Camera Shopping; and an update on iced oatmeal cookies

I've decided to invest in a new camera. One of those fancy DSLRs. I've been reading reviews and specs 'til my eyes want to bleed and finally ventured out to Seattle's fantastic Glazer's Camera to test drive a few different models and, hopefully, come to a decision. I must say that it's a little scary for me to be making this purchase. I've never been one to spend a lot of money on gadgetry, and I have a certain distrust for computerized machines (it took me ages to get comfortable with this here laptop).

Up to this point, this blog has been adorned with photos taken with either a Canon digital point-and-shoot or a Nikon FE2 35mm slr. The latter of these I absolutely adore. It is completely manual, takes amazing photographs and is astounding in its simplicity. I use a 50mm fixed lens on that puppy with results such as these... and these. I love it.

So why the change? Well, for starters, the cost of film and development is forever increasing, and my meager student income does not allow for a lot of extras. This means that I take very few shots in order to conserve exposures. This conservation leads to extended periods between trips to the developers, which in turn leads to huge delays between cooking time and posting time. Unless I use the little Canon. It takes good pictures also, but then I miss playing around with the depth of field. I'm a sucker for fuzzy backgrounds, what can I say?

I long for the convenience of the digital world and the luxury of the slr. So I'm taking the plunge (and the hit to my bank account) and nabbing myself a new camera. I'm so excited!

So what prompted this post were the iced oatmeal cookies that I made and posted about a little while back. It felt kind of wrong to post the recipe without a mouth-watering photo alongside, so I waited. Well, I still haven't used up the 24 exposures on that particular roll of film. So here I am with a great recipe and no visual imagery. So sad.

What I've decided to do is post the recipe anyway. Sooner or later I'll have those pics, and I'll post them up (assuming they turned out well) at that point. Believe me when I say that pleasure will spew forth when these cookies are consumed. I had plenty of helpers to eat mine up, and nary a negative word was heard. Enjoy!


Iced Oatmeal Cookies
makes 20-24 cookies
vegan friendly

Cookies:
2 T. flaxseed meal
1 C. oat flour*
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 T. vegan margarine (or butter)
1/2 C. brown sugar
1/4 C. sugar
1/4 C. applesauce
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 C. old-fashioned oats
1/2 C. raisins

Icing:
1/4 C. confectioners' sugar
2-3 T. lemon juice

For the cookies: Stir together flaxseed meal and 3 T. water in a small bowl. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the oat flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat margarine, brown sugar and sugar with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add flaxseed mixture, applesauce and vanilla, and beat until smooth.

Stir dry ingredients into wet with a wooden spoon. Add oats and raisins, stirring to combine.

Cover and chill the dough for 2 hours or overnight. (this step can be omitted - cookies will be softer)

Preheat oven to 350 F and grease cookie sheets. Roll dough into balls about the size of golf balls (if you skipped the refrigeration step, go ahead and drop spoonfuls of dough onto the pans and proceed to bake!) and place on cookie sheet. Flatten each cookie to 1/4" thickness with a drinking glass dipped in water.

Bake cookies 10-14 minutes until they look dry on top and are just beginning to brown.

For the icing: Whisk together the confectioners' sugar and lemon juice in small bowl until smooth. Icing should be thick but spreadable. Dip cookies into the icing (or use a pastry brush to apply icing to each cookie) and allow the cookies to cool and the icing to harden.

Eat them up!

*a note regarding oat flour. You can make it yourself by throwing some rolled oats into your food processor and grinding them up into a powder. It can take a few minutes, so be patient and keep stopping the processor and stirring them up. If it doesn't get as fine as flour normally is, don't sweat it. You won't even notice the slightly larger flakes in this recipe. Use about 1 1/4 C. of oats to get 1 C. of flour.

Finally A Break; and some iced oatmeal cookies

Full-time student. That has become my identity since about this time last year when my job dematerialized, and I decided it was time to stop putting off the whole college thing. So here I am, more than halfway towards receiving my very first incredibly expensive, increasingly useless certificate of higher education (just an AA folks, nothing fancy). How does it feel? Well, the initial excitement and romance of academia has definitely worn off. That shiny veneer has been rubbed (quite vigorously) down to reveal the stressed-out, tired reality of student life. No wonder people do this when the energy of the early twenties is still coursing through them. I'm reassured of the judiciousness of my choice to tackle college at a later age. I know what I want now (do I?). I'm more focused (in theory). The well-meaning people who tell me these things are obviously not writing research papers at 2 am. The only benefit I can see is my qualification for more financial aid.

Beginning yesterday, however, I am on spring break! How lovely it is to catch some extra sleep, to ride my bike in the sun (well, yesterday was sunny anyway), and to spend as much time as I'd like puttering around in the kitchen. I can cook every day if I want to, instead of relying so heavily on leftovers to get me through the week. In fact, I've already been hard at play in the kitchen.

On Tuesday night I concocted a spiral pasta in a homemade tomato sauce with tempeh crumbles and steamed kale and garlic toast on the side. My dinner companions were pleased, indeed. Last night's dinner menu featured salmon tacos with salsa, fresh guacamole and shredded purple cabbage on homemade corn tortillas. Muy delicioso! My first foray into the world of tortilla making was a resounding success thanks to this post on I Am Gluten Free (scroll down the post). I never knew it could be so easy to reach the level of satisfaction that those yellow corn rounds brought to me.

But the real reason for this post isn't to fantasize about yesterday's Mexican. It's to tell you about today's afternoon endeavor: Iced Oatmeal Cookies. I haven't even started to make them yet, but my oh my am I looking forward to some lemony-glazed, oats spending time on my tongue. I'll be sure to let you know how they turn out.