Lime and coconut….

Sounds like a tropical party! Lime just adds the perfect amount of zest and fragrance to cookies, I LOVE it! I just never seem to have any limes in my house. However, last thursday I had two juicy limes in my house just begging to be used up. I made these Lime, Coconut, and White Chocolate oatmeal cookies and brought them for my last day on the Coronary Care Unit (CCU). They were gone by noon, it was crazy! Everyone highly approved…so you should make them too some time =)

Lime Coconut and White Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies (the recipe is copied into my little recipe binder and I have no idea where I originally got it…oops!)

1/2 C brown sugar
2/3 C white sugar
1/2 C unsalted butter – room temp
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
zest of 1-2 limes ( I just used 1…zesting is hard!)
couple drops of fresh lime juice
1/4 tsp salt (omit if using salted butter)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 C AP flour
1 1/4 C oats
~ 3/4 C coconut
~ 1 C white chocolate chunks

Preheat oven to 375 degrees farenheit.

Cream butter with the sugars. Then add the egg and vanilla. Finally, add lime zest and juice, mixing briefly.

In a seperate bowl, combine salt, baking powder, baking soda, and flour. Add this to the wet ingredients, mixing just until blended. Then add oats, chocolate, and coconut.

Bake for about 10-12 minutes. I made 36 cookies.

Squash time.

It seems like this year summer just sort of took a time out, and before you know it…frost was upon us. Where did fall go? FALL IS NO WHERE TO BE FOUND! Fall’s not supposed to include frost, and cold, and a chance of flurries!

…oh wait, we live in Alberta.

However, the pseudo-autumn season does bring along it’s harvest of squash. I have an acorn squash, a spaghetti squash, and tonnnns of zucchini just waiting to be cooked! We have several zucchini from my garden, begging to be used…so I thought I’d bake with them too. SUCH a good idea! This is the first of hopefully a few recipes to be posted about zucchinis in baking. It sounds weird, yes? But think about carrot cake…that’s kind of weird-sounding too! But delicious! These chocolate zucchini brownies bake up moist, cakey, and satisfying. You can’t taste any zucchini, but it gives it some lightness, so you don’t feel so gross after eating brownies. I also calculated the calories – 160 per bar! And they make fairly big bars too! So put your zucchinis to good use and make some of these suckers.

Chocolate Zucchini Brownies (Recipe adapted from Food Finery – from two peas and their pod)
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1 cup All-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup cocoa
2 cups shredded zucchini
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 cup chocolate chips
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 9 x 11 baking pan with cooking spray, set aside.
2. In a stand mixer, combine sugar, canola oil, and flour, combine until mixture resembles wet sand. While mixing, on low, add cocoa, zucchini, vanilla extract, salt and baking soda. Mix until well combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.
3. Pour brownie batter into prepared pan and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean and the brownies are set.
4. Cool on a wire rack. Cut brownies into squares and serve. I cut them 4×6 and got 24 brownies

What the world needs now…is cookies, sweet cookies.

This past weekend, I was on friday/sunday call. Now, for those people who don’t know what that means…it means that I was working in the hospital, from 8 AM Friday morning, to 11 AM Saturday morning. I got one hour of sleep. And then…back to work Sunday 8 AM to 11 AM Monday morning. Needless to say, I was a little sleep deprived, and a whole lot of grumpy. So to offset the grumpiness, I made cookies after my nap on saturday afternoon. And yum, these cookies were good!!

I brought them to work and shared them with the nurses on sunday, and my team on monday. Unfortunately, the original recipe called for peanut butter chips, which I thought I had…but didn’t actually. So I substituted and put in toffee chips and more chocolate chips! Delicious variation, though I may try to original way with pb chips eventually.

Chewy Brownie Peanut Butter Chip Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 cups all purpose flour (I substituted for 1 C whole wheat, 1 C all-purpose)
2/3 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar (I used about 2/3 cup sugar)
2/3 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups combo of chocolate chips and peanut butter chips*or chopped up peanut butter cups (I used 1/2 cup of toffee chips, and 1 cup of combo of chopped dark chocolate and chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 350F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt.
In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugars until fluffy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. With the mixer on low, beat in the flour mixture, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary, and continue to beat until all of the dry mix has been incorporated. Do this slowly to avoid dusting your kitchen with flour and cocoa. Stir in chocolate/toffee by hand.
Drop dough by rounded tablespoons onto the prepared baking sheet (dough balls were a bit larger than 1 inch in diameter). Leave about 2 to 3-inches between cookies to allow for spread.
Bake for 9-11 minutes, until cookies are set at the edges and tops are slightly cracked looking. Cool on baking sheet for 5-10 minutes, until firm enough to transfer to a cooling rack.
Cool completely before storing in an airtight container.
Makes about 4 dozen. (I got 46 cookies)

DELICIOUS!

Life in Lloyd

Hello friends!

I’ve been shipped out to Lloydminster for 2 months for my rural family rotation. It’s about a 2.5 hour drive from Edmonton. Lloydminster is not quite rural, but not really a big city either. I don’t count it as rural when there’s a big superstore, walmart, and 3 tim hortons! It’s nice out here…RPAP has set me up in a little house. I have my own bedroom, ensuite bathroom and closet…and most importantly a big kitchen! I think I might suffocate if they put me in a place without a kitchen.

There’s not a whole lot to do out in a small town. But I played cricket for the first time last week. It was fairly embarrassing, as to be expected. Ball-sports and I don’t get along very well. But I didn’t get hit in the head, thankfully. I also discovered that I have the food network. And I hauled along my waffle maker amongst other things. I’ve been baking a couple times for the nurses in Emerg. They are all really friendly and don’t complain about the cookies and muffins =)

Here’s one of my go-to muffin/cupcake hybrid recipes. I love this recipe. You can use it in a pinch, when you want to make something fast but have run out of eggs. Or if you only have one banana left and it’s rapidly deteriorating so you can’t eat it OR make banana bread. Or just make it when you feel like because they’re moist and delicious.

Chocolate Banana Muffins (adapted from theppk.com)
Ingredients
3/4 cup sugar (I used 1/2 cup packed brown sugar, 1/4 cup granulated sugar)
1/4 cup applesauce + 1 tbsp oil (original recipe uses 5 tbsp butter – but they are so much healthier this way and super moist!)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 banana, mushed well
1 cup flour (I use 1/2 AP and 1/2 whole wheat)
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk (original calls for soy milk, but I didn’t have any on hand and regular is fine)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350.

Combine applesauce, oil, sugars, and vanilla extractin a large bowl, mix well. Add banana, stirring well to combine. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cup and level with a knife. Combine flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt, stirring well with a whisk. Add flour mixture to sugar mixture alternately with 1/2 cup milk, beginning and ending with flour mixture; mix after each addition.

Spoon the batter into 12 muffin cups lined with paper liners. (I used my new silicone muffin cups which works great, and then you save cupcake lines and don’t have to grease any cupcake tins) Bake for 20 minutes or until cupcakes spring back easily when touched lightly in the center. Allow to cool, and frost if desired.

I just spread peanut butter on top of these suckers and they are absolutely lovely. You could make a fancy peanut butter frosting, or a peanut butter cream cheese frosting. But with just peanut butter, I can pretend that they’re healthy. ENJOY!

Not living at home means I have to cook for myself. It’s been fun, but also time-consuming and takes some creativity when you’re only cooking for one person. I always used to like to make big batches of stuff in baking, but when I make normal portions for meals I end up eating too much and still have leftovers. It’s tricky! One of the things that I have found myself a fan of: spaghetti squash. Such a cool little squash, that one is.

All you do is slice it in half, pop it in the microwave for 15-20 minutes in a bowl with some water, and then pull out the shreds with a fork comme ca:

It totally does look like spaghetti! I wouldn’t say the texture is the same. It’s crunchier. But it’s a really healthy substitute and easy to make too. Then just whip up whatever sauce you want. I just stirfried veggies and junk and added some pasta sauce:

Then toss it into your spaghetti squash, and voila! Yummy and fast! If you want, you can even put it back into the shell, sprinkle cheese on top and bake it. But I’m too lazy and hungry for that…

I just use my *heart* Magic Bullet *heart* to whip up all sorts of smoothies to go with it. My freezer is full of bags of frozen fruit. Mangoes, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries. I love love love it.

So Lloyd’s treating me pretty well so far. Although I miss Edmonton a little. I definitely miss all my friendsies. And I miss the shopping! And I miss my double oven. <3

Happy Chinese New Years!

It was Chinese New Years this long weekend. And Family Day today. And Valentine’s Day yesterday. AND reading week (for those in university who are NOT in their clerkship /sniff) How many holidays can you pack in a week?!?

So in all this excitement, baking was indeed necessary. We just finished our obstetrics and gynecology rotation this friday, which didn’t leave a whole lot of time for baking! But to say farewell to the LDRP nurses, I made some special cookies for them =)

Brownie Rollout Cookies(From smitten kitchen)
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup cocoa powder

Preheat oven at 350 degrees. Whisk dry flour, salt and baking powder in bowl and set aside. Mix butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla and cocoa in mixer. Gradually add flour mixture, and mix until smooth. Wrap in plastic and chill for at least one hour. (I chilled them overnight and baked them the next morning to bring in fresh to the hospital)

Roll out cookie dough on floured counter (make sure to flour the counter pretty well, otherwise these get sticky!). Cut into desired shapes – I used maple leafs in honour of the Winter Olympics, little hedgehogs, some cupcake-shaped (LOVE MY CUPCAKE COOKIE CUTTER), and some hearts). There may be extra flour from the floured counter, this doesn’t matter – just brush what you can of the extra deposits of flour off the top. Bake on a parchment-lined baking sheet for 8 to 11 minutes (the former for 1/8-inch thick cookies, the latter for 1/4-inch cookies) until the edges are firm and the centers are slightly soft and puffed.

Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Decorate as you wish! Or use them for ice cream sandwiches. I melted mint-meltaways of various colours for the decorations on top. Mint and chocolate always go well together! Or leave them plain – they’re just as good that way!

I decorated some of them for Chinese New Years with Chinese characters! They say “spring festival” “tiger” (it’s the year of the tiger this year) “Good fortune to you” and “Happy New Year”.

Next I made a Skor cake for Amol for the last little stretch of Haitian Bake Sale. Thank you guys for your support =) My little bake sale has made over $340!
Yum yum. I made a 3 layer chocolate cake, added two layers of chocolate frosting, chopped up skor bar in between, and a vanilla whipped cream frosting to go between the layers as well as on top of the cake. Mmmmmm….diabetes. Delicious diabetes.

And finally, for the Chinese New Year’s Party, I made some chocolate covered strawberries!
Melt chocolate in a double boiler, I diluted it with some oil. Then I decorated with white chocolate.

Happy holiday-mania-week everyone!

Bake-bake-bake

I’ve felt so bad toting around my cupcake carrier when I see my celiac classmates. I feel like I’m waving it in their faces. HAHA NO CUPCAKES FOR YOUUUU. =(

So it made me oh-so-happy when Michael ordered some Gluten-Free baked treats for Kaitlin! So happy that I went out and bought some GF oat flour from Planet Organic:

I made these little Chocolate Cupcakes with that oat flour! When whisking it together, I didn’t feel like they’d be chocolatey enough. So I added about 1/2 cup of mini chocolate chips. WHOA CHOCOLATE EXPLOSION! They’re somewhere halfway between cupcake and brownie. And have a more hearty texture because of the oat flour. And they’ll rise up in the oven, but then fall when you open it b/c of the lack of gluten. But aren’t they pretty when you add some simple white chocolate to the top?

Here’s the recipe (with my alterations):
1/2 cup soy milk
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 1/4 cup oat flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 shortening
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line cupcake tin with paper liners.
Combine oat flour, sugar, baking powder, cocoa, and salt in a bowl.
(Now this step says to combine the soymilk and vegan shortening in a bowl and mix. This did not work out very well for me, so I basically added them in separately)
Mix these together with the dry ingredients. Stir until blended. I added the mini chocolate chips at this point! And then bake for about 17-20 minutes (I may have underbaked these a tad). Let cool. Decorate how you want! I just wanted them to be simple on top since I already overloaded them with chocolate, but if you didn’t put chocolate chips in, you might consider a chocolate frosting. Or a vanilla frosting.

And for fun, I made little poop-drops. Hahaha or at least that’s what they look like to me. These are tasty, but not exactly the most aesthetically appealing. I think I’ll omit the chocolate chips and use a prettier star-tip pastry bag if I ever make them again. I didn’t use the star tip because I was afraid the chocolate chips would get stuck inside!

Chocolate Chip Meringue Drops (adapted from allrecipes.com)
* 2 egg whites
* 1/2 cup white sugar
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (make sure it’s real vanilla extract, I’ve been told the artificial one has gluten!)
* 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
* 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 250 degrees F (120 degrees C). Line 2 baking sheets with aluminum foil or parchment paper, and set aside.
2. In large bowl, beat the egg whites on high speed with an electric mixer until soft peaks form. (just like with the last meringue recipe! Whip it good!) Gradually add sugar while continuing to beat until they hold stiff peaks. Mix in the vanilla and cocoa on low speed, then fold in chocolate chips by hand. Drop small mounds of the mixture onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing 1 inch apart. Dropping them on the baking sheet would probably have made actual cookies instead of poop-piles, but I had more fun my way
3. Bake for 1 hour in the preheated oven. Turn off oven, and leave the cookies in the oven for 2 more hours, or until centers are dry. Remove from pan and store in an airtight container. I just baked them for an hour or so and then left them in the oven overnight.

Et voila! POOP!

Sneakpeak into Baking for Haiti!

Thank you so much to everyone who’s been placing order and making comments!! I kept myself busy this weekend and broke in my brand-spanking-new double oven…

Look at that beauty:

Peanut butter cookies…

Chocolate bundt cake with cream cheese tunnel…

This chocolate bundt cake looked DELICIOUS! There’s a layer of cream cheese filled with mini-chocolate chips inside. But this cake went to Daisy and Chris, so I don’t have a picture of the inside. You’ll just have to trust me on it. Or make it yourself and see! =)

Chocolate Tunnel Cake (Adapted from twopeasandtheirpod.com)

3 c. flour
2 c. sugar
1/2 c. cocoa
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 c. water
2/3 c. oil (I used 1/3 C oil and 1/3 C applesauce)
2 T white vinegar
1 T vanilla extract

For the filling:
11 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 egg
1/3 c. sugar
1 c. mini chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. For the cake: Combine flour, sugar, cocoa, soda, salt in a large bowl.
3. Add water, oil, vinegar, and vanilla. Mix until combined.
4. Pour half of the batter in a greased 10″ bundt pan.
5. Mix together filling ingredients.
6. Spread filling over the batter and top with remaining batter.
7. Bake for 50-55 minutes.
8. Cool and serve!

I topped this with some chocolate sauce, which was also used to dip the red velvet hihat cupcakes!

…What red velvet hihat cupcakes?
Oh. these ones:

SO MANY CUPCAKES! There are the chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes that I also made on NYE. And the red velvet cupcakes, both with plain cream cheese (well, I shouldn’t call them plain. Cream cheese frosting is ALWAYS yummy!) and hi-hat style! (a trick I learned from Clara, at I Heart Cuppycakes).

It’s not too late to get in on the baking-action. I have lots of orders left, and am willing to take more! You can review the rules on what exactly is going on with this e-bake sale and let me know. And comment on that post, even if you don’t want baked things!

To froth or not to froth?

I let people in my rotation make requests about baked goods. Mike requested Meringue cookies and German Chocolate Cake. Haven’t gotten to the german chocolate cake yet, but it’s on my never-ending “to bake” list. Anyways, that’s not the point. The point is Meringue. Oh Meringue. Delicious. Not completely calorie-laden. And oh so tricky =(

The thing about meringue is the beating. You need to whip it good. Whip it long and hard. Okay I’ll stop there.

But seriously. This is what happened with take one, when I thought my handy, trusty kitchenaid mixer would do the trick. I think the bowl was too big and the mixer too high up to truly reach the eggs unfortunately. And so I waited for frothing:

And waited…

yeah no =(

So it didn’t work. And I was sad and slightly disheartened. But resolved to making these cookies nonetheless! So I started with a fresh pair of egg whites, a different bowl, and my handmixer instead. Ahhhh…so THIS is what it’s supposed to froth like!

Meringue is somewhat like a tiny miracle. Two little eggwhites, some cream of tartar, some salt, and some icing sugar. And BAM! ALL THAT MERINGUE! I used a large star tip to make pretty patterns (because meringue ghosts like on 101cookbooks is not exactly in season right now). Since they weren’t as high up as the ghosts, I got about 25-26 cookies. So remember when you’re beating to just keep on going, b/c you’ll need to have nice stiff meringue that makes a lot of cookies. I dipped the bottoms in dark chocolate and white orange chocolate.

Meringue Cookies (Adapted from 101cookbooks.com)

It is important to let your egg whites come to room temperature, this will help you get the most volume. Also, make sure all your bowls, whisk, etc are spotlessly clean and free of any grease.

2 egg whites, room temperature
tiny pinch of salt
tiny pinch of cream of tartar
3/4 cup powdered sugar, sifted

1 dark chocolate bar, melted (optional)

Preheat oven to 200F, racks in the middle.

Get everything ready ahead of time. Line a baking sheet with parchment or a Silpat mat. Set up your pastry bag in a tall empty glass to make it easier to fill. Have a spatula on hand.

Place the egg whites, salt and cream of tartar in a large, clean mixing bowl. Start whisking the egg whites at medium speed in a large bowl with an electric mixer. This stage is all about watching and letting the egg whites tell you what to do next and you have to be nice to them to get them to transform – so avoid turning your mixer on and off. When the whites are frothy and have a bit of volume to them, start sprinkling in the sugar a bit at a time over a minute or two – leaving the mixer on the entire time.

Keep mixing (it took about 15-20 minutes). The whites will become glossy and their appearance will resemble marshmallow cream, keep going. At this point you need much more volume out of the whites, try to imagine making a dozens of cookies out of the mixture. Whisk, whisk, whisk. You will start to see the volume really start to increase, the whisk will be leaving more definitive trail in the meringue. At this point I usually gradually slow down the whisk, and see if I can lift it out of the meringue leaving a stiff structured peak. Imagine, you are going to pipe this out onto the cookie sheets, so you need it to have lots of structure, if you don’t go far enough your shapes will just collapse into a puddle.

Working gently (but quickly) fill the pastry bay -or alternately, a large plastic freezer bag with the corner snipped off – using the spatula. Try to avoid lots of air pockets in the pastry bag, they make piping much more difficult. Close the bag by rolling the top down a few times. Now pipe onto the prepared baking sheets.

Place the meringue in the oven for an hour. After an hour, open the oven door an inch or two and cook for another 30 minutes. I usually touch one of them at this point, they shouldn’t be gummy or wobbly. If they are still too moist, leave them in the oven until they aren’t. Turn off the oven, and leave the meringues in there until it comes down to room temperature.
Dip in your favorite chocolate!

If you are storing them, do so in an air-tight container.

Mm mm good!

In with the new, out with the old!

So I lied when I said there’d be enough time in clerkship to post recipes constantly. I realize it’s been 3 months since I last posted. Oopsy daisy…

Good thing it hasn’t been 3 months since I last baked! Oh no, that would be a catastrophe. Unfortunately there just isn’t enough hours in the day to bake, study, wake up at 4:30AM for surgery, AND take pictures of said baking.

But it’s New Years Eve. Time to make resolutions. I will be better at posting, promise! At least one update per rotation haha. Life just passes by too fast these days. The last post I made, I was still riding high on my Pediatrics rotation, the land of happiness. Since then, I’ve already passed through surgery AND a gastroenterology elective. I have to say, it’s been a long tiring road that’s not going to end anytime soon…but it’s also been a blast. I wouldn’t trade clerkship for the world. There are times when I realize just how much I love medicine. I love learning about diseases, and diagnosing people, and helping people. So corny, but so true.

I guess I digress, this post should be about New Years Eve food. YUM! So here’s a little something to ring in 2010: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes and Ginger Oat cookies!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

These cupcakes are yummmmy. Take chocolate cupcake batter. Add cookie dough. Bake. Frost. =)

I think if I make these again, I’ll try different combinations of cookie dough and batter. And put less cookie dough. But they’re good as is! The little tiny chocolate chip cookies on the top are the same as the dough inside.

For Chocolate Cupcake: (Adapted from Martha Stewart)
1-1/2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cups unsweetened Dutch process cocoa powder
1-1/2 cups sugar
1-1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs
3/4 cup buttermilk
3 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup warm water
Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare cupcake pan with liners. Using an electric mixer on medium speed, combine flour, cocoa, sugar, baking soda, baking power and salt. Reduce speed to low and add eggs, buttermilk, oil, vanilla extract and water.
Fill cupcake liners about 1/2 full.

Then…

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough: The Chewy (adapted from Alton Brown)
• 2 sticks unsalted butter
• 2 1/4 cups bread flour (I just used AP flour)
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/4 cups brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
Heat oven to 375 degrees F.
Melt the butter in a heavy-bottom medium saucepan over low heat. Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda and set aside.
Pour the melted butter in the mixer’s work bowl. Add the sugar and brown sugar. Cream the butter and sugars on medium speed. Add the egg, yolk, 2 tablespoons milk and vanilla extract and mix until well combined. Slowly incorporate the flour mixture until thoroughly combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.
Chill the dough.

Roll the dough into small balls and put into the middle of the cupcake batter. BAKE @ 350 degrees for ~15-18 minutes. Take out and let cool.

Frost with your favorite frosting! I used a plain vanilla cream cheese frosting. And then baked those little tiny chocolate chip cookies (about 5 minutes) and put them on top for decorations!

Ginger Oat Cookies
These are my mom’s FAVORITE cookies! She love love loves the ginger taste, so we add TRIPLE the amount of ginger that the original recipe calls for. It adds a nice little punch to these crunchy guys. Crystallized ginger, freshly chopped ginger, and ground ginger. How can you go wrong?

GEORGIE HENDERSON’S GINGER OAT COOKIES
Makes 34 cookies (I got 40 cookies)

3/4 cup (175 mL) white sugar
8 ounces (225 g) margarine (or butter)
1 cup (250 mL) all-purpose flour
2-1/2 cups (625 mL) quick oats
Pinch of salt
2 tablespoons (30 mL) hot water
1 tablespoon (15 mL) golden syrup
1/2 teaspoon (2 mL) baking soda
2 heaping teaspoons (10 mL) ground ginger (I used a tablespoon of ground ginger, a 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh ginger, and 3 little discs of crystallized ginger – didn’t really measure that accurately! just toss it in!)

Preheat oven to 350 F (180 C).

In a large bowl, cream sugar and margarine until light. Add flour, oats and salt.
In a small bowl, mix water, syrup and soda. Stir into biscuit mixture along with the ginger.
Roll teaspoons of the dough into small balls and place on a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Flatten with a fork a couple times so they are flat. Bake 15 to 20 minutes. Cool on rack.

Enjoy! Hope everyone has a wonderful 2010. I’ve had a great 2009 filled with new learning experiences. There’s been plenty of shame-based and hands-on learning, new adventures had in Mexico, China, Spain, Portugal, France, and Las Vegas, old drama, new discoveries…and wonderful friends the whole way along. I love you all. <3