-3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1-1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 large egg whites
1/3 cup milk

1 batch of Twinkies (preferably homemade)
1 batch of your favorite buttercream frosting
Smarties - yellow and white ones
Edible food pen
Thin black licorice ropes, or black gel paste food coloring

1- Preheat oven to 350 deg. F. Line cupcake pans with 18 cupcake liners.

2- Place strawberries in a food processor or blender. Process till no lumps remain. Measure out 3/4 cup puree and set the rest (if there is any) aside for smoothies or pouring over ice cream or french toast.

3- In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

4- In a large bowl with an electric mixer, cream the butter. When it's fluffy, add the strawberry puree.

5- Add the dry ingredients and blend until light and fluffy (the batter will be very thick).

6- In another bowl, whisk together the egg whites and milk to combine. Add the whites in three parts to the batter, mixing only until incorporated after each addition.

7- Fill the cupcake liners about 3/4 full. Bake 18 to 22 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

8- Let cupcakes cool in the pan 10 minutes before removing to wire rack to cool completely.

9- To assemble the minions, cut the Twinkies in half. With the edible food marker, draw around the outside of 1/2 the Smarties and color in a circle for the eyeball. Then glue together pairs of Smarties with frosting. When the frosting has dried and the goggles are stable, use frosting to glue the goggles to the Twinkie halves. If you like, for some of the minions, use a single goggle, instead of a pair.

10- If you have the licorice, cut small lengths to use as goggle holders, smiles, and hair spikes. I didn't have licorice (my husband can tell you precisely how many stores in a 5 mile radius of my house don't carry it), so I used an ample amount of black food coloring gel with a small portion of the frosting to do the smiles and goggle straps. We had to make do with bald minions.

11- Frost the cupcakes and plant the minions into the frosting.

Reduced Guilt Brownies

I am a horrible packrat and I know it. I blame it on the Great Depression.

Wait, you think I lived through that? No, even though a big birthday is coming up I'm not THAT old. My grandparents lived through it. My father's parents raised two kids and pinched pennies till they screamed for mercy (the pennies, not the kids) while the country suffered through profound economic turmoil. They raised a lot of their own food in the garden, made it themselves or did without, and never, EVER threw anything away. Because, after all, you might need it again.

The Bible says to train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it. Can you guess something about my father? Yes, he's a packrat, too. His workshop is a museum of projects past and present. Old sports equipment, broken bits of jewelry, dried paint cans, and scraps of lumber. You never know what you'll find in there, because, after all, he might need that again.

I have to fight this tendency in my own life. The most difficult things for me to part with are magazines (I can't just throw away a Bon Appetite, for goodness sake! I might want to cook one of those recipes. Someday. If I remember it. And can find it.), cardboard boxes (what if I need to mail a package, what will I put it in if all the boxes are promptly put out in recycling like my husband prefers?), and, of course, food.

There is tremendous guilt attached to unused food. There are children starving in Bangladesh! How can I just casually toss out leftovers just because no one wants to eat it? My refrigerator is stuffed with plastic food coffins, waiting for the lids to bulge so that I have permission to throw the contents away. No shame in throwing away bad food (except for letting it go bad in the first place).

An obvious solution comes to mind. When I get a cardboard box, I need to ruthlessly clean out the refrigerator, put it all in the cardboard box, and mail it to Bangladesh. My husband would be happy since the boxes wouldn't be piling up in the garage. I'd be happy because my refrigerator would be clean. And Bangladesh, well, can I pretend that my leftovers will bless them? Maybe if I tuck in a Bon Appetite, that will make up for the rainbow sheen on the ham and the slightly furry quality of the bread.

The best way to avoid leftovers is to plan ahead. If you're making a big recipe, invite company over, or freeze half of the recipe. And if you know a recipe calls for part of an ingredient (half a green pepper, 1/3 of a jar of sauce, etc), menu plan so that the next night you use up the rest of it.

When I posted about making bean dip, I promised you a way to use up those extra beans. Bean salad is a good choice. Tossing them into chili or a soup? Another winning idea.

But, me being me, I like dessert. Bean brownies. The beans replace the flour, so these are a nice option for the gluten-intolerant among us. The brownies are super moist and delicious. No one that I've served them to has been able to guess what the secret ingredient is. Plus, they're so easy, that they take next to no effort to make. All that, plus the warm happy glow of not having leftovers turning slimy in the refrigerator. Bonus!



Black Bean Brownies

1-1/2 cups cooked black beans
3 eggs
3 Tbsp coconut oil
1/4 c. cocoa powder
pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup date puree (directions to make your own in this recipe)
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp instant coffee powder
1 cup (6 oz) semi-sweet chocolate chips, or coarsely chopped semi-sweet chocolate (divided)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (soaked and dried)

1- Preheat oven to 350 deg. F. Grease an 8 x8 -inch pan.

2- Into the bowl of a food processor, put beans, eggs, coconut oil, cocoa powder, salt, vanilla, date puree, sugar, instant coffee, and 1/2 cup of the chocolate chunks. Process until smooth.

3-Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup chocolate and nuts over the top. With a rubber spatula, gently press on the chunks till they are all submerged under the batter.

4- Bake for 35 to 40 min. The edges should be baked and the center set. Let cool completely. But if you like oozy, messy chocolate, especially served with vanilla ice cream, cool slightly and then cut (or scoop) it.

It's For The Children

Long ago, when I was pretty new at parenting, I bought my son a can of Chef Boyardee ravioli as a treat. It wasn't something I would normally buy, but I thought as a special splurge I'd get it for him. He wouldn't eat it and I initially was angry. I'd bought it as a treat, why wouldn't he eat it? Then I tried it and I could see why. It was nasty!

For some reason we, as a society, reserve some of our nastiest foods for our children, and then we package them up as special treats. Canned, frozen, packaged, or fast food - if you look at the ingredients list you realize that we are feeding the least developed and most vulnerable bodies the most repulsive and often harmful foods.

I used to purchase food (or foodlike items) without a thought as to the ingredients and the effect they might have on my kids. After all, if it wasn't safe for kids, it wouldn't be sold for kids, right? Right?

Actually, the onus is on parents to safeguard their kids. It's up to us to read labels, be informed, and make good choices for our children. The companies who sell snacks loaded with hydrogenated fats, high fructose corn syrup, and artificial flavors and colors aren't going to go out of their way to let you know the health threat their products pose to your kids. They are in business to make money, not to do your job for you.

With cartoon characters (you wouldn't believe some of the stuff I've bought just because it had Mickey or Donald on it!), catchy jingles, toys, and ads with cute, laughing kids, advertisers try to lure unwary parents into buying foodlike products for their tykes. And if you're not convinced that it will make your children happy, they show you how much easier your life will be if you just open a can, pull it out of the freezer, or go through the drive-thru.

But what are you really buying? Is it nutritious? Is it going to help their growing bodies? Or is it even food? This short (about 4 minutes) clip shows how to make chicken nuggets and also how advertising has brainwashed our kids.



So what's a mama to do when her chilluns clamor for fast food? Make her own, of course!

My daughter is doing her best to meet the nutritional needs of her daughter in the healthiest way possible. Her research has shown her that including organ meats in the diet of a toddler is extremely important for growth and development. That's good to know, but how on earth do you get a toddler to eat liver? Hide it in nuggets! If it works for nasty chicken paste, it works for healthy chicken livers, too.

See how much my granddaughter loves them? Seriously, she gets so excited when her mommy makes her chicken nuggets. She'll yum up three in a meal (and she's a tiny person). Because it's chicken liver, not beef, it's got an easy texture for a person with three teeth to handle. It's good for her, it's easy to fix, and she loves it. What could be better?

Now if you're inspired to try this for yourself, just be sure you get organic chicken livers. The liver is a filter organ and you don't want to eat what's in a non-organic chicken's body!

Real Food Chicken Nuggets

Organic chicken livers
Organic psyllium husks
Grated Parmesan cheese
Pepper
butter

1- Cut the livers up in to baby hand holding size. Rinse them off.

2- Combine the psyllium and cheese on a plate. Sprinkle some pepper over the mixture. Dredge the livers in the psyllium mixture.

2- Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat. Fry the nuggets, turning to cook on all sides.

How easy is that? Lots less trouble than getting in the car, driving to a take-out place, and then having lots of trash to deal with. Plus look at the happy consumer! That's advertising that doesn't lie.

Milk Gone Wild

Thank you so much to all of you who took the time to comment on my last post. It was very encouraging! I haven't abandoned the blog; I've just been busy with day camp at church and letting ideas percolate. I'm ready to hit you with my first hippie post!

The elementary school I attended was set up in an unusual way. Outside the old stone building was the standard playground with monkey bars, tetherball poles, and four-square lines painted on the cracked blacktop. There was also a large field area with a diamond for playing kickball (or my version, trip over the ball), and a track (on which one could barf up a lung running the 600). This area was separated from the school by a very busy 4 lane street.

I'm not sure which brilliant planner thought that was a good idea, but they avoided having to scrape little kids off the street by installing a tunnel under the street. On each side of the street was an entrance with doors that could be locked, stairs that descended to a dark, dank tunnel, and stairs that led to freedom on the other side. Well, relative freedom. The misery of sports awaited on one side and the purgatory of math and spelling tests waited on the other.

I digress.

The point was that the tunnel was a closed environment. And the worst thing imaginable was if a child, say one hurrying to run home on a Friday afternoon, dropped his or her milk carton in the tunnel. And it stayed there all weekend, leaking, and getting nasty. The first kids to use the tunnel on Monday morning were hit by a wave of stomach-turning putrid milk smell, and there was no escaping it. You had to hold your breath and run all the way across, hoping that no tender-tummied child added their morning bowl of Lucky Charms to the odor melange. Because if one did, they all did. And that smell would merit hazardous duty pay to the poor janitor who got to go down there to clean it up.

I've had that smell memory in my mind all these years and it was with amazement that I learned that milk doesn't necessarily go bad when it's left unrefrigerated. It's only pasteurized milk that putrifies. Raw milk, milk which hasn't been pasteurized, will sour, but it's not the same stomach-heaving smell that I associate with kick ball.

My daughter, queen of nutrition research, started telling me about raw milk and it's benefits last year. She told me about how pastuerized milk is not good for you, and convinced me to try raw milk. I was initially skeptical. Isn't pasteurization a good thing, done to protect milk drinkers? Won't drinking raw milk make me sick? After some research and a little logical thinking, I realized that people have been drinking raw milk a lot longer than pasteurization has been around. If raw milk was deadly, people would have stopped drinking milk altogether.

(Caveat - to be healthful, raw milk must come from grass-fed cows that are healthy. If you drink the milk that is destined for pasteurization before it's pasteurized, that's very risky. Much lower standards of hygiene are called for in non-raw milk dairy cows, and those cows can have antibiotics, growth hormones, or pus in their milk.)

There is friendly bacteria in raw milk which is really important for gut health, and those friendly bacteria do some amazing things. When raw milk has soured, you can leave it at room temperature and something magic happens. The milk separates into two layers, one semi-solid, and one clearish. The clearish layer is whey and it is chock-full of fabulous bacteria which can be used to lacto-ferment.

What is lacto-fermenting? Basically it is letting the friendly bacteria convert the starches and sugars in food into lactic acid. This preserves the food and makes it tremendously beneficial to your gut health, as well. I have previously lacto-fermented, even though I didn't know I was doing it. Yogurt is lacto-fermented milk!

My first attempt at lacto-fermenting with my raw milk whey was this fabulous bean dip. This is one of the times I long for the advent of scratch and sniff technology for computer monitors. Pictures of bean dip just don't adequately convey the full tangy, garlicky allure of this dip. One scoop of it on your favorite chip or veggie and you'll quickly come back for more. You'll just have to trust me and try it.

If you are not fortunate enough to live in a state where raw milk is available (don't get me started on a rant about why our government thinks that staging raids on Amish dairy farmers who sell raw milk is a priority for our tax dollars!), you can use the liquid that separates from yogurt as your fermenting agent.

Lacto-Fermented Bean Dip
- from Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon

2 generous cups black beans (you can also use kidney, pinto, or white beans)
warm, filtered water (Chlorinated tap water will kill your helpful bacteria)
2 Tbsp whey or lemon juice(not necessary for the other types of beans)
1 onion, peeled and coarsely chopped
4-6 cloves garlic
1 Tbsp sea salt
4 Tbsp whey

1- In a large bowl, cover beans with warm water. The water level should be well above the beans, as the beans will absorb water and swell. Stir in the whey or lemon juice, and leave in a warm place 12-24 hours.

2- Drain, rinse, place in a large pot and add water to cover the beans. Bring to a boil and skim off the foam. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 4-8 hours. Check occasionally and add more water as necessary. The beans are done when they will mash easily.

3- With a slotted spoon, scoop out and measure 3 cups of the beans. (Save the rest of the beans in liquid, covered, in the refrigerator and I'll tell you next post an idea on how to use them.)

4- Place the onion and garlic into a food processor. Process until well chopped. Add the 3 cups cooked beans, sea salt, and whey. Process until smooth. Place the bean purée into a 1 quart glass jar, leaving at least 1-inch of headroom at the top. If you have extra bean purée, put it into a smaller glass jar, leaving at least 1-inch headroom.

5- Cover tightly with a lid and leave at room temperature for about 3 days. If your room temperature is on the coolish side, place the jar in a warm spot. I have under-cupboard lights which make an ideal warming spot inside the cupboard.

6- Check the jar daily. At first there will be no signs of activity. After 2 to 3 days, you should start to see little pockets forming in the purée. As the pockets grow, the level of the dip rises. If it starts rising dramatically, it can force liquid out of the lid, so keep an eye on it and scoop some out to another jar, if you need to.

7- Once the dip has fermented, transfer it to the refrigerator or cool storage. Enjoy with your favorite chips or veggies, spread it inside a taco, or eat it by the spoonful!

Out Of The Closet

Yesterday I was at Costco and I ran into a friend of my daughter's. She commented that I hadn't been writing much lately. Um, yeah.... sorry about that.

First of all, I've been on vacation. We went to a friend's condo at Lake Las Vegas and soaked up Vitamin D for a week. It was awesome and I highly recommend it.

Secondly, I've been running out of steam on the blog for a while now. I feel like I'm in a death spiral of no motivation = fewer postings = less feedback = no motivation.

And thirdly, and most importantly, I've changed. I've been blogging for four years now and in that time the way I cook, what I cook, and the way I look at food has changed a lot. A lot of the food in my earlier postings I just wouldn't make today.

It's been a combination of exposure to other food bloggers and my daughter's relentless quest to learn about nutrition that has led me to this point. And now I feel it's time to come out of the closet. Here's the big reveal.......I'm a suburban hippie.

I buy organic. Whenever possible I make food myself. I have jars of strange food/science projects on my counter and in my cupboards bubbling, fermenting, and growing strange pond scum on top. And most importantly, as it relates to my blog, I've cut way back on sugar. The cookie jar is frequently empty. I only bake when I know I'll be able to give most of it away, as I've become convinced of the negative health consequences of eating lots of sugar.

This might seem like a weird detour in my life, if you only know me superficially, but it's actually a logical progression. I've always had quite a bit of hippie in me. My babies were all midwife-attended births, 3 of them at home. I've washed enough cloth diapers to fill a landfill (but they don't). I nursed my babies an average of 2 years (Sarah brought the average down quite a bit, and I apologize for that, honey). My primary care physician is a chiropractor. It's only logical that I should start to care about the quality of food that I put into myself and my family.

What does this mean for Cookie Baker Lynn? I had thought about having a complete blog overhaul, maybe changing my name to My Hippie Kitchen (already taken), and focusing only on the weird things I'm experimenting with in my kitchen. But really, I'm still me. And I still love to bake. So it's going to be a mix. Some of the evil white sugar stuff I'm known for, as well as some of my hippie living stuff. And I'll throw in some health and nutrition rants occasionally, just to see if I can't shake off those two remaining commenters.

So, before you delete me forever from your RSS feed, what do you think? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

New and Improved

I'm something of a cynic. When companies advertise a product as "New and Improved!!," it always smacks to me of a desperate attempt to palm off a shoddy piece of goods, claiming, "It's not nearly as nasty as it used to be!" If it wasn't broken in the first place, why fix it?

There are some recipes in my repertoire that I would never dream of tinkering with. Why mess with perfection? But sometimes, life happens and where before you had perfection, you now have something you never dreamed possible - an improvement.

I've been struggling with what to do for my kids' teachers for a year-end thank you gift. I homeschool my kids (and, no, I'm not looking for an excuse to buy myself another cookbook), but I also take them once a week to a homeschool co-op. The excellent teachers who've been trying all year to instruct my children deserve at least a little thank you.

It wasn't until the last day of class that I decided what to do. Cookies. (Well, duh, I really should have thought of that weeks ago.) I woke up early and assessed that I had enough time to bake a batch of my Fabulous Brownie Cookies. They're easy and have a good effort to results ratio. So at 5:30 in the morning I'm melting chocolate, measuring flour, getting the eggs out, and, oh, giant leaping dust bunnies! The recipe calls for 4 eggs and I only have 3!

A quick internet search provided multiple options for egg substitutions (most of them nasty), but fruit puree sounded promising. Since I'd had such good results using date puree in these cookies, I decided to go with that. A quick 20 minute soak of the dates, pureeing with my hand-held blender, and I was back on track.

We have to be out the door at 8:00 and at 7:30, the kids were scarfing down breakfast while I was stamping white paper bags, stuffing them with cookies, tying on bows, still in my pajamas. Miraculously, we made it out the door on time. And the cookies? Really good. In fact, really, really good. Still deliciously rich, chocolatey, and brownielike, but with an added depth of flavor and an extra oomph of texture, these are clear winners. So I guess new and improved doesn't always mean "less nasty." Sometimes it really does mean "more fabulous!"

Even More Fabulous Brownie Cookies

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
4 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped
3 cups semisweet chocolate chips, divided
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 large eggs
3 Tbsp date puree*
1-1/2 cups sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups chopped pecans, toasted

*Directions for making your own date purée here.

In a large, heavy saucepan combine butter, unsweetened chocolate, and 1-1/2 cups chocolate chips. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until butter and chocolate melt; set aside and cool.

Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl; set aside. Beat eggs sugar, and vanilla in a medium mixing bowl at medium speed with an electric mixer. Gradually add flour mixture to egg mixture, beating well. Add chocolate mixture; beat well. Stir in remaining 1-1/2 cups chocolate chips and pecans. I used my medium scoop (1-3/4" across) to drop blobs of dough (about 2 Tbsp) 2 inches apart onto cookie sheets lined with parchment paper.

Bake at 350 for 10 minutes. Don't overbake - the cookies should just loose their sheen on top, but still be moist. Let them set on the cookie sheets for a few minutes (they will continue to bake a bit), then remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

strawberry rhubarb crisp

In the 4th grade my teacher asked the class how many of us had grandparents living. I was one of the few in the class to raise my hand for having all four living. (Yes, I know, many people now in the age of blended or redefined families have 16 or so people they call grandparents, but back then, 4 was the normal maximum.) Many of my friends had only 1 or 2 grandparents living and this made gave me a strange impression that grandparents were ephemeral creatures who might at any time disappear without warning.

I decided that since time with the grandparents was obviously fleeting, I'd better invest in the relationships as much as was possible. Given that we all lived in different states, I started a letter writing campaign. I strove to write to my grandparents at least once a week, although it ended up being probably closer to once a month.

I would write long, chatty notes about what I was doing in school, my tough homework assignments, my dance classes, the boys I thought were cute, the onerous camping trips we went on, my bouts of stomach flu, and the funny things the dog did. In return I'd get nice, fulsome letters detailing their gardens.

Their letters would give status updates on the runner beans, how the tomatoes were coming along, and the awful things that late spring cold snap had done to the apricot blossoms. I decided that being an old person meant your life was extremely boring and you had nothing to live for except your garden.

My sister and I shared this view of gardening obsession and nodded knowingly to each other when our father's letters started being mainly garden-related. Yes, he was turning into an old person. Sure he can grow beans, carrots, and tomatoes like nobody's business, but it's kind of sad when you have nothing else to write about.

Then my sister and I were exchanging emails this past week, catching up on our schedules, the weather in our respective states, and how said weather was affecting our....gardens. Yes, it's true. We're old people now, too.

Luckily, I still have challenging, bewildering, frustrating, amazing, frustrating, and wonderful children to give me things to think about besides my garden. I say luckily because I'm a lousy gardener. Anything that goes into the ground is on its own out there. It had better be tough, hardy, and able to withstand unarmed assaults by armies of slugs. (Well, they don't have arms, do they? Just nasty, slimy feet and voracious, munching jaws.)

When my grandchildren write to me, I'm sure they'll be thrilled to hear back from me the details of how the blueberries, oregano, and rhubarb are doing, because that's all that survive my harsh gardening techniques (plant it and ignore it). Hopefully, they won't even have to have me write about it. If they live close enough, they can come over and pick blueberries to munch, oregano to put on a pizza, and rhubarb to put into a crisp. Because, really, wouldn't you rather eat from a garden than hear about it?

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

4 cups fresh rhubarb, 1-inch diced (4 to 5 stalks)
4 cups fresh strawberries, hulled and halved
1 cups granulated sugar, divided
1 Tbsp Stevia Extract (not pure Stevia)*
1-1/2 tsp grated orange zest
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1/2 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
1 cup all-purpose flour (you can substitute 1/2 with white whole wheat flour)
1/2 cup light brown sugar, lightly packed
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 cup quick-cooking (not instant) oats
12 Tbsp (1-1/2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, diced

*I buy the kind that's cut with lactose for table use. It's available at Trader Joe's. If you can only find pure Stevia, use about 1/4 tsp.

1- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees with rack in the center of the oven.

2- Toss together the rhubarb, strawberries, 1/2 cup granulated sugar, stevia, and the orange zest in a large bowl. In a measuring cup, dissolve the cornstarch in the orange juice and then mix it into the fruit. Pour the mixture into an 8 x 11-inch baking dish and place it on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper to catch drips, in case the crisp bubbles over.

3- In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the flour, the remaining 1/2 cup granulated sugar, the brown sugar, salt, and oatmeal. With the mixer on low speed, add the butter and mix until the dry ingredients are moist and the mixture is in crumbles.

4- Sprinkle the topping over the fruit, covering it completely, and bake for 1 hour, until the fruit is bubbling and the topping is golden brown. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.