Wildflower Farm Comfort Food Chocolate Chip Cookies
Soft, Chewey, Chocolate Chip Cookies.
Welcome to 2020 Wildflower Farm Lock Down! I wish I were kidding. But we are going to extremes right now to have little to no contact with the world. We have it to a science where we leave every second week to go grocery shopping. We have no green house as of yet, and we get our meat from a meat CSA that is delivered. Some seasons we get a large percentage of our food stuff from right here on the property…
We are like many homesteaders, we try, but yeh, we are pretty bad at this. But we keep trying to learn and to grow and to get more independent. When this is over our first act is gonna be a green house in case this ever happens again…
But in the mean time… I am doing a lot of cooking and I find food, makes me feel more normal in a world with a raging virus, and an out of control orange lunatic dismantling our government health systems…. Seems there isn’t much else to do, and my peeps here through this, seem to like to eat…. So once again today, I went down the rabbit hole in the kitchen. (If you must know yes there may have been a little legal green involved….) And I dunno weather it was a reaction in my brain or if I hit the jack pot. I been trying for years to make the perfect chocolate chip cookie. Today I was finally successful! (insert my happy dance here.) I had to let go of my view of what a chocolate chip cookie should be…. And in that moment I had an epiphany….. And now I share it here. Let me know if it is just a product of the green that makes me think these are soooo good.
Ingredients:
1 cup shortening.
3/4th cups light brown sugar
1/4th and 1 tablespoon maple sugar
1 and a half table spoons vanilla extract
3 table spoons maple syrup
2 tablespoons full of vegan egg substitute and 6 table spoons of water or 2 eggs, take your pick.
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon soda
1 tea spoon salt
2 and 1/4th cups all organic all purpose flour
Chocolate chips, I like milk chocolate but there is no way to go wrong! You could even go with raisins, or blue berries, and this would make a great cookie.
Preheat oven to 350. Take a cookie sheet, make sure to grease it with butter or margerin. In a mixing bowl mix the shortening which should be room temperature, with the light brown sugar, maple sugar, egg substitute and water, or the 2 eggs, the maple syrup, vanilla extract. All your wet ingredients. You can even mix the salt in at this juncture along with the baking soda and baking powder. Mix the ingredients together well. Then in several stages add the flour and mix it in. Mix the liquids and solids together. Mix in your chosen additive, milk choco chips, semi sweet, white chocolate….. Berries, nuts….. etc… Take a spoon, spoon in little balls onto the prepared cookie sheet. 10 minutes to half an hour later, you will have our signature cookies!
In this horrible time, when all of us are frightened, let us light the way for one another by sharing things that give us comfort. I see your fear, I raise you our signature comfort cookies. Enjoy them.
Thanx for reading
Amanda of Wildflower Farm
Tags: acreage, agriculture, agro, airbnb, B&B, Bed & Breakfast, chewey chocolate chip cookie, chocolate chip cookie recipe, Comfort Food, farm, farm wife, farm wife blog, farmer, farming, farmstead, homestead, homestead farn, homestead wife, homestead wife blog, homesteader, homesteading, housewife, housewife blog, inn keeper, inn keeper's blog, new england, new england farm, new england homestead, old fashioned housewife, old fashioned housewife blog, recipe, soft baked cookie, travel, wildflower farm
Wildflower Farm, is a small New England homestead, B&B and AirBnB, in the Baystate. We came out here 7 years ago, when we returned from the better part of 10 years as peripatetic aristotelian nomads, for my husband's post docs. Upon our return, we had a plan. We had a lovely home. Everything was so clear. Then, I got sick. Things I used to eat all the time during our travels elsewhere in the world and even here before I left almost 10 years earlier made me ill. It took a couple trips to the ER and a trip to specialist... It became clear, something had changed in the way food is processed in this country since last I lived here. Some off label things was inevitably going to be my demise.
My husband and I looked around to see the clear path we were on, had exploded in front of us. We decided we had to create a new path for ourselves. We put children on hold. We found a small piece of land with a house we loved in a rural suburb in a right to farm area. I began researching how to do it ourselves. Grow it ourselves, make it ourselves, survive on our own as much as possible. We bought the property, and began plotting a new course. One that didn't involve off label chemicals. Closer to nature, with a lot more DIY, gardens, and animals for the products they provide. We created a life we loved though it hasn't always been easy and has of course come with compromise with each other, and even with ourselves.
Our family thought we had lost our minds. What were we doing leaving the city? We had no idea how hard this would be. They thought we would be back in 6 months. That was over 7 years ago, now. We have been making it work. They were not wrong, it isn't easy. But has anything worth doing ever been easy? And for us, avoiding as much store bought food as possible was simply necessary so I could live given how sick I was getting.
Then Covid hit.... We were lucky to have this place. It has allowed us a lot less need for public use territories which has kept us a lot safer and spared us much of the risk others face daily. This place, has given us a privilege through this of great meaning to us. To be of use in a difficult time. We have been able to help friends family and even strangers in need when things couldn't be found on store shelves. Or money was tight due to not working, rent being due and a child at home, or some other draining situation. We are so very grateful to have been able to not be helpless like so much of society through this miserable time. Our families, got used to it some time ago, us being out here. They made peace with it the day there was no bread and they had to ask me for some. Or when fresh vegies were rotten due to supply chain issues but they could find plenty in my garden.
Wildflower Farm, was a place I dreamed of. One of those sweet pastoral dreams a city dweller grows up knowing will never come true, that became unavoidable when I became ill. I never expected to get to do this. I never thought I had what it takes to make this work. I have learned pacing myself is important, compromise is critical, hard work never ends, burn out is real so breaks are just a necessary evil.
We are not fully self sufficient, but we work hard in that direction as we create a new path through life for ourselves, always reaching to do even more ourselves and to get closer to the ideal we envision. We are however far more self sufficient than many in this world. 7 years in, we continue to learn and grow in this homesteading lifestyle. We welcome comments and advice and ideas and questions.
We welcome visitors from all over to our home with strict covid policies in place. We spend our time learning to live all over again in a more environmental and sustainable way though even there we are far from perfect always learning and growing doing better as we know better.
This little homestead farm is a magical place named for the New England wildflowers that grow all around. A place where a physicist, watches the night sky on clear nights with the aide of mirror and glass, and a woman, works endlessly in the gardens, the kitchen, and a variety of projects to create and to keep a very unique life style running and functioning. Wildflower Farm, has become so much more than simply a piece of land we can grow a few vegetables on. The longer I spend here, the more alive the land seems, the more I learn about it's function and the more meaning it has. My place in the universe and the next steps on our new path become ever more clear.
We welcome you on this journey with us.
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