There’s something about the simplicity of iced tea that makes it perfect for summer. Whether you go the slow route of making it on the porch in a ray of sun, or if you boil a few bags of Lipton on the stovetop and shove in as many ice cubes as a pitcher will hold, it’s one of those simple, very good things.

One summer when I was growing up it was the best treat to make a glass of iced tea with fresh mint and vanilla syrup. I would putter around the yard with my own vague intentions, usually holing up somewhere to read, while my parents made actual headway in the garden or in yardwork or house repairs. Some days I’d be called to scrub down the porch, water the plants, wash the windows. Other days I would be the sole picker of what seemed like endless rows of green beans.

One summer we had so many green beans that we ran out of buckets to keep them in, and so dumped the whole lot in the bathtub. I lobbied for less green beans every year, but it wasn’t until this bumper crop that we started to scale down our planting.

Another summer we repainted the porch. An immense job, it started with much sanding and scrubbing, several incidents with the spray hose and too much indecision over what color would be best. Mama finally settled on an incredibly deep burgundy, an almost bloody crimson.

I was painting while they were doing some other work around the farm, relishing the long smooth brushstrokes over the wooden planks of the porch. At that time I had the most incredible long hair. Unruly, yes, but long and soft and brown with streaks of honey gold. I wore it down most of the time, and on this day when I was painting our porch with durable outdoor-strength red paint I let a few stray locks fall forward and into the paint can. Where they sunk. And soaked.

I raised up my head and watched, horrified, as a good third of my hair dripped like something out of a slasher film, remembering the words on the paint can that this stuff wasn’t water soluble.

I’ve always been pretty good at reacting efficiently under pressure. In about a minute in a half I had run to the water hose to rinse it off, with no avail. I’d gone inside, to try a little soap and more water, smearing the bathroom sink in the process. And by the time I made my way frantically back outside to the porch my parents had returned to find their only daughter, screaming and in tears, with a terrifying mess of bloodred goop all over her head.

Needless to say, there was a bit of a communication gap about what was actually happening.

After a moment of panic, my mother realized I had not in fact sustained a massive head injury, and set about rinsing my hair with turpentine. After every trace of red was scrubbed out, we probably put the painting away for the day and sat down with a few calming glasses of iced tea. That’s just how things usually turned out.

Simplicity. It trumps everything, every time. It wins out over complexity and shines through in memories. It is fresh in the face of daily dramas, too many engagements, too few opportunities to sit and really taste.

Here’s wishing you a happy and simple Memorial Day weekend. Fill it with sun, good drinks, and memory-making.

Cardamom Mint Sweet Iced Tea

½ c. water

2 heaping Tbsp. raw honey

1 tsp. powdered cardamom

handful of fresh mint

3 bags organic oolong tea, or your favorite black variety

I made my tea in an infuser-style pitcher out on the porch in the sun, but you can make yours however you prefer. This is the first step: make the tea.

While the tea is cooling, heat the water in a small saucepan until boiling. Lower the heat and dissolve the heaping spoonfuls of honey in the hot water. Stir in mint and cardamom and cover to steep.

To make the sweet iced tea, mix together 1-2 Tbsp. of simple syrup with a glass of tea, fill with ice, and garnish with lemon slices and another stem of mint. Enjoy on a porch somewhere. If it’s painted red I hope you’ll think of me and laugh.

It was easy. I used this excellent recipe from Wellness Mama, tweaked to my personal taste. Grinding herbs and powders in my mortar and pestle made me feel very witchy, like the mysterious-gypsy-herbalist-with-a-cabin-in-the-woods that I wish I was.

I’m keeping my powder in a little glass jar in our vanity cupboard in the bathroom. When it’s time to brush my teeth, I simply wet my toothbrush and dab it in a little of the powder, and scrub away. It really makes my teeth feel clean, and my mouth fresh. Don’t be alarmed when the Bentonite Clay turns your toothbrush and your sink brown — yes, it tastes a bit like dirt — because it all washes right out.

Re-mineralizing Tooth Powder

4 Tbsp. Bentonite Clay

3 Tbsp. Calcium Magnesium powder

1 Tbsp. baking soda

2 Tbsp. powdered mint leaf

1 Tbsp. cinnamon powder

In a mortar and pestle, grind nine Calcium Magnesium tablets into a fine powder. Combine in a bowl with clay, baking soda, cinnamon and powdered mint leaf. (You can order powdered mint leaf online. I had some dried mint from last summer’s balcony garden harvest, so I ground that up in my mortar and pestle and saved a little cash in the meantime.)

I mentioned that the clay tastes a bit like dirt, and it does, but in the most pleasant, earthy way. The flavors of the cinnamon and the mint help make the powder feel a little more like using regular toothpaste, but with a subtle flavor.

This is one of many small changes I’ve been making in my efforts to simplify and green-ify my home and beauty products. This tooth powder joins homemade deodorant, oil cleansing, homemade laundry detergent and citrus vinegar wash, plus the hunt to find the perfect non-toxic mascara.

That herby witch cabin in the woods gets nearer to reality every day…

With our first, I hadn’t a clue what to expect. But as with most every occasion I went with my default — food.

At the store I bought an expensive load of groceries, much fancier than our usual fare. White hydrangeas and a couple bottles of wine, a flat of raspberries like wee garnets, three pounds of sirloin. When I brought them home and unloaded it all I proceeded to exercise the love language I know how to best express.

First things first: the beginning stages of Julia Child’s classic boeuf bourguignon. Dicing beef, frying bacon, browning batches of the meat, four minutes in the oven, stirring, four minutes in the oven, then pouring with reckless abandon from a bottle of red wine (“young and fullbodied”). In goes a faggot of savory herbs, some crushed garlic cloves, tomato paste and homemade beef broth, to be sealed with the meat and wine in a hot oven at a moderate temperature, emerging three hours later full of steam and juices and rich aromas.

Then wrapping tiny smoked oysters in strips of bacon, to slowly crisp up alongside the boeuf for our appetizer course, and clipping away the spiny leaves of the artichokes I picked up on a whim.

Whipping plumes of powdered sugar and vanilla into coconut cream, caramelizing pearl onions and shiitake mushrooms, arranging a cheese course with sliced radishes, pouring champagne. All steam and heat and crumbs akimbo, my apron over my dress and a scarf keeping my hair back from my face.

I like to do this dance alone in the kitchen, where I’m free to time the next act in accordance to the thousand little measurements taken with a taste here, a skillet toss there.

In the end I am the master of the symphony, solely responsible for the failure or the success of my creation. My favorite solitary task means little if it can’t be shared. And so at the end of my conducting, all there was in the kitchen was a plate of stew, low candles, the hydrangeas I’d bought and the yellow daisies he gave me, a crust of bread, a satisfied sigh.

All the work is nothing without that sigh. If what I create doesn’t satisfy hunger it is meaningless — not just a physical emptiness to be quenched with something to chew, but a deeper hunger of connection, of warmth, of love in the tangible form of something delicious.

My wish for my marriage is simple: May we always be hungry, and always be able to feed each other well, wholesomely.

Artichokes with Herbed “Aioli”

2 whole fresh artichokes

peppercorns, a bay leaf, a whole garlic clove

2 Tbsp. mustard

1 Tbsp. grassfed ghee (clarified butter)

1 tsp. coarse sea salt, fresh black pepper

1 Tbsp. champagne vinegar

generous handfuls of whatever fresh herbs available

extra virgin olive oil

In a food processor, combine the mustard, ghee, seasonings, vinegar and herbs into a smooth paste. Any herbs would be excellent here, but I used a few fistfuls of flat-leafed parsley, thyme, French tarragon (my favorite!), and some little leaves plucked from my baby basil plant. Whizz this all together and drizzle in olive oil until smooth and emulsified.

Meanwhile, in a large pot, boil enough water to cover artichokes. Rinse artichokes under running water to dislodge any dirt from the leaves, taking care to avoid the spiny edges. Chop off the stem and about a third of the top of the artichoke, and with kitchen scissors clip the sharp leaves away.

When water is boiling, submerge artichokes, bay leaf, garlic, peppercorns and a little salt, bring back to a rolling bubble, then cover and simmer for 30 minutes, until artichoke leaves are tender. Drain and cool, and serve with herbed sauce for dipping.

Relish the juices running down your arm and the visceral nature of tearing at the leaves with your teeth. You can be civilized when the next course arrives.

This has been my lesson lately. All kinds of striving has been happening on my part since the beginning of the year: I’ve been trying to make new friends and keep the old, trying to make something of a career and fit self-worth in there somehow, trying to make a home in a temporary place.

Maybe the lesson here is to stop trying so hard?

Sometimes, when everything is working in concert, what seems like spinning wheels all of a sudden results in something amazing. The jumbled mess aligns in a moment to reveal one single, beautiful path. Clarity often comes after a storm, when the torrent has washed away all remaining options.

And then, sometimes, things fall apart. The falcon cannot hear the falconer. The sourdough starter wastes my time. And other such metaphors.

But you know this disappointment. The instance when you put an incredible amount of effort into achieving something great and in the final hours it crumbles before you. When friendships disintegrate. When efforts to save another human from themselves, from others, ends in nothing short of tragedy.

Not one of us can anticipate what tomorrow holds. We can neither make plans actually happen, nor can we put stake in the future with much certainty. Few things are certain: the pull of the tides to the lullaby of the moon, the inevitability of death. We are under the illusion that we have our little worlds under control.

Yet the one thing we can control is what happens in the aftermath. How we pick up the fragments of well-laid plans determines how do the next time around.

I made a from-scratch sourdough starter with freshly ground rye flour. I fed and watered it for seven days, watching as it bubbled, gently frothed, subsided and began to ripen.

I ground eight cups of flour from spelt berries and kneaded it all into my starter mixture by hand, relishing the push and pull of the sticky dough in the bowl. I shaped a mound and let it rise in a warm place overnight, and the next morning I baked with immense anticipation.

The result was hard, flat, dense, but flavorful. With a tart sourness and a nutty aroma, my bread did not yield easily to the pressure of a knife, but still managed to slice into passable tokens, vehicles for butter for a day until it became too hard to eat.

Despite the effort, the energy, the kneading and striving and the failure, it was at the very least a little bit good.

And in spite of it all I will probably try (and fail, and try and fail and try) again.

Sourdough Starter from Nourishing Traditions

8 c. freshly ground rye flour

8+ c. cold filtered water

2 large glass bowls

cheesecloth

wooden spoon

Combine 1 c. flour and 1 c. water in a large glass bowl, adding more water if necessary to make the mixture soupy. Stir with a wooden bowl. Cover with cheesecloth and set aside.

“Feed” the starter every day for seven days, adding 1 c. flour and enough water to moisten it all, always transferring the starter to a new, clean bowl. In a few days the mixture will bubble and start to smell ripe. Continue to feed for seven days, until volume has increased to three quarts.

From this soupy gloop — alive, reactive — you can make bread. If you eat bread, all the better to cut out the middleman and sustain yourself. If you don’t eat bread, like me (mostly), make this for the one you love, especially if the one you love talks about sourdough incessantly. Or take a warm loaf to a neighbor, wrapped in a cotton towel, or use a crusty round as a centerpiece for a rustic dinner. Nothing can make you feel like both a peasant and a king with such simple pleasure.

My first memory of honeysuckle is tied up in childhood. After a summer t-ball game we would wander back to the creekbed – sometimes me and a little boy with red hair and freckles, sometimes me and my best friend, whose complexion was so fair she was nearly translucent.

We’d pluck the blossoms, orange, yellow, white, pinch off the ends and suck the sweet nectar from the blooms. The carnage we left in our wake got lost in the tall grass, the poison ivy tangled up in its kinder cousin, and still there was more honeysuckle climbing up the trees beyond our reach.

The sweetness of summers then seems almost too much. Was it real? Did I wear cutoff overalls, play in the creek, roast marshmallows over a campfire, stargaze on the trampoline, fall asleep to the orchestral swell of cicadas and peepers? (Yes, I did. I wanted to be Scout from To Kill A Mockingbird.)

It all seems so far removed now, that season worth celebrating because school was out and so was the sun. It was simple — A pure season, a celebration.

Looking ahead to this summer I anticipate a little less simplicity, a little less celebration. We will take refuge from the punishing desert heat with our iced tea and our ceiling fans and everything will be burnt to a crisp. We will say goodbye to friends as they move across the country, across continents, ahead of us. We will work as hard as we can to make the future come a little faster. But in all of it I’m hoping to bring an attitude of celebration — to see the good and commendable, the commemorative in every day.

Honeysuckle Fizz

1 Tbsp. vanilla orange vodka

1 Tbsp. St. Germaine elderflower liqueur

champagne or sparkling wine, chilled

1 lemon

ice cubes

Combine the liqueur and vodka in a small glass with ice and pour desired amount of champagne over. Peel a small segment of a lemon and rub around the rim of the glass, finally nestling the peel into the glass with the cocktail. If the end result is too sweet, add fresh lemon juice and a little more champagne. I found this to be delicious with a splash of Perrier, too.

To make the vanilla orange vodka: using this suggestion, I found that making small batches of infused liquor before mixing a cocktail yields the freshest results. For this, combine a cup of Ketel One vodka in a small mason jar with a small vanilla bean, halved, and two slices of an orange. Seal tightly and store in a cool, dark place, like your spice cabinet. I let mine marinate for about four days to reach the desired flavor concentration. The vodka ended up tasting like a fiery orange creamsicle, which was exactly what I was hoping for.

How alike we are. I notice it more as I get older that I am speaking your phrases, using your laugh, gesturing with your hands (although I will never have such elegant hands as you). As a new wife, I think often of how life must have seemed when you and dad were first married, and looking at you now I hope I can be as happy, as gracious, as wise.

I think about how much I treasure our phone calls, even though half the time I’m too caught up in washing dishes or working on a project to put things down, really listen, and talk. This is the formal declaration of the end of that nonsense. Every time you exclaim with that particular note of joy in your voice when you answer the phone, I feel a stab of guilt over every time I’ve tried to do two things at once while talking to you.

Because I know how important it is to show you and to tell you, in little ways ever day, how glad I am that you’re my mother. I don’t want to dial your number one day to complain about the terrible job some dry-cleaner did or ask for advice on how to best leaven a cake only to remember that you aren’t there to call anymore. I don’t want that sinking pit in my stomach to remind me of all the times I failed to completely express my happiness at some good thing you’ve done for me, all the times I didn’t connect with you over a cup of coffee and a magazine.

For as much as you have taught me – about relationships, money, work ethic, compassion, service, dressing well, shopping for deals, driving – I still have so much to learn. You are an incredible woman with a vast store of strength inside you. Your heart is full of selflessness and optimism, and it has no rivals in capacity for love. The creativity inside you is busting at the seams, trying to get out. And I want to soak it all up.

Happy mother’s day to my mama and my friend. Thank you for being who and what you are, and for helping make me who and what I am.

— your daughter

Buckwheat Waffles with Hot Buttered Apple Chutney

If you’re lucky enough to live nearby your mother, make her some of these this weekend. You never need a reason to make waffles or to do something nice for the woman who birthed you, but thankfully Mother’s Day provides a nice excuse.

For waffles, adapted from Nourishing Traditions:

2 ½ c. freshly ground buckwheat flour

2 c. full-fat Bulgarian yogurt (or buttermilk, kefir, or acidic water)

2 egg yolks, lightly beaten

2-4 Tbsp. maple syrup

2 Tbsp. melted butter

1 tsp. sea salt

4 egg whites

2 tsp. cinnamon

Soak flour in  yogurt overnight. In the morning, mix with egg yolks, melted butter, maple syrup, salt and cinnamon. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until stiff – fold into batter gently. Pour onto a hot waffle iron and cook until crisp. If making enough for a group, keep waffles warm in an oven set to 200 degrees.

For the chutney:

4 small apples, cored and roughly chopped

2 Tbsp. butter

1 Tbsp. maple syrup

2 tsp. apple cider vinegar

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. coriander

¼ tsp. cardamom

½ tsp. ginger

¼ tsp. cloves

¼ tsp. salt

few grind of black pepper

dash of nutmeg

dash of cayenne

Melt butter in a small saucepan and cook apples, covered, over medium heat for 10-15 minutes. Apples will soften and release moisture. Reduce heat to low.

Stir in apple cider vinegar, maple syrup and spices and simmer until it make a thick paste.

Add a splash of water if more moisture is needed, or a dash of coarse mustard or mustard seeds if you’re daring.

I recently took some time off from blogging to do a little figuring out on my own, apart from this white space where I felt pressure to do and be a certain thing a certain way. There’s so much noise all around, so many things happening a million miles a minute. It’s too easy to get wrapped up in the tiny world we create for ourselves within our own head, and to go crazy from it.

But the questions and uncertainties are something to be thankful for. Just as the seasons change from one extreme to the next, just as a hyacinth up and blooms and then returns to the ground for another little lifetime, we are always shedding old skins for new.

I know some folks who are terrified of a blip in their routine. Perhaps, in their minds, change signifies death. The steady comfort of the same cup of coffee every morning, the same errands to run, the same social engagements on Saturdays may seem like a talisman. Keep practicing in kind and the pattern of living will out-smart the uncertainty of death.

I love habit, but I am also growing to love change. I think I enjoy it so much because I like to look back and see life in hindsight. The paths that seemed so twisty and difficult are revealed as a gentle curve, and I can see with clarity how one path led to another. Change in the past is what led me to my present, and change in the present is what will lead me to my future.

Just as I couldn’t imagine what the next year would bring last year, so too is the year that stretches ahead a mystery. We will move – maybe across the country, maybe to another continent – and with that will come all sorts of struggles. We will get new jobs, make new friends, travel to new spots and develop different hobbies. None of this is terrifying. But it can be unsettling.

In this in-between time, when I’m looking at the future but trying to stay firmly planted in the present, I’m relishing this unsettled feeling. I have the luxury right now to challenge what is normal for myself, to break down the expectations I made for my life and rebuild something more in line with my passions. Thus, a change in this space, a change in my voice, a change in my direction.

I spent the last month thinking about why I do the things I do and want the things I want — in many instances, it was the hypnotic pattern of routine that kept me going in a direction, not the driving force of my passions. And it was the cathartic confrontation of change that helped me to realize that.

It’s in the magic of change that we become more of who we are supposed to be. Or, as my friend says, it is often in the tight spaces where it hurts that we have more of an opportunity for growth.

So embrace it. Let go of fear and cultivate anew. Stretch and scratch and seek because there is something good waiting just below the surface.

There’s a chance that a change is just what we need.

Chopped Asparagus Salad

1 bunch asparagus, washed + trimmed

1/4 c. almonds, chopped

small sprig of fresh thyme

zest of a lemon

coarse sea salt + black pepper

1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard

2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

2 tsp. red wine vinegar (or champagne vinegar)

parmesan cheese, freshly grated

Wash asparagus and trim off woody stems – hold one end of a stalk in each hand and gently bend until it naturally snaps. In a large saucepan, heat a half cup of salted water until boiling. Lay woody stems directly in water and arrange asparagus on top so that there is no contact with the water. Cover and steam until tender, about five minutes.

Meanwhile, coarsely chop almonds and toast them in a pan over medium to low heat. Keep an eye on this, shaking the pan often to keep the nuts from scorching. When the kitchen starts to smell like browned butter, remove from heat and reserve.

Whisk together a simple vinaigrette: combine mustard, vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper in a small jar and shake to combine.

Once asparagus is steamed to desired tenderness, throw away (or compost!) woody stems and roughly chop the asparagus. Toss with toasted almonds, lemon zest, thyme and the vinaigrette. Shave parmesan over the top and serve warm.

Every month I write about some goals I want to accomplish in the weeks ahead, and recount how I did in following through in the weeks behind. I’m working on a few long-term goals for the entire year, but mostly I take it all in small steps. See my progress here. 

// APRIL //

get back into yoga — every few months I have to cycle back into this, one of my favorite activities. Once I become a regular again I always wonder why I took me so long to come back. I didn’t do this, even though I needed it. But one of the cool things about making lists of goals and things-to-do is that, gradually, I have learned to give myself grace when I don’t “accomplish” something. What’s the point of having goals if they only encourage self-loathing and frustration? Like in yoga, in life it is important to breathe through the undesirable moments and move forward into something better. For me this month, that something better meant working really hard in my weight training program and seeing big payoffs in my strength. It’s a wonderful thing to feel like a beautiful badass.

write every day — there’s lots in my head and in my heart that needs to get down on paper and not on a Word doc. To me, writing is like prayer. This month was full of it in the very best way.

take care of my skin — a few crazy breakouts lately have left me in dire need for a Skintervention. I’ve been revamping my skincare routine, and with good results, although I still need to do some tweaking to figure out the cause of some odd breakouts. I will hopefully share more about this soon if anyone is interested – thoughts?

take a break from social media + blogs — including this one. Taking a month off from blogging was hard – I missed it! – but also incredibly easy. This was exactly what I needed to do to refocus and re-prioritize. I lived for the sake of it, not because it would make a great blog post or photograph. I learned an incredible amount, went through a few hardships, pushed myself physically and emotionally…all good things. And now I’m back with a renewed purpose and plenty of excitement about what lies ahead.

// MAY //

Sew a new dress in time for our vacation — I’d like something like this - but I don’t want to spend the money or the time searching for it. Instead, I’m going to try to make my own, and I’m thinking a silk blend or linen would be nice.

Read — There are always so many books to read. I want to finish The Creative Habit, my collection of MFK Fisher essays, pick up 7 by Jen Hatmaker, and dive into some classic fiction by the likes of Eudora Welty and Ernest Hemingway.

Take a trip to the thrift store — We’re going to be moving again at the end of the summer and already I’m starting to eye useless bits and bobs around the house. I want to give some of our junk away to both prepare for the move and continue along with my ultimate goal of living with less.

Make my own toothpaste — No joke.

Visit the farmers market — Our local market should be starting up this week and I couldn’t be more excited to get my hands on some west Texas produce before the sun burns it all up in July.

What goals await you this month?

It’s usually immediately after I make some sort of pledge to be the healthiest I can be that I make cookies. I’m afflicted with some sort of temporary good-intentions-amnesia, in which I think about how nice it would be to bake something on an afternoon, then I bake something, eat three of them, and then remember, “Wait a second…”

But all this gets me thinking about what is really means to be healthy. Good health encompasses so much more than blood sugar levels and body fat – good health is a radiance from happiness, from peace of mind. Good health does not come from obsessing over calorie content or macro- and micronutrient ratios. Good health means balance and joy and mindfulness.

My idea of good health has changed significantly in the last few years. In college I was fascinated by veganism, the raw food movement, by vegetarians and the moral high road they took by eschewing animal protein. Looking back on the way I lived an ate as a sophomore, it’s no wonder I was almost always sick. I prided myself in being healthy but, in reality, I was probably malnourished. I remember once when my parents came to visit and took me out for dinner at a nice steakhouse – I ordered a ribeye and felt better after the first bite, as if the lifeblood of another creature sustained my own.

The next couple of years were a mishmash of experimentation as I lived in my first apartments and learned to cook for myself. Within this was a struggle to accept my still-changing body. I went from a rail-thin, stick-straight high school athlete to something resembling a woman, and a petite woman at that; but anyone who has all of a sudden woken up one morning to find hips that weren’t there the night before can understand my disconnect with my new shape. And so I obsessed, I worried, I researched, I dieted. That worry balled up inside of me and kept me from appreciating the smooth skin of an Arkansas Black apple, the crisp lace of perfectly cooked bacon.

Because what we eat and how has so much to do with the larger scheme of our life. It orders our day, it affects our mood, it determines how long we will live and to what degree of happiness.  Thinking about what I’m going to make for dinner now on any given night is a combination of my creativity, my family’s nutritional needs, and our emotional nourishment. Has it been a particularly hard day? I’ll reach for something savory that can stand up to a slow braise, pair it with wine, and make something decadently chocolate for dessert. Is it the start of a long-awaited weekend? We might set up a picnic in the living room with marrow bones, pate, a really nice cheese and a movie. Are we feeling a little under the weather? Nothing but homemade chicken vegetable soup will do the trick.

The thing I want to get to behind every meal, within every morsel, is that food is so much more than the vitamins and minerals that compose it. Our attitudes, our emotional associations with a dish, and how we savor certain flavors over others create this incredible tapestry of experience. This is why, when Andrew and I travel, we do our best to find the best street food or decadent restaurants. Sharing a candlelit cocktail or a greasy bite of paper-wrapped tacos in a park means a shared memory made, one with sights and smells and sensations.

Good health is being grateful at every table, no matter what is on the plate. Be it cookies, a giant salad, or a juicy ribeye, we can impart a little more health to ourselves if we slow down, appreciate, taste, and admit that it may not be so much about what we eat as how.

Gluten Free Salted Chocolate-Pretzel Peanut Butter Cookies  

Adapted ever so slightly from Oh Ladycakes

1 stick butter, softened

½ c. chunky peanut butter

½ c. maple syrup

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 egg

2 Tbsp. Bulgarian yogurt (or milk, or cream…)

¼ tsp. fine sea salt

¼ tsp. baking soda

¾ c. gluten free baking flour mix

½ c. finely ground gluten free pretzel crumbs

½ c. Enjoy Life mini chocolate chips

coarse sea salt, for topping

Speaking of how we enjoy our food, I found that these are best enjoyed in the company of another who enjoys cookies very much, perhaps with a cup of tea while the cookies are still warm. Treasure the slow moment in a busy day, relish the flavors and textures and decadence of cookies on a Tuesday for no real reason, and look back on it when you need to remember that things are good.

To make a gluten free flour mix: in a small bowl, combine 1 c. gluten free oat flour, 1 c. sweet rice flour, ¼ c. plus 1 Tbsp. arrowroot powder and sift until incorporated. Store in an airtight jar – feel free to increase the measurements proportionally to make a bigger batch for cookies, etc. I haven’t tried this mix with a cake yet, but so far it makes for a moist, crumbly cookie.

Cream together butter and maple syrup, then beat in egg, vanilla extract and yogurt. In a separate bowl, sift together salt, baking soda, gluten free flour and pretzel flour. Stir dry ingredients into wet and mix until combined; fold in chocolate chips. Dollop cookie dough onto a lined baking sheet and sprinkle a tiny bit of coarse sea salt on the top.

Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. OL recommends freezing the cookies on the baking sheet for ten minutes or so before baking, but I accidentally skipped that step on my first batch and the world didn’t end. Her cookies were, however, more uniform than mine, so take from that what you will.