Time for another Low Carb Cookie recipe!

This time I think I’ve figured out how to get them to NOT crumble (but I’m not sure exactly what it is that actually worked!) I haven’t stored them yet, but so far so good. And they are YUMMY. They have a texture that reminds me of a Digestive biscuit and even sort of taste like I remember them tasting (it has been awhile though, so my memory might be wrong.)

*UPDATE* They’ve been stored in an airtight container all week and still have the great snap to them, stayed firm and are not the slightest bit crumbly. I am so happy and excited about that!

There are no sweeteners or gluten in this recipe so these cookies will be good for Keto, Low Carb and Diabetic diets/eating styles.

HAZELNUT & ALMOND COOKIES

I got 30 cookies out of this recipe, of roughly 1×2 inches each. Your results may vary.

325F for 12-15 minutes (until golden brown around the edges.)

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup of softened butter

1 large egg (room temperature preferred so the butter doesn’t seize up when you add it)

1 tsp pure vanilla extract (you can reduce this to half if you aren’t a fan of in-your-face vanilla flavour, or use almond extract, etc.) Use what you have, I always use pure as I fine the fake has an after taste.

1 cup of hazelnut flour/ground hazelnuts (or whatever they call it in your neck of the woods)

3/4 cup of almond flour/ground almonds (see above)

1 tsp of baking powder.

DIRECTIONS:

1. Cream the butter in a medium bowl until until smooth. If you prefer you can use an electric mixer, but this mixes up easily by hand. I am all about not having a ton of stuff to wash after.
2. Add the vanilla and beat until incorporated into the butter.
3. Add the egg and beat until it is incorporated completely. You can beat the egg and vanilla together before adding if you prefer; but I just toss it in and beat the crap out of it in the bowl.
4. Add in the dry ingredients – I added it in 1/3 cup at a time (that is the only size of measuring cup I seem to have! LOL) and mixed it in completely before adding more. I also sifted the baking powder, lumps are hard to get rid off if they get in there!
5. Once all the dry ingredients are completely mixed in and the dough is pretty smooth looking, turn it all out onto a sheet of baking paper or plastic wrap, roll up in a log, wrap it, and put in the fridge for around half an hour, you just want it to firm up enough to cut uniformly, but not be hard. My log was around 1.5 to 2 inches in diameter, because that was what my parchment paper width allowed for. Adjust to suit yourself.
6. Turn on your oven to preheat while the dough is in the fridge.
7. Get the dough out and slice into 1/4″ slices (that’s something like 6-7 mm, I just checked) and put on a parchment covered cookie sheet. They can be pretty close together as they do not rise much. Mine are “squished” as the dough was still fairly soft, but did cut and hold the slice shape. This has no effect on the the taste or results so who cares if they aren’t round?
8. Put in your preheated 325F oven on the centre rack for 12-15 minutes. Check at 12 minutes to see if they are nicely browning around the edges, if not, give it a couple more minutes. I like my nuts well toasted… so I want to see some colour on those cookies!

Check out my other food posts on my FOOD STUFF page.

I think I may try them with cheese – should be good! Nuts and cheese go great together – maybe some Philly or a nice Brie. Would probably be great drizzled or dipped in chocolate too! I will have to check.

*UPDATE* They were very good with the cheese!

*SECOND UPDATE* These really are great! They held their “snap” and stayed crisp to the bite for most of the week (i.e. how long it took me to eat them) stored in an airtight container in the cupboard

Day 416 (of the Pandemic)

And so it continues. We are back in a hard lockdown here because of record numbers of cases with the third wave of Covid, full ICUs, younger people dying very quickly from the variants… and a slow vaccination rollout.

I was able to get my first Pfizer vaccine on April 16 – I was really emotional about it. I had to wait 30 minutes after it and while I was sitting there I starting crying. Combination of relief and letting go of some of the fear I think. Also was the biggest group of people I’d seen in over a year.

School finished on April 16th – my three-year Diploma is complete. I am still working on my Thesis project in anticipation of our grad show, however, that may not be happening at the gallery – we don’t know yet. The lockdowns have caused the public galleries all sorts of issues so we don’t really know what will be happening. Our prof has called an online meeting with everyone for Monday. I still need to get mine assembled and photographed in the next week or so to submit to the BMO 1st Art! Competition.

Very happy with my marks again. This semester I received 100%, 100%, 99%, 97% and 93%. The 93% was 3D Printing which stressed me out a lot, so I am very pleased and relieved about that. Another 5.0 GPA – so for four of my seven semesters I had a 5.0, that makes my average GPA 4.98.

The two lowest grades I had were in my first year: 86% in Photography and 87% in Digital Drawing. I did not know any of the programs that people were using for Digital Drawing as I’d never done any (had zero interest in it and that has not changed.) I was pretty lost and, as we were told to “use what you know,” I ended up using the Windows photo editor, Paint, Word and Excel. It wasn’t fun but I managed to do the projects, but I wasn’t happy with any of them.

Photography was challenging due to my sight and hand problems – I can’t see the manual camera controls without my prescription and even then it is still difficult; and I can’t see the subject with my glasses on. I also can’t hold the camera and manipulate controls at the same time as I have grip problems. Was so frustrating. I would take 400-600 photos for each assignment and wouldn’t know if I had anything useable until I got them on the computer. I would just randomly change settings without knowing what they were until I could check the metadata and hope I’d used the right ones! By fluke I nailed a couple of the assignments and got really high marks, which made up for the duds. LOL Very frustrating as I can take pretty good photos… on AUTO SETTING!

When our final grades posted I copied and sent my transcript off to the schools that I have conditional offers from for finishing my degree. IT/Sligo, the Irish school, immediately sent a new unconditional offer letter.

With the state of the pandemic I am waiting to make a decision on my offers – I do not want to continue with online learning. While I did well, I did not enjoy it, nor do I feel I learned as much as I could have with in-person instruction and the interaction with other students. As a international student the tuition and fees will be very high (for instance, at my current school they are six times more than domestic students pay.) I want the in-person, hands-on, social interaction aspect to be there; it is a huge expense and I want the most I can get out of it. I will leave it as late as I can to make that decision, and hope that if I do decide to go that I can still find private living arrangements! If not, I will defer for a year.

It seems that most schools are anticipating a “blended” delivery model – some in-person and some remote. But things are in such a state of flux. Part of the issue is that the 18-24 age groups are not being targeted for vaccination in most places yet. Seems that the schools are looking at the number of people vaccinated on campus as the marker for how much they can open back-up.

I’ve got extensive lists of things I need to do preparing to move overseas, but there is an order that they have to be done in and getting the process going involves making the decision about which school’s offer to accept or defer for a year. I’ve got just over a month before processes have to start – visa applications, finding accommodations, making deposits… some things can be on pretty short notice (like booking flights… right now super easy) but others it can be a couple of months.

Here are some of the 41 paintings of 43 threatened species that are part of my final Thesis project. This part of the work is done, and now I start on the actual physical construction and assembly.

I’m really pleased with how these have all turned out. Of course I have my favourites, and there are one or two that I may actually not use in the final display as they didn’t translate as I had hoped. But I am happy with this body of work.