Category — Food

My awesome neighbor (one who comes over for covert s’mores) left a couple of wonderful little cookies and a well-worn cookbook on my counter the other day. So, I fully agave-ized the recipe and made a batch tonight. Here’s the converted recipe. Enjoy!

No-Sugar Oatmeal Chocolate-Chip Walnut Cookies

-1 1/2 cups rolled oats
-1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
-1/4 teaspoon sea salt
-1/2 cup agave nectar
-1/2 teaspoon maple flavor
-1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
-1 teaspoon vanilla extract
-1/3 cup chopped walnuts (remember, these are bad for pets)
-1/3 cup grain-sweetened chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350.
Combine oats, flour and salt in a bowl and set aside.
In a separate bowl, mix together agave, maple flavor, butter and vanilla.
Add wet and dry ingredients together and mix well.
Stir in nuts and chips.

Wet your hands and form 3-inch cookies. Place onto lightly greased cookie sheet.
Bake for 15-20 mins. until edges begin to brown.

To make vegan, sub margarine for butter and use vegan chocolate chips.

This recipe makes 12 3-inch cookies, or you can make 24 2-bite cookies.

I’m eating one now…yum.

Every couple of weeks, Leigh and I find ourselves venturing out to one of Portland’s great breakfast spots. There are so many, that we never run out of new places to try. Even when we think we’ve experienced a place, it’ll do something new, like open a take-out window.

Take, for example, the Waffle Window at the Bread & Ink Cafe. I’ve never been a huge fan of the cafe itself, but the Waffle Window is inspired.

It is literally a walk-up window in the side of a building where you order plates of the most amazing Belgian waffles ever.

You can just see the outdoor seating area to the right of the window.  Families were bundled up, making love to their waffles on the picnic tables.

Leigh and I went a couple of weeks ago to see what the hype was about.

Now, don’t worry.  We still love Flavour Spot.  These waffles are different.  I’m starting to see waffles the way I see pasta.  There are endless, delicious ways to prepare and top these wonderful carbs.  I don’t want to limit myself by having a favorite.

When Leigh and I try a new place, we maximize our experience, so we will often each order something, and then split another item. Despite the size of the plates emerging from the Waffle Window, Leigh ordered the “not-a-waffle” biscuit and gravy, I ordered a fabulous seasonal waffle featuring huckleberries, blueberry compote, panna cotta and fresh whipped cream. Then, just for good measure, we shared a Nutella and Fresh Banana waffle. (It also had fudge and whipped cream.)

Um, yeah.  These were good.  Really good.

The berry waffle was amazing.  Fresh huckleberries and lemon are wonderful together, and the panna cotta and whipped cream sauce were light, sweet and went down like a dream.

I didn’t try the gravy (it was sausage), but Leigh was a fan.  It was a big biscuit and a hefty portion of gravy.  Looked good.

This isn’t scientific, but I have found that anything containing Nutella is approximately 3x as delicious as anything else.  Paired with bananas, and the fresh whipped cream, this waffle was downright yummy.

I’ve neglected to mention that these waffles are coated in sugar.  Yup.  You know, because the waffles themselves and the toppings aren’t enough.  (I totally support this.)

So, in the end, the Waffle Window deserves the hype it’s been getting.  These are super-tasty and not super-spendy.  Go give ’em a try while the weather is still good.  Waffle love-making just gets sloppy in the winter.

This weekend, we headed to Pine State Biscuits on Belmont, another place that we’ve been meaning to try, and that’s been getting a lot of hype.

This place is also deserving of the hype.

Pretty much anyplace you go to for breakfast in Portland will have a line.  But when you find a place with a line at least half a block long, it’s a pretty good sign you’ve found a winner.

Pine State Biscuits is a small place.  It has exactly three tables and a bar with 5 stools.

The Tripple Nickel bar next door has some nasty old picnic benches outside that accommodate breakfast-goers, desperate to dig into their biscuit sandwiches and hashbrowns.  This morning, we were lucky enough to find a place inside, though we’d already ordered to-go.

Today, I ordered the “Vegeterian Moneyball” – a biscuit and shitake gravy with a fried egg on top – and Leigh ordered a simple egg and cheese biscuit.  To share, we had a veggie “hash-up” – hashbrowns with onions, mushrooms and cheese.  Awesome.

When we got our food, we thought we’d need all three of the to-go boxes for leftovers.  Truth be told, there wasn’t much left to take with us.  Just enough for each of us to have a couple of bites at lunch.  Several of the folks around us had amazing-looking biscuit sandwiches that included fried chicken and gravy.  Intense.

Being from the south, Leigh can be a little persnickity about her biscuits.  Today, she was happy.  These were flaky and lovely.  I found the veggie gravy to be at least as good as that at Gravy and Tin Shed, two standards in Portland.

Next time we go back, we’ll try the collard greens, grits and sweet tea.  Aparently, these three things will tell us whether the folks from Pine State are really southerners.  I’m not sure why this is important, and I don’t think the people in line really care, but it’s a good excuse to go back.

Yesterday, a couple of friends took me to have liquid loveliness at Cacao, a gourmet chocolate shop a couple of blocks from our office.

Okay, I know what you’re thinking – this whole “no-sugar” thing I claim to be doing is a load of crap.

But it’s really not!  I’m generally really good.

I’m leaving the country, and a friend wanted to buy me a cup of amazing liquid chocolate – like the kind in the chocolate waterfall in Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (you know, the one with Gene Wilder).  So, what am I going to do?  Say no?!  That would just be rude.  Also, I’m fairly certain it’s a violation of the Geneva Conventions.  Yeah, I’m pretty sure.  What?  You don’t believe me?  Screw you.  Look it up.  YOU LOOK IT UP!

Today was a good day. First of all, it was Friday. Fridays are good usually, but for my office, during the summer if we work extra during the week, we can take off at noon on Friday. This makes Fridays extra good.

This Friday, there were only three of us in the office. The summer is quickly winding down, and we’re anxious to take advantage of all possible fun, so, when I suggested heading to my place for some Rock Band, the three of us wrapped up work and headed out.

I’m not sure about you, but the last time I had an honest to goodness “play date” was a long time ago.

Armed only with hard cider and cookies, we fired up the wii and started playing. For two hours we pounded on the drums, clicked the buttons of the guitar and sang our lungs out. By the end, Celia’s eyes were watering from staring at the screen, Michele’s hands were cramping, and I had nearly lost my voice.

We rocked. Hard.

When we emerged from the back of the house, Leigh, who had actually been working (state workers don’t get “half-day Fridays”), said “you play the drums loudly.” It’s true. I do. And Celia has a wicked rock star scream on vocals.

After Celia and Michele headed back into the adult world, Leigh and I tried to figure out what to do for dinner. After a couple of half-hearted tries, Leigh suggested that it might be a nice night for ice cream. We decided to venture out in search of the Girl Scout Tagalong Blizzard at Dairy Queen. We’d tried a couple of weeks ago, but they were only carrying Thin Mint. Peanut butter being the critical element, we were determined to experience this triumph of modern flavor engineering. Tonight’s adventure featured a couple of different DQs (the first one was out of peanut sauce), Friday commuter traffic (as we foolishly thought we could pop into Vancouver to visit the closest DQ there), and a walk around a park (Mt. Tabor is a beautiful park, but the people running there make someone with a Dairy Queen cup feel a little slothful).

Given the lack of refined sugar in our lives, Leigh and I ended up a little jacked up. Here is a photo montage to help illustrate:

Leigh pondering the beauty of the Blizzard

Kristin pre-sugar

Kristin mid-sugar

Kristin post-sugar

It was a good adventure.

Have you read “The Secret”? I have. All that stuff about creating your reality and manifesting your thoughts – I pretty much believe that. Not because of some fabulous riches that I’ve created in my life, no, because of the random-ass stuff that pops up when I’m not paying attention to my thoughts.

Today, on the way home from work, I stopped to by toilet paper and tea – you know, the staples. I considered whether I had all the ingredients at home to make my no-sugar super-yummy cookies, as there are currently none in the house. As I was leaving the store, I walked past what I think was a lesbian family in a Volvo station wagon. Coming from the car was a song cranked up loud on the stereo. I was mildly annoyed until I realized what I was hearing: “C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me!” It was Cookie Monster! I love him! “C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me. C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me! Oh, cookie, cookie, cookie starts with C.”

Awesome! It totally put a smile on my face as I climbed into my car singing, “cookie, cookie, cookie…”

I got home, greeted the animals and put up the toilet paper. I changed into shorts and a bikini top and headed out to level the backyard with the dirt we’d dug up this weekend at our work party. It was an awesome day – 90 degrees, and in the shade at 5PM, it was glorious! Shovel in hand, I was still singing about cookies.

Then I smelled it…

Not a mile from the house there’s a Kraft/Nabisco plant. They make Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and Keebler cookies. That assessment is based on the smells that come wafting by every time they fire up the plant. Sometimes, there’s cheesy goodness on the air. Other times, it’s the Elves and their cookies that you can smell. Today, as I shoveled, the Elves taunted me.

I was good this morning. There were brownie samples at the bagel place, AND I DIDN’T HAVE ANY. For a recovering sugar addict, that’s a big thing.

Smelling what I imagined to be vanilla sandwich cookies, you know, the rectangular ones, I cursed the Keebler Elves. Usually I’m a fan of elves, but these bastards were just being cruel. It was like I was Charlie Buckett living in the shadow of Mr. Wonka’s factory, ONLY THERE’S NO GOLDEN TICKET.

After about 30 minutes the Elves were done, or the wind shifted, or I became immune to the sugary smell. I finished the yard work and headed inside to cook dinner. The Elves could taunt me, but they couldn’t break me. I have my cookies, my beautiful, wonderful cookies – and they don’t have uber-processed sugar or preservatives. I considered making a batch tonight. Sadly, however, I spent three hours playing Rock Band instead. I bet elves make that game, too.