Making Cookies... Again!!

I posted about making cookies the other day. Since then, I looked up Vegan Oatmeal Cookie recipes on the internet and found one that sounds really great so today I got what I need to make a batch or two of them, also for Christmas gifts. I'll bake them tomorrow or the next day. If you are interested, here is the recipe for you to check out! This fall I started eating about 95% Vegan. I have become very interested in eating healthily... and that sounds like something for another post.

Albert Einstein, physicist, 1921 Nobel Prize recipient:
"Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."

Food Bank Today..... Vegan Potluck This Evening

All my days lately seem to be very busy and tiring as well as wonderful. Today I had a medical appointment then went to the Food Bank to do another 2 1/2 volunteer hours. This month so far I have put in 11 1/2 hours there. With 818 Christmas Hampers going out this year, we have a lot of extra work to do putting those hampers together. Today my job was working on part of those Christmas Hampers. Ginger was putting 2 bags together so Iris and I could 'double bag' the veggies, so we would take a double bag and fill it with a 3# bag of onions + a 3# bag of carrots + a 5# bag of russet potatoes, tie the bags and stack them. In the 2 1/2 hours I was there, we did about 150 bags of which I know I did more than 50% as I was working at it by myself before Iris came in to help. It's a good thing I had a chiropractor appointment after that today as my back was not being kind to me at that point. As always, though, I enjoyed being at the Food Bank, doing what I can to help out.

After the Chiropractor all I wanted to do was come home and lay down, I felt so tired. However, my day was not yet over. I went to the Bulk Barn to pick up "a few things" and ended up picking up a LOT more than planned. YIKES!!! It came to $63!!!! Dang, groceries sure have gotten expensive lately!! I came home, used the washroom, packed up some Bean Soup I had made and off I went to my monthly Vegan Potluck and Video evening. GREAT food, WONDERFUL people, INFORMATIVE video on heart/artery health. I am so glad I went... and so GRATEFUL for being involved in this.

Food Bank

I put in many volunteer hours each month at the local Food Bank, run by the Salvation Army. I really enjoy going there to help out with all the work needing to be done and I so enjoy the people I get to work with there. December is always a very busy month around the Food Banks with all the Christmas Food Drives happening as well as donations coming in from schools, stores and so many other people walking in to bring donations. My TOPS club also donates a bunch of food at this time of year. Donations are needed at the Food Banks all year long and December is when most of the donations are made. When donations come in it means a lot of work sorting through all that mix of various kinds of food items, filling the shelves and boxing the rest to be stored for refiling the shelves as needed through the coming year. All the standing and bending is a real killer for my low back, but I persevere and get lots done. I am grateful for the opportunity to help where help is so needed.

Making Cookies

I packed up the ingredients for 2 kinds of cookies I wanted to make for Christmas gifts for a few of my 'guy friends'. I could of course make them at home, but wanted to go visit my Mom so decided to do both at the same time. I should have just come home after TOPS and gone to bed, or visited Mom for a while and come home early to bed. I went on to 'overload' in tired and in pain. However, I managed to get it done in the end, and still drive the 25 minutes home.

First I made Shortbread Cookies using a recipe given to me by my friend Cat Gee. They didn't turn out as great as Cat said they would be, so obviously not as great as hers turn out. Firs, they took a lot of mixing to get them 'smooth and creamy', then I could only put 1 pan of 12 cookies into the oven at a time. The recipe said bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes until golden on bottom of cookies. Well, Mom swears her oven is right so I don't know why, but it was taking around 25-30 minutes to get them to golden on the bottoms. When baking the 2nd dozen I was checking to see if they were done and WHOOF, the pan fell and there were broken cookies all over the inside of the oven!!! I was not happy!!! I cleaned up the mess and got the 3rd dozen in to bake. Mom was gone to get us some dinner from Subway when this happened and came home to see me cleaning up the last of the mess. She said stuff like this has happened to her too, so that helped a lot. It helped me to see I'm not such an idiot as I was feeling like until then.

Shortbread finally done, I started the Peanut Butter Balls. These ones don't get baked and though a bit fiddly, they are easy to make and are very healthy. Ingredients include flax meal, oat bran, carob chips and powder, honey &/or maple syrup... stuff like that. When all is mixed together, you roll it into little bitty balls that you roll in chopped nuts, or chia seeds, or coconut, or quinoa, or sesame seeds, or whatever else you can think of like that. They are so YUMMY and well worth the work to make them. I think I'll make another batch to give to my brother and his wife.

Another Full Thursday

Today I didn't make it to my every Thursday TOPS meeting. I had answered a post on Freecycle for 150 feet of baseboard being given away and the fellow needed me to go pick it up in Coldstream between 10am and noon on Thursday which is when my TOPS group meets in Armstrong. Once it was on my truck I had to bring it home and unload it. Some of the pieces are so long that I had to open the sliding back window of my truck and put the boards through, resting one end on the dash and the other end still sticking out so far I had to hang a red flag on my 'over length' load. The boards are anywhere from 2 feet long to 15 feet long. Once it was all unloaded I packed up a bunch of baking ingredients for making cookies and headed out for the rest of my day.

I drove to Armstrong for the usual Christmas gift exchange and mini party with 3 of my friends from the TOPS group... Pat, DJ and Pauline. I got there around 2pm and left at 4:30pm off and running to Mom's in Enderby... some days I put a lot of kilometers onto my truck. At Mom's I visited with her as well as made 2 kinds of cookies for giving as gifts to some of my friends this Christmas. Exhausted and in a lot of pain from my back, I left there around 11pm and made the 25 minute drive home again. I thought about stopping to gas up the truck at 2 1/2 cents per liter (1o cents per gallon) cheaper then here, but felt I just couldn't face it, needed to come home and end my day.

Ahhhh.... 'Tis The Season...

'Tis the season for social gatherings when there are oh so many pot luck dinners to attend which means oh so many dishes to cook and take along to share with friends, and oh so many photographs to take of people and food at the parties. Christmas is a hard time of year for many people for many reasons, including so much over eating makes us gain the pounds when what we want to do is drop weight and inches for a slim, trim body and improved health. All the excess photographs I take can be put on my portable hard drives, yet the excess food I eat goes straight to fat that gets stored on my body. I need to make sure I get more exercise as well as do my best to refrain from the over eating thing!! Wish my luck!!

Food Bank

Oh my aching back..... That is what I've been saying all day today and part of yesterday. You see, I did my volunteer hours at the Food Bank yesterday and I over did it a bunch. I was helping put together food hampers for people in need as well as sorting and putting away some of the food that has come in recently. At this time of year, there is a lot of food donated and it all has to be sorted through and put away on the shelves as well as boxed and stored to feed people throughout the coming year when there are not so many donations. I knew I was on my feet too long, bending down too much, and still I kept doing it as there was just so much to be done. We sure could use more help at this time of year. I really love being involved in this. I don't love the pain, and yet it's almost worth it in this case.