Vegan Peanut Butter Wheatgerm Cookies

ByElizabeth

These cookies are loosely inspired by the peanut butter cookies from the Joy of Cooking because those were my first peanut butter cookies.

1.  Soften a half cup of vegetable shortening (preferably organic), then cream with 1/4-1/2 cup of sucanat (sweeten to taste).  Beat in 1/2 cup agave nectar or maple syrup.  Add in equivalent of one egg of either “egg replacer” or flax seed emulsified with water.  Cream in peanut butter (make sure the peanut butter is organic; creamy works best in this recipe as they are crumbly cookies), a dash of salt, and a 1/2 tsp of baking soda.

2. Mix together 1/2 cup whole wheat flour and 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour.  Then mix the combined flours into the wet ingredients until well combined.

3.  Blend in 1/2 cup of toasted wheat germ (flax seed meal or a combination also would work).

4. Chill the dough for at least 1/2 hour for best results.  Lightly grease a cookie sheet while the dough is chilling.  Shape the dough into walnut sized balls (or make them smaller, but shorten the cooking time).  Make an indentation with your thumb to flatten slightly.  The dough will rise and the thumbprint will disappear during the baking process, leaving a smooth, round pillow of a cookie.

5.  Depending on your cookware and whether you have convection (needs lower temperature) or conventional oven, bake at 335F-375F.  Starting from a cool oven (many baked goods are fine without the oven preheating; to save energy, try to start baking with something that doesn’t mind starting in a cool oven and then baking several items at the same time to take advantage of the already heated oven), bake for 15-20 minutes, depending on whether the oven was hot already, until golden.

6.  THIS IS IMPORTANT:  these cookies crumble very easily when first taken out of the oven.  Leave them to cool for at least 15 minutes on the cookie sheet before transferring directly to a plate.

Variations:  any nut or seed butter.  Hemp would be particularly good, as would almond.

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    Thanksgiving Day Yoga Practice to Benefit Oxfam (Web Version of Email Invitation)

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    Dear Friends,

    I hope this email finds you as well as possible under your personal circumstances.  Here, up front, are the details for the Thanksgiving Day fundraiser.  A longer story follows, if you want to scroll down and read it.  I hope many of you who will be in town can make it, and I wish all the healthiest, most joyous, delicious, and abundant holiday you can have:

    Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 28, 2013. 11th Annual Thanksgiving Day Fundraiser for Oxfam. 

    Location:  William Penn House, 515 East Capitol Street, SE, Washington, DC  20003.

    Time:  10:00 a.m.-11:15 a.m.

    Yoga Details:

    • All levels class.  Just how we will align and flow to get the energy moving and supporting us will depend on who comes and how many, but be sure that it will be designed to be simultaneously soothing and energizing to help you bring your best self to the formal start of the winter holidays.  Alternatives will be provided for those working with challenges of embodiment.  Advanced variations may also be offered to expand the experience of the abundance of the day.
    • For Most Ages–Children old enough to pretty much stay on their own yoga mat and enjoy trying the grown up poses–depends on the child–are welcome, and then it’s  all ages up from there.
    • Props.  We have plenty of blocks, straps, and chairs; a modest supply of blankets; and a limited number of loaner mats.  Please bring your own mat if you have one and any other props you may need (such as multiple blankets).  Donations of your no longer used props are welcome.

    Benefit for Oxfam:  Suggested donation $20.  As in most of the previous years I have offered this class, I will collect checks made out directly to Oxfam, America (preferred over cash); even better, you could make an on-line donation before the class.  I will then forward 100 percent of the proceeds to Oxfam, America.  I also will match any individual donations over $20 up to $200.  As always, the amount is suggested; what is within your means is a sufficient amount.

    No Advance Registration.  Just show up at the door.  Though I enjoy the spontaneity of teaching whoever appears, the more the advance knowledge of who and how many plan to attend, the better I can design the class to suit more of your needs and desires, so I welcome your letting me know by replying to this email, sending me a private message, or by liking and then commenting on the Rose Garden Yoga page on Facebook.

    This is the 11th year for this yoga practice.  The first time I offered this practice, I was mostly through the year-long teacher training then at Willow Street Yoga and teaching at a studio on the Hill that has long since moved and reconfigured itself.  My initial intention was to remind myself (and anyone else who wanted to share and listen) that one of the most effective ways to kindle appreciate for the abundance in one’s own life is to commit an act of generosity (even if one that is relatively modest and also provides benefits to the giver).

    These are, for so many I know and for countless more I only read about in the news, challenging and unrestful or even unimaginably painful times.  I am thankful that my resources are sufficiently abundant that I can draw on the practices and work and community and creative pursuits of various sorts (including here cooking and gardening, though perhaps those would go under practices, too) to find my soul, to reconnect with my inner strength, and remember how much good I have in my life.

    Being able to share the yoga with friends old and new with a shared intention to be generous to ourselves and others and make our thanks giving that much more nurturing and powerful a holy day certainly is on my gratitude list for this holiday season.  Come join us at William Penn House on Thanksgiving morning or for the regular Tuesday night practice (100% of student donations go to benefit the work camp program run by William Penn House).  If the current limits of time, space, or circumstance make not possible sharing the yoga face to face, do please still be in touch.

    Peace and light,

    Elizabeth

    Thanksgiving puja

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    In terms of aligning with the world arounds us and the cycles of our own body-mind, when we are sensitive to what will best serve our own self while having the least impact on the environment, we are practicing ahimsa, in other words, “opening to grace.”  How does practicing ahimsa by behaving mindfully incorporate many aspects of the Anusara first principle of opening to grace? Opening to grace, as a practice principle, invites us to be open, sensitive, spacious, and radically affirm what is so that we can expand, shift, and serve ourselves and others in the best way possible under the circumstance. To be open in this way, try not to rage at the heat–or whatever is your weather. Soften, listen, and mindfully discover how you can live at your fullest, kindest, and most generous with what you cannot change.

    When the temperature soars above 95F for days in a row, it is an act of violence to rage against it or to consume outrageous amounts of fossil fuels to cool our businesses and homes enough to wear warm clothes, sleep under blankets, cook and eat hot foods, or do an athletic asana practice or workout (lest we feel that we are not fulfilling some externally motivated personal notion of fitness–having external notions of how we should look, act govern us without accepting the actual situation is its own form of violence against ourselves) that we would not do if we could not artificially cool our environment.

    Perhaps I have no call to speak on this: my central air conditioning is on, though I’ve been keeping it between 78-82F and I have been moving, dressing, and eating in a way that honors the fact that those temperatures are as cool as it is going to be until the heat wave breaks. Some might argue that using any air conditioning or even an electric fan or a refrigerator is doing excessive harm to the environment. That may in fact be true, but asking for more than we can do just makes things seem impossible, and then we are less likely to make any shift at all.

    Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

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