Can you believe we are already in the month of September? Time has gone by so fast! But that means it’s time to do my favorites for August and wrap-up! Favorite reads of the month Didn’t finish any major novels this month but as […]
Hello again everyone, and welcome to the second part of my “All about Succulents & Cacti” series where I go over some of the things I’ve learned so far about these neat plants. This time I will be talking about 3 of my most prolific […]
Hello everyone, and welcome back to the blog! Today I will be sharing with you a recipe I’ve been wanting to try for a while now—Gluten-Free Brownie Cookies! These were pretty interesting cookies to make, because they required an ingredient I had never tried baking with before, buckwheat flour!
The name would probably make anyone just learning how to deal with Gluten intolerance cringe, but contrary to the name buckwheat is not related to wheat at all. It is commonly advertised like most cereals, grains, or grass products…but it is actually a fruit seed related to rhubarb! So as long as the buckwheat flour you are purchasing is processed in a facility that is wheat-free, then it is 100% gluten-free!
I find Gluten-free baking to be a very interesting process, because it can be quite different from normal baking and it’s easier to make mistakes. Luckily these cookies didn’t have any major hiccups other than some adjusts I made to the ingredients of the recipe.
One of the first changes I made was to the amount of coco powder, since I was running low. I ended up only using 2/4 cups of the coco, and I used less chocolate chips, but I think the cookies were perfectly fine with these lower amounts. Still very chocolate packed!
My next change was to the amount of sugar. The recipe calls for 1 1/3 cups of light brown sugar or coconut sugar, but I only had dark brown sugar which I generally prefer more. I also wasn’t a fan of how much sugar the recipe calls for since I don’t like overly sweet things. Instead I just did 1 cup of packed dark brown sugar and the cookies are plenty sweet for my tastes.
This recipe is actually Gluten-free and Dairy-free, but I chose to go with the dairy version of the recipe, so I did to butter instead of coconut oil.
The recipe calls to chill the batter for 2 hours so they are easier to roll and this is a must! I actually chilled my batter overnight which made it really easy to form my cookies. From the batter I got about 24 cookies (2 trays) and they were definitely more like brownies than a traditional chocolate chip cookie. Once finished baking, I found that they are best after chilling in the fridge and will hold their shape better, since these are a rather soft cookie.
I definitely plan on using buckwheat flour for other cookies in the future and I would make these again.
1½ cups whole-grain buckwheat flour
2/4 cup Coco Powder
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup Dark Brown Suger, packed
2 large eggs, room temperature
2⁄3 cup (178 grams) crunchy almond butter, room temperature
¾ cup unsalted butter melted
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup chocolate chips
For the full baking instructions and if you would like to try the original recipe yourself, please follow this LINK.
Would you try these cookies? Have you ever had a buckwheat cookie?
Let me know in the comments! 😉
Looking for more Gluten-free recipes? Check out our previous post HERE.
Hello everyone, and today will begin my 12 zodiac series of illustrations and blog posts! I have had these illustration ideas waiting for their final phase for quite a while now, so I’m excited to finally be sharing these with you. I spent a lot […]
Hello everyone! We have officially wrapped up the month of July, so it’s time to recap some of my favorite things from this month! Books I Read… Over the past few months I haven’t done much traditional novel reading, and I still have a […]
Hello again everyone! Now that we are well into the summer season, I thought it would be fun to share with you 4 of my favorite graphic novels that I have read for the month of July (so far!). Being both a lover of art and storytelling, graphic novels are definitely my happy medium that combines both worlds! Now let’s get into the novels…Spoiler free I promise! 😉
I would definitely call this my wildcard for July. I normally dislike westerns, but I picked up this book for my local Graphic Novel club, and I was pleasantly surprised. The art is clean and colorful, but the story is intense and captivating. The story centers on three main characters; Stingly a geologist, Oscar a photographer, and Milton the assistant on the expedition. They are surveying the land for future development, but they quickly see that the land already has its own civilization. Needless to say a lot goes down, and these characters have a lot of secrets, things they are running from, and other agendas throughout the story.
I found both the art and story really great, and this is a novel I definitely want to own for my personal collection. The underlining theme of this book seems to be this line between “civilized” and “animal” nature. I think this story’s message is that there really is no boundary between these two, and we are all animals at our core, and that there is nothing necessarily wrong with that. It is only when certain characters try to deny this that things turn ugly. I believe that this juxtaposition is made clear by the three main characters; Oscar and Milton being the animal representation and Stingly being the “civilized” one. I also thought the strange paranormal/supernatural elements were really fun and weren’t overdone. It really adds to the story.
If you would like to learn more about the authors, then check out theses links!
https://frederikpeeters.tumblr.com/
http://www.loohuiphang.com/?page_id=16
On a lighter note, I read Taproot—an adorable story about a gardener who can see ghosts and one of the said ghosts he grows closer to, Blue. Hamal and Blue are the main characters of this story and it focuses on their relationship with each other as a human and ghost. There is a lurking darkness that is coming for the local spirits in the area, which ultimately leads to Blue having to make a difficult decision to protect Hamal. There is also a fabulous extra story at the end that I can definitely see moving this story forward as a future series.
None of the novels in this list have bad art of course; they are all very unique to each author and story. Reading Taproot you can definitely feel its roots as a webcomic which is really fun to know. Its so cool to see an author that started online having a physical, published book. This is also just such a sweet and heartwarming story, and I highly recommend it if you are also looking for a good LGBT novel. I will say that I think one of the highlights of this novel is most certainly that extra story we get after the main events happen. I would honestly love to see more!
If you would like to learn more about the author, then check out this link!
Jumping back into a more dark and adult series–I devoured the House of Women. It is such a unique read and with an equally intriguing art style, which I probably would have never gone near a few years back when I had limited tastes. The story centers on Sarai and her fellow women emissaries who are sent to a foreign, alien planet to “civilize” the local population. Of course this expedition does not go according to plan when various forms of conflict arise. It then becomes a question if whether the real danger is found outside of the women’s sanctuary or from within.
First and foremost, I have to mention the stunning cover of this novel. The gold detail is so eye-catching and the bold cover design really makes this just a gorgeous book to have on your bookshelf. The art itself just pleases the printmaker in me. Purely black and white and bold design, you could probably take any panel from this story and turn it into a nice woodblock print. It’s all about pattern and composition, and this works so well for the story. The story is really mysterious with suspense and a little bit of horror, which makes it a really fun read. It was a very interesting world and I would happily read more of it and stories from this author.
If you would like to learn more about the author, then check out this link!
I was so happy to finally have read this one! I am familiar with some of Jen Wang’s other stories which I enjoyed quite a lot, so I was pretty hopeful about this one. The Prince and the Dressmaker follows the story of Frances, a young seamstress with big dreams and Sebastian, a prince with a secret…he likes to wear dresses. With the help of Frances, these two create Sebastian’s fashionable persona Lady Crystallia and take Paris by storm! But things don’t go as planned when Lady Crystallia becomes the most popular fashion icon in the city, and everyone wants to know who is creating her fabulous clothes.
This was another really sweet and heartwarming story, which is all about embracing who you truly are. Frances and Sebastian are just too adorable and seeing the ups and downs of their friendship was lovely. I love the Cinderella aspects of this story, but it was so refreshing that it wasn’t a carbon copy. The art is just as equally cute and all the clothes designs that Frances creates are really fun. I also really appreciated the little behind the scenes moment Jen Wang includes the end of the novel. She goes through the main steps of her process and reveals that she had originally pictured Frances and Sebastian as adults, but ultimately made them in their teens to fit the story. I think it’s really great to know these little facts.
If you would like to learn more about the author, then check out this link!
So that’s 4 of my favorite graphic novels for July (so far)! I hope you enjoyed learning about these novels, and I hope that some of you give them a read for yourself!
Have you read these novels? What did you think? Which novels would you like to see me talk about next?
Hello everyone and in today’s post I’m going to be starting a new series with you where I talk about what I’ve learned about succulents and cacti…so far! I’m still very much a beginner, but I’m always learning more about these fun plants and how […]
Quick and Easy Gluten free Ramen Hello again everyone, and today I will be sharing with you my quick and easy gluten free ramen! This recipe came to be from an afternoon when I really wanted some soup, but I didn’t necessarily have all of […]
Hello, my name is Soren Stebbins and I am today’s guest blogger. Every now and then, I will return here to share stories from all across the world, from Mythology to fairy tales. Today I will be telling the story of Hephaestus, one of the 12 Greek Olympians.
Some might say something along the lines of Thor, Zeus, or some other deity from any of the other variable religions. Mine is Hephaestus. Like all old Greek stories, there are many versions of it. To those of you who do not know the story, I will share the most widely known version.
Hephaestus is the son of Zeus and Hera—the king and queen of Olympus and the Greek Pantheon. When Hera first gave birth to him, he was a normal newly born god. One day when Hephaestus was older, Zeus and Hera got into one of their famous arguments. Hephaestus took the side of his mother’s argument. Zeus was outraged by this, and so he grabbed Hephaestus by his leg and threw him off Mount Olympus. It is said that it took him an entire day to hit the ground from his fall. He landed on an island named, Lemmos.
Unconscious, the inhabitants of the island, named Sintians, brought Hephaestus in and helped heal him back to health. His legs were extremely damaged after his fall, but he could still walk with much difficultly. One of the Sinitian people was an extremely talented and famed blacksmith. He taught Hephaestus as he recovered how to smith metals. Hephaestus took very fast and easily to the craft, and all that he made was so fine that he soon was much better than the Sintian that taught him.
Later, Zeus finally offered Hephaestus a place back at Olympus as a wine steward. He accepted and returned to his home. When he arrived back, he went to his mother, Hera, to show that he was back. But much to Hephaestus’s shock, she was horrified by his legs. Since his fall, they were still scarred and disfigured. This horrified Hera so much that she then grabbed her son by the leg and threw him off Olympus once more.
At this point in his story, it is debated on where he landed. Some say he landed back in Lemmos, others say it was a different island like Sicily. Nevertheless, when he fell again, he met a sea nymph named Caberio. She nursed him back to health, but sadly, Hephaestus’s fall this time had an even worse effect on his body. His legs were useless to him now and he could not walk. His face was disfigured by the fall, and so were other parts of his body.
To show his gratitude to Caberio, Hephaestus made her fine and beautiful jewelry. For nine years, Hephaestus stayed on the island and continued his work in blacksmithing. Caberio was eventually called to Olympus by the gods for a party. Hephaestus being banished from Olympus remained on the island. While Caberio was attending the party, she met Hera, who was astonished by the jewelry that Caberio was wearing. Hera then questioned her about who had made it. Caberio told her that Hephaestus had made it. At this, Hera was anxious to have Hephaestus return to Olympus, so that he could make her such fine things.
Hera invited Hephaestus to return to his old home at Olympus. Once Caberio had returned to the island she told Hephaestus why it was Hera wished for him to return. At this point Hephaestus decided to exact revenge on his mother.
He crafted a beautiful throne for Hera, and sent it to Olympus in his place. When Hera saw the throne she was awestruck by its beauty, and naturally she sat on it, just as Hephaestus had planned her to. As soon as she sat in it, a magical net sprang from the seat and trapped her in the chair. She could not escape it, and every god tried to assist in freeing her to no avail. The gods then went to the Island Hephaestus lived on and begged him to return to Olympus and free Hera, but he refused.
The gods tried to figure out a way to convince Hephaestus to free Hera, but he was not swayed. It was then that Zeus came up with a great plan. Dionysus would offer Hephaestus great amounts of wine and get him drunk, then take him back to Olympus. So Dionysus did as Zeus wanted and got Hephaestus drunk. Once he had him in this state, he summoned a Mule for Hephaestus to ride back to Olympus.
After returning to his old home, the gods asked him to free Hera again. Much to Zeus’s astonishment and anger, he still refused. So now not knowing what else to do, he offered Hephaestus two things. One–to be one of the Olympians permanently, and Two– Hephaestus would have the hand of Aphroditie, the most beautiful goddess in Olympus. Hephaestus agreed to these terms and freed Hera from her bindings.
What sets aside Hephaestus from the rest of the Greek pantheon is the fact that he has suffered so much. Out of every Greek Olympian, he is the most human. He is also the only god who does not meddle with mortals much. After he was accepted back to Olympus, he became the god of blacksmithing, fire, and volcanoes. Hephaestus forged many powerful armors, weapons, and chariots for the gods. In many places around the world, he had secret forges, where he created great metal automants. One of his most famous ones was the great Talos, who was a great bronze robot the size of a mountain.
Hephaestus’s story continues on, and through it, he met even more tragedy, but that is a story best saved for a future post.
I hope that you all enjoyed reading my first blog post here, and that you will be looking forward to the next story I share.
Have nice day!
A family tradition-Picking strawberries at Holly Fork Farm-from two different perspectives Ciarra’s Perspective…. I look forward to the different seasons we have here in Virginia, because they mark the start of fun family traditions like this! Going to our local farms and orchards is something […]