This morning I meditated soon after waking up. I completed day 4 in the 21 day challenge called Hope in Uncertain Times. More on that here.
I then baked a couple of oatmeal, banana, dark chocolate cookies.
Before I give you the cookie recipe, I will give you the choice to scroll down to skip this part and to just read my Hypersensitivosaurus update. It's up to you. I promise that I won't get angry.
I see you decided to read about the cookies first. That's totally fine. We all have our guilty pleasures.
Banana, Oatmeal, Chocolate Cookies.
This must be one of the easiest thing to bake. I discovered this recipe last weekend when I wanted to bake cookies but missed some ( I thought to be ) crucial ingredients.
To my pleasant surprise there was a recipe with just the aforementioned three ingredients that I entered in the search engine. So, for those of you didn't know, no need to add flour, eggs, butter, salt, baking powder and - even more important - no need to add sugar. Believe me these cookies are sweet enough ( the banana takes care of that ). Try to get your chocolate as dark as possible though ( high percentage of cacao, little room for added sugar ).
Preheat the oven. Although the recipe said 15 to 20 minutes at 180 Degrees Celsius, I would say: make it 200 Celsius and at least 20 minutes.
Put a piece of baking paper on an oven tray / oven grid to put the cookies on before baking.
Get yourself a bowl.
Cut a banana into pieces and mash it in the bowl with a fork ( use two bananas if you want some more cookies ).
Mix in the oat meal ( find out for yourself how much of this you want to use ).
Break some chocolate with a knife or - if possible - crush it with a mortar.
Mix the pieces of chocolate through the banana oatmeal blend.
This morning I used one banana, a couple of spoonfuls of oat meal and only two small blocks of chocolate ( a sixth of a bar ) and I made it into 4 cookies. Enough to take with me on my walk in the forest.
Take a spoonful of the cookie mix and press it into something resembling a cookie on your oven tray / oven grid.
Now shove the tray and cookies into your oven, turn on a timer and wait patiently.
This is what my cookies looked like last week. Some would say they need a filter, I disagree. It's the taste that matters ;>)
WARNING
These cookies are healthy. They are not crunchy. They might be, if you use more oatmeal, less banana, turn the oven higher or bake them longer but, honestly, I kind of like the texture. It's different and in a way tastes better than ordinary cookies.
Enough about those cookies! this wasn't even supposed to be a recipe post, I just wanted to share my writing and my twin sister's illustration with you haha!
Now you know, the illustration / sketch above this post wasn't made by me. If you have been following me for a while you will notice that this is a different drawing style, it's my twin sister's. It's without a doubt the first raptor that she has drawn. You might also have read that I would love my sister to illustrate the eventual book that I plan to publish.
A couple of days ago, I sent her a part of a story and asked if she could come up with a quick drawing one of these days.
The above was the result. A little later she sent a slightly changed version, as you can see here:
Although I'm biased - she's my twin sister after all - I am really pleased with the result. More importantly, she finally made a drawing for one of my stories again and I am already imagining the first finished book. It makes me pretty happy!
Here's the story that I sent her ( that inspired this sketch ):
( It's in Dutch. Scroll down for an English translation )
De Jeuk
Kleine hyper werd wakker van jeuk, erge jeuk.
Zo erg dat hij het liefst heel hard wilde krabben maar dat had hij een keer eerder gedaan en het was zo pijnlijk geweest dat hij het nooit meer had gedaan. Raptorklauwen zijn namelijk gemaakt om te snijden als messen en om mee te graven op zoek naar ondergronds voedsel. Eigenlijk zou je zeggen dat ze voor alles bedoeld zijn, behalve om jezelf er mee te krabben.
Die ene keer dat hij zichzelf gekrabd had, herinnerde hij zich als de dag van gisteren. Hij kon de pijn zelfs nog voelen, de gedachte deed al pijn. Zijn moeder had hem getroost, de wond verzorgd en hem geleerd hoe hij voortaan van zijn jeuk af kon komen door tegen een boomstam aan te wrijven.
Hij had echter een probleem.
Hij lag in bed, er was geen boomstam in de buurt.
Buiten zijn grot natuurlijk wel, maar het was midden in de nacht en hij was moe en had het koud. Met ander woorden: dit was geen fijne situatie.
Had hij maar een boomstam in zijn grot gehad, of een stevige ruwe tak.
Hij krabde zich achter zijn oren om een plannetje te bedenken ( zonder daadwerkelijk te krabben natuurlijk ) en wachtte op een ingeving.
Zijn gedachten dwaalden af naar de oorzaak van de jeuk. Had het wellicht te maken met het water waar hij de vorige dag in gespeeld had en had hij daar ook uit gedronken? Of kwam het door iets dat hij gegeten had? Misschien was hij in aanraking gekomen met een nieuw soort giftige plant waar zijn huid niet tegen kon?
Waar het door ook kwam, hier over nadenken maakte de jeuk niet minder. De behoefte om te krabben werd steeds sterker. Hij moest iets doen voordat hij zichzelf zou verwonden maar wat?
( idee wordt wakker na het krabben – bloed blijkt zweet. Hij is opgelucht maar begint opeens jeuk te krijgen... )
The Itch
Little hyper woke up from an itch, a bad itch.
So bad that he wanted to scratch very hard but he had done it once before and it had been so painful that he had never done it again. Raptor claws are made to cut like knives and to dig for underground food. Actually, you'd say they're meant for anything but scratching yourself with them.
The one time he scratched himself, he remembered like yesterday. He could even feel the pain, the thought was already hurting. His mother had comforted him, cared for the wound and taught him how to get rid of his itching by rubbing against a tree trunk.
However, he had a problem.
He was lying in bed, there was no tree trunk nearby.
Outside his cave of course there were many, but it was the middle of the night and he was tired and it was cold.
In other words: this was not a pretty situation.
If only he had had a tree trunk in his cave, or a sturdy rough branch.
He scratched himself behind his ears to come up with a plan (without actually scratching himself of course) and waited for an idea to sprout.
His thoughts wandered to the cause of the itching. Could it have had something to do with the water that he had played in the day before? and had he also drunk from it? Or was it because of something he had eaten? Maybe he had come into contact with a new kind of poisonous plant that his skin couldn't stand?
Whatever it was, thinking about it didn't make him any less itchy. The need to scratch got stronger and stronger. He had to do something before he would hurt himself, but what?
( idea wakes up after scratching - blood turns out to be sweat. He's relieved but suddenly starts itching... )
As you can see, I didn't finish the story yet but I guess you get the point. This is not a happy ending.
I talked with my brother and his girlfriend on the phone a couple days back and when we got to talk about my writing I was reminded of an idea that his gf came up with in our last conversation, what if I would make the different hypersensitivosaurus stories days of the week.
This led to the following thought:
What if I came up with seven nice stories ( for starters ) and create a book called "One Week in the Life of Hypersensitivosaurus?"
Suddenly what could have become a project of many months or even years seemed very palpable and I could actually see myself finish it.
Believe me, I have plenty more ideas for stories ( in fact, I could come up with a story a day, if I do my best ) but it's nice to make a selection and have the possibility for a series of books. Let's not forget that this lizard is gonna level up from Hypersensitivosaurus to SuperZENsitivosaurus. This is not a process that happens over night. In fact, it might happen over several books ;>)
To get back to my sister's illustration(s) now you've read the story.
Let me translate her words underneath the first sketchie:
"I drew him as if he's very disappointed in himself."
My reply:
"Brilliant!"
"I like those little arms too
as if he wants to scratch but he can't
and nice look ( on his face )
Thanks a lot!"
Underneath the second sketch she wrote:
"A little more cave like."
To which I replied:
"Even better!"
I did some more writing this morning ( a new story ) while taking a small break on my morning walk. I sat down on a fallen tree trunk, ate two banana oatmeal chocolate cookies and sipped some water.
(Repeat with me ):
"All is Well"
TO BE CONTINUED...
P.S. The doorbell just rang. It was a neighbor who handed me flowers. Apparently she has done so for the entire ( small ) street. How kind! :>)