Tweaking Cookie Recipes

I have tweaked my Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe again. It was better than the last four or five tweaks. Tomorrow I hope to do more tweaking on the recipe. I want to get it so good that it will win MONEY in a contest. I won't give out the recipe until I've entered it in a contest or two. I know it has ingredients that most people don't have in their home. People should start to use other things than white flour and white sugar. Those things have all the nutrients taken out of them.

This last cookie tweak I took samples to my youngest son and his sons, my grandsons, and they liked them. I hope they weren't being kind. I told them to tell me what they thought so I can change the recipe for the better.

I would like to have more time to devote to making my own recipes so I could make my own recipe book with healthier recipes. I have lots of cook books but they call for white flour and white sugar. Every time I eat white flour I end up with a headache and lots of mucus. I have to clear my throat all the time.

One ingredient I use is Buckwheat flour. It has more protein in it than white flour. It is actually good for you. I'll write more about this recipe when I have it tweaked again. This next time I'm changing the amount of the flour. I'm using the same 2 cups but I'm going to use different quantities of the different flours. Fun, fun.

When my husband comes home some days and asks whats for dinner I have to tell him I have no idea. Even though there is something cooking on the stove I have no idea what it's called. Sometimes those are good and sometimes we agree not to try it again.

Writer's DreamKit Problem

Writer's DreamKit
Write Brothers, Inc.



I purchased this software on November 22, 2008 at the Apple Store her at Penn Square Mall. It is software to help me with the writing of my story. Boy do I need help. I installed it late last night, or should I say early in the morning. As I was doing the installation, which is facilitated over the Internet, I happened to notice it said that this is a trial version. I was very upset because I paid $64.97 for this software and no where on the box or the books inside the package did it mention that this is a trial version of the software.

I sent off an email to a place that sells this software and they responded to me quickly. The problem is they have nothing to do with making the software, only selling it. They were very helpful to let me know that if I had a serial number to insert in the installation process then it is the full version. I had the serial number and typed it in where it asked for it. Even so when it was installed there was the word "trial version" at the end of the process. I had also sent an email to the company that makes the software. I haven't heard a word from them. I wonder if I will hear from them. I'm mad that I paid $64.97 for a trial version. I'm worried that if I type in all the chapters I have written on my book and this software ends suddenly then all my work will be lost.

I would like to hear from this company soon because I wanted to start using the software or get my money back. I guess if I don't hear from them I'll file a complaint with the BBB. Then I'll complain to Apple Store. Then I don't know if I should use this software or not. I guess I can look for a forum that talks about this company and its products.

Tea Time, Taxes, Tyranny

Tea Time, Taxes, Tyranny

I had written my senator an email and at the end of it I wrote, "I think it's time for a Tea Party." I wrote that about four or five weeks ago. I had no idea that other people were planning to have Tea Parties around the country. I wish I'd known about it sooner because I would have been there. When I found out I had already made an appointment for my mother's physical therapy on her hand.

I hear there will be another Tea Party starting April 1st. This Tea Party is going to be different. This Tea Party will be tea bags sent to our congressmen and women in Washington DC. They want everyone opposed to all the new taxes and spending done by the new congress, senate, and president, to send tea bags in an envelope to Washington. Address the envelope to your congressman, senator, and I think even the president needs tea. Personally I think we should send the IRS some tea also. If things don't change I'm all for dumping the tea in the Boston harbor. Maybe there is a fountain at the White House that would be a good symbol for the Boston Tea Party. We are being taxed without representation. I heard that is called Tyranny.

Civil Disobedience

U.S. Senator Says He Would Practice Civil Disobedience If Obama Repeals Abortion 'Conscience Clause'

Monday, March 02, 2009
By Josiah Ryan, Staff Writer

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) (Photo courtesy of Coburn's Web site)

(CNSNews.com) – Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who is also an OB/GYN, told CNSNews.com on Friday that many medical practitioners, including himself, will go to prison before agreeing to engage in medical practices they morally oppose, such as abortion.

Earlier that same day, the Obama administration had announced it was “reviewing” a Bush administration regulation known as the “conscience clause.” That Health and Human Services regulation protects health-care workers at federally funded institutions from having to engage in practices that violate their moral or religious beliefs. These practices include performing or referring abortions, performing sterilizations, or giving or receiving training in these practices.

Federal funding is widespread in the health care sector owing to such programs as Medicare, Medicaid, the newly expanded SCHIP insurance program for children, and the many billions in federal funds spent each year on medical research.

The Obama administration’s “review” is considered the precursor to rescinding the regulation.

“I think a lot of us will go to jail,” Coburn told CNSNews.com when asked what would happen if the administration reverses the policy. “Let’s see them prosecute the first one of us for not doing that.”

By that comment, Coburn meant that doctors, himself included, are willing to defy the law before agreeing to perform medical procedures that violate their conscience, a Coburn spokesman clarified.

Coburn spoke to CNSNews.com after he delivered a speech at the annual Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) in Washington, D.C., on Friday.


Bully for Dr. Coburn. What an awesome man. He is willing to go to jail for his values. Thank you Dr. Coburn. We do have treasure in Washington and it has nothing to do with the Treasury or with the Treasury secretary. I am so proud of Senator Coburn and I know there are millions of other people who are not from Oklahoma who are just as proud.

Let's all send Senator Coburn a great big

THANK YOU

Betrayed By A Bird

I just got bit by my parrot. It was on my thumb. The bite looks like a can opener got me. It not only hurts physically but I feel hurt emotionally. Every time she bites me I go through a feeling of being traicionado. I can't remember the word in English. After looking it up on Wiktionary I remember. I felt betrayed. Traicionado means betrayed.

traicionar Definition from Wiktionary Spanish Verb traicionar (first-person singular present traiciono, first-person singular preterite traicioné, past participle traicionado)

1. to betray

I feel betrayed. I love my parrot and she loves me but sometimes I forget she is a wild animal and if she gets scared she will bite.

I was trying to clean out a cabinet and going to remove three coffee mugs. The kind you carry in your car. I was looking at the lids for some coffee mugs and had the parrot in one hand and the lids in the other. I was going to put the lids in the hand I had my parrot in for a moment and wham, she bit me hard. I had to get her off me so I jerked her and she went to the floor. I went to the bathroom in pain. I got the alcohol and cotton and cleaned the wound. I also cleaned it with Hydrogen Peroxide and then I put an antibiotic gel on it. I cried, but it was mostly a moan from the gut.

I asked my husband to pick her up and put her in her cage. He found her climbing up the other parrots cage. He wouldn't touch her. He's been bitten by her really bad several times too.

I got a basket and picked up the parrot with it and put her in her cage. I won't touch her until tomorrow. I need to stop feeding her nuts for a while. If parrots get too much protein they get nasty. She had oatmeal, blueberries, and apple this morning. When I left the house I gave her some dried fruit. She had a chicken bone, cornbread, lettuce, tomato, pasta, potato when we ate dinner. After dinner she was wanting a nut so I gave her one. Only one. Then is when the bite happened. I shouldn't have held her in one hand and tried to pick up the lids in the same hand. It was my mistake and I paid for it dearly.

She is on a new diet with a lot less nuts and protein as of this moment. I'll have to find her something to snack on now. I got hugs from my husband and I felt better. He put a bandage on it over the ointment.

Wild animals are...wild animals. No matter how much you love them they are still wild. Reminds me of the lady who's face was torn off by the chimpanzee.

Charla Nash, the lady who recently had her face torn off by Travis the chimpanzee, made a mistake that most people make. What mistake is that? People forget that animals are not human and try to give them a human identity. The owner tried that by, well, here is part of the story about how the Chimpanzee was treated as a human.

• Conklin told reporters the chimp was acting so agitated earlier that afternoon that Herold gave him the anti-anxiety drug Xanax in some tea. Conklin also suggested the animal may have attacked Nash because she was wearing her hair differently and perhaps wasn't recognized.

I'm not sure about giving a chimpanzee Xanax. I wouldn't give a human Xanax because it's addictive. What sort of tea did Conklin give the Chimp? There are herbal teas that she could have used. I'm not a vet so I can't say what the animal's reaction to Xanax would have been. I know a vet who is studying the affect of herbs on animals. She thinks this is the wave of the future. I think she's right. Animals in the wild eat all sorts of herbs and grasses which help them when they're sick.

As far as wearing her hair differently, that is a very real possibility. When I put a band around my hair to wash my face my second parrot goes nuts. He wants to get out of his cage and come get me. I'm positive it's not to kiss me. He's looking for blood. As soon as I take off the band he calms down a bit.

• The chimpanzee was well-known around Stamford because he rode around in trucks belonging to the towing company operated by his owners.

Riding in trucks is more of a human activity not necessarily one for an animal. I don't think it hurt this chimpanzee to go around in a truck but that is not the normal life for a Chimp.

• Police have dealt with him in the past, including an incident in 2003 when he escaped from his owners' vehicle in downtown Stamford for two hours. Officers used cookies, macadamia treats and ice cream in an attempt to lure him, but subdued him only after he became too tired to resist.

Cookies, macadamia treats, and ice cream are not the normal diet for a Chimpanzee. I know I give my parrot too many things that are not what she should be eating. I need to change that but there is no way a cookie or ice cream or macadamia treat is good for any wild animal.

• At the time of the 2003 incident, police said the Herolds told them the chimpanzee was toilet trained, dressed himself, took his own bath, ate at the table and drank wine from a stemmed glass. He also brushed his teeth using a Water Pik, logged onto the computer to look at pictures, and watched television using the remote control, police said.

It sounds funny and nice to have a wild animal do all these things but this is not what a normal wild chimpanzee does every day. This is insane to have wild animals taken out of their own habitat and treated like a human being. The people who raise them think they are their children. They really love the animal. I know they do. They would never do anything to harm it.

• When he was younger, Travis appeared on TV commercials for Old Navy and Coca-Cola, made an appearance on the "Maury Povich Show" and took part in a television pilot, according to a 2003 story in The Advocate newspaper of Stamford.

I know the people who took part in these television programs thought it was cute to have a Chimpanzee do all these things. They were just doing their job or making money.

• "He's been raised almost like a child by this family," Conklin said Monday. "He rides in a car every day, he opens doors, he's a very unique animal in that aspect. We have no indication of what provoked this behavior at all."

The reason these people don't know what provoked this behavior is because they were thinking of this Chimpanzee as a human and not a wild animal. Yes, they are very smart, loving, fun, and do have many human traits. One fact remains, they are wild animals who belong with other wild animals of their kind. They need to breed, to be in their own family, and be in the wild or something as close to the wild as possible.

I hate to have my birds in a cage. They are left with the door open when possible. They are taken outside as much as possible to see and feel the out of doors. I want to have a place for them outside. They love it outside. It makes me sick to have them cooped up in this house all winter. Tomorrow and the next day will be warm enough to take them outside.

I feel sure this Chimpanzee would have loved to be outside with his own kind playing and romping about in the free open air being wild.

I don't hate the owners of wild animals because I am one. I was given my two parrots free. I would never have bought a parrot. First, because I didn't have the money and second, because the thought would never have occurred to me. You ask how did we end up with two parrots given to us free?

The story goes like this. My husband's cousin asked us to keep their parrot when it was very small, before it's feathers came in. His wife couldn't take care of the bird at that time. We kept the parrot for about three months. The bird got attached to me and so the cousin gave us the parrot. After years with the bird I knew it needed another bird to keep it company. It wanted a mate. We looked and looked for a mate for the bird. Nothing came available that would have been a good mate for her. Then one day we got a call from the bird club we belong to and they said that someone was wanting to get rid of their bird. We went to see it and they wanted us to take it home right then. We took the bird home and never heard from the owner again. I called the owner myself and told them it was doing fine. Now we have two parrots who were given to us free.

The second bird is a screamer. He has finally stopped screaming so much but he is not a mate for the first bird. It took him about three years to stop screaming so much. I think it was how I was reacting to him when he screamed and how his previous owner treated him when he screamed that kept it going for so long. Birds are conditioned by their environment and it's hard to change that conditioning. Birds love drama and if you react to something they do they will continue to do it. F O R E V E R. Or nearly forever. At least these two parrots keep each other company when I leave the house for a few hours. I hear them making noises to each other but they haven't fallen in love.

Actually my birdie betrayal is not really betrayal because these animals love differently than humans love. Birds will kill their own babies sometimes. I've seen cats kill baby kittens too. I think it was a wild male cat that killed a litter of kittens and not the mother cat. I think the wild male cat wanted the female cat to come back into heat so he killed the kittens. I could be wrong because I wasn't there. I just found the kittens dead in the morning. They had been born in the barn and there is were I found them dead after only living a few days. They were the most beautiful kittens. Made me sick.

I don't think all wild animals should be returned to the wild after being in captivity for years. I do think they need to be given places in the wild outdoors to enjoy and not kept inside a house or a cage all their lives. I've seen large birds kept in tiny cages and I don't understand how people can do that to a beautiful wild animal. I just wish people would realize that just because an animal is trained that doesn't mean it's not wild. They will resort to their wild nature when they are afraid or threatened.

When I heard about the woman who had her face torn off by the Chimpanzee I wondered if the Chimpanzee was not protecting his owner. If he was drugged it is no wonder things went very wrong. I think this animal should have been where it could have run wild and free every day of it's life in a large yard with other animals like it. It may have needed to mate with another Chimpanzee. Every year parrots go through a hormonal change that causes them to go nuts. They try to bite and can even try to kill anyone who gets between them and the person or bird they love. It's just instinct. They can't help it. No amount of punishment or loving will change this season of hormonal change. You can mark it on your calender because it will happen at the same time every year.

Mammy How I Love Ya!

Mammy is the name I hold dear because as a child I knew she loved us more than our own mother. This is a tribute to her. She was my first impression of a Black Lady. She represented love to me. There will always be a warm spot in my heart for her.

Hattie McDaniel

As an adult I learned that I had a Mammy of my own. She was my great-grandmother. She was actually called Mammy. All my life I wanted a Mammy to hold me and love me . I never got to meet her and never even knew her name until about three years ago at a family reunion. My aunt kept calling someone Mammy and when I asked who it was she told me it was my great-grandmother. I nearly cried. All this time I had my own Mammy and didn't even know it. Praise God.


Rufus Wainwright Swanee Lyrics:
Swanee, how I love you, how I love you
My dear old Swanee
I'd give the world to be among the folks in
D-I-X-I-E-ven now my mammy's waiting for me
Praying for me, down by the Swanee
The folks up north will see me no more
When I get to that Swanee shore

Swanee, Swanee,
I'm coming back to Swanee
Mammy, mammy,
I love the old folks at home

I love you Swanee
How I love you, how I love you
My dear old Swanee
I'd give the world if I could only be
Sitting on my mammy's knee
I love the old folks, I love the young folks
I love my honey lamb, I love 'em all in Alabammy
Mammy, mammy, my dear old mammy
The folks up north will see me no more
When I get to that Swanee shore
Lyrics: Swanee, Rufus Wainwright [end]

Cookie Comfort

I needed some comfort this weekend and I turned to cooking. Isn't that the best place to get comfort?

I decided to try to tweak a chocolate chip cookie recipe I made. It contains some ingredients that most people don't normally have in their kitchens. I have an extra refrigerator in my garage so I can keep bags of flour in it so they don't go bad while waiting on me to cook. I love to cook and I have developed my own recipes through the years. Some recipes have taken many tries and other happened the first time. I have thrown out the old tries for this chocolate chip cookie recipe. Now I wish I had kept them for reference sake. I could have gone back to see what didn't work and what did. I make notes on the recipe card telling me if the recipe is too sweet, too dry, too grainy, too anything. After trying the recipe this weekend using Buckwheat flour I have decided that I like the previous recipe better. At the same time I want to incorporate Buckwheat flour into more of my recipes because it is much healthier than white flour. I have tried to stop using white sugar for the same reason.

For all those who are adventuresome and would like to try a healthier cookie here is the recipe.

Buckwheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

Mix together and sift into a bowl.

1 cup 100% Stone Ground Whole Wheat flour
1/2 cup Buckwheat flour
1/4 Cup Graham flour
1/4 Cup Oat flour
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Sift all flours, salt, soda, and baking powder together. This gets out any lumps from the baking powder.

In the mixer, I use a Kitchen Aid Mixer with the large paddle, combine the following ingredients.

2 sticks of unsalted butter softened
(I had unsalted butter on hand but if your salt intake is not restricted I see no reason you could not use salted butter. I'm not a cooking scientist.)

1 Cup Dark Brown Sugar
1/4 Cup Turbinado Sugar
1 Tablespoon Vanilla
2 large eggs

Beat until smooth and creamy.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients 1 cup at a time until all the dry ingredients are incorporated. Scrap down the sides of the mixer bowl and beat again until all is mixed well.
Add one 12 oz. package chocolate chips. I used Nestle Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips this time.

You may add:
2 cups Old Fashioned Oat Meal
(This is the ingredient that I forgot to add to the cookie dough. I will remember next time because I love Oat Meal in my cookies.)

Bake at 350 degrees on greased cookie sheet. Bake about 9-10 minutes.

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This recipe seemed to have a gritty feel in my mouth when it was warm. I didn't notice the gritty feeling after the cookies had cooled. I don't know how adding the oat meal will change this grittiness.

This is the sugar I used in this recipe. I love this sugar.
region: Hawaii, USA
Sugar In The Raw Turbinado Sugar is made using 100% pure Hawaiian cane sugar from the initial pressing of the cane, allowing the natural molasses to remain in the crystals. The flavor is sweet and rich. The color is natural amber.

This is the Oat Flour I used. Bob's Red Mill is the brand. I don't know if there are other flour brands, this is the one I bought and used. I'm sure others are just as good. I used Bob's Red Mill flours on all the flours.