Baking: Oatmeal Coconut Cookies and Supermoist Banana Bread

Oatmeal Coconut Chocolate Chip Craisin Cookies
[adapted from Whipped, the blog]

INGREDIENTS

1 1/4 cups butter or margarine, softened

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg, beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
3 heaping cups uncooked oats
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup walnuts, chopped

1 cup shredded coconut
3/4 cup craisins


DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 375 F. Grease cookie sheets with cooking spray.
Cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla.

Stir together in separate bowl flour, baking soda, salt, and spices.

Add to creamed mixture a little at a time, mixing well. Stir in oats. Fold in nuts, chocolate chips, coconut, and craisins.

Spoon cookies on cookie sheets.

Bake 10-12 minutes. Remove to wire rack to cool.

Makes about 5 dozen 2 inch cookies.

Supermoist Banana Bread 

INGREDIENTS

1 3/4 c flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 c butter, softened
3/4 c packed brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 c sour cream or plain yogurt or buttermilk
5 bananas, mashed
1 1/2 c extras: chocolate chips, chopped walnuts, cranberries
DIRECTIONS
Grease and flour a 9x5 loaf pan*. Preheat oven to 350 F.
Mix dry ingredients together in large bowl (flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon).
Cream together butter and sugar in another large bowl.
Stir eggs, sour cream/yogurt, and bananas into butter-sugar. (Add a dash of vanilla if desired.)
Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients; stir. Stir in extras.
Pour into pan.
Bake 60-70 min; let cool on rack.


*you don't have to use a loaf pan; using a bigger pan will give you more of the nice top, but won't give you that sharp delicious crackle in the middle. 

First week back

First week back at home! Been a busy week --

-took a walk in Font Hill Park on the way to Pattie's house on the way to visit the high school

-read The Great Divorce, by C.S. Lewis. [supersupergood book!]

-read Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson [so good! not my brightest idea to read it in one day... but in my defense, it was very engrossing!]

-made a grand total of 48 (batch 1) + 120 (batch 2) cake mix cookies =D

-meet-and-greet-ed everyone at church =) and was an impromptu sunday school teacher.

-finished knitting a scarf! it is almost as long as i am tall. 

-spending lots of time with family and friends. =D at home, at school, in church, at the mall, in the park, at the library. while reading, watching tv, walking, eating, baking, cooking, chatting, gardening.

I'm actually not really sure what I am doing with this blog. For now, it will be updated irregularly -- both in terms of frequency and in terms of topic.

Happy summer!

Last day in Houston

It's my last day in Houston... til August 21, that is. I can't believe how quickly this year has gone by -- I feel as if so much has happened, yet I have not changed all that much. Not much change in physique and personality, that is. But perchance, in some small way, I have grown in mind and heart and soul. CCF has taught me a lot about vulnerability and prayer and openness and lovingkindness and, as Dillon puts it, froG. 


Yesterday was full of blessings =) The testimonies at church struck me deeply, and P.Fred's sermon was thought-provoking. In what way do I not serve God's church in the manner He wishes me to serve? Do I see church as a means toward personal gain? Do I pity myself, bemoaning my ineptitude? Or do I have too much pride to serve  with gladness and humbleness? I think that at least at HCC, inertia and habit are my main obstacles -- I don't know exactly how I could serve beyond what everyone does, and I don't have the courage to ask. After all, I am very happy and comfortable learning God's word in service and Sunday school, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing, since I am growing up my faith with guidance and encouragement. But I also feel a call to give, and not only (always) take at church. I think I'll help with Sunday School at church back at home this summer, and in the fall will try to be not a spectator at church but a participant. 


My room is all packed (except my computer and Bible, which I'll stick in my backpack later) -- and it's strange seeing how empty it is now. I guess a good, energetic early-morning cleaning is very effective. I love mornings =) So good for quiet time, and focus sans distraction, and sunrise-watching!


Last night, I went out with Cecilia and met her discipler and her discipler's husband! They are supernice! The concert we listened to was awesome -- I loved hearing the adult and children's choirs singing in conjunction with the three soloists, their voices soaring high above the music of the full orchestra. Bravo to the Texas Medical Center Orchestra and Choir, and the KIPP children's choir! And the ladies at the ticketbooth were so nice to us -- they gave us the last free tickets, so that both Cecilia and I could enter! Everyone at the theater was very nice, for that matter -- the attendants who gave us directions, the men who held the door open for us and helped us take a picture, the conductor who was so excited to take pictures with the KIPP kids. What a lovely evening!


I can't wait to go home, though I am sad to be leaving campus. Home in T-minus 11 hours! =D


And I'm off! Time to have one last walk around campus!

Thoughts as a soon-to-be sophomore...

How can freshman year be over? In less than a week, finals will be over. This past week has been so incredibly full. Full of things-to-do, things-to-plan, things-to-ponder, places-to-go, people-to-meet -- what a journey this week has been; indeed, what a journey this year has been!

I sit here at my desk and look at my roommate's side of the room, and half of her belongings are packed away into big plastic bins already. She's leaving right after her final on Wednesday, and I am going to my room all to myself for the next two weeks. It's kinda exciting (yay, I can take up the whole room!), but also kinda sad (being all by my lonesome self). It feels like I just got here yesterday, and yet it's the end of the year, and all I can do is wonder, where has the time gone?

There's so much to say... but I think I will have my thoughts in better order by the end of the week, after my finals and papers are turned in. For tonight, I'll stick to one of my many favorite things: food.
Made banana bread on Saturday night, with help from my roommate and some of our friends. My friends also helped me make a blog, in the midst of white flour flying through the air like many motes of dust, and bananas get mashed furiously in a skillet for lack of normal bowls, and walnuts and chocolate and cranberries getting chopped by a quickly flashing knife into delectable little bits, and my fellow bakers-in-training dancing and singing away to Kpop and Justin Bieber. But oh, all this chaos was worth it when the bread's rich scent wafted from the oven door and filled every corner of the kitchen. And then the bread was out, and cooling, and oh-so-beautiful.

I think I will resolve to spend more time in the kitchen this summer, and in the coming years.