Lately I’m less interested in what the experts have to say about what it means to be mindful and more committed to taking an inward look at what it means to me first. It’s not an easy thing to define. Go ahead, try it. In your own words: What does it mean to be mindful?
I’m not sure I have a working definition yet but, for me, part of mindfulness is limiting what I buy when I can use what I already have. That’s what led me to creating this cookie.
Because it’s “squash season” we’re harvesting many varieties from our garden. Our neighbors have it on their road side stand for a dollar. It’s plentiful. I’ve written this before but it bears repeating: when you buy canned pumpkin it isn’t necessarily pumpkin, it can be any kind of squash in there. Given that, why not use what’s in season and readily available?
Most of this went into the soup but there was enough for the cookies, too!
So here you have it: My Any-Squah’ll-Do Cookies. They came about because I was making squash soup for a weekend get-away with friends and happened to have a little squash leftover. You can use pumpkin if you want, even from a can. The recipe calls for just 1/3 cup. (Note: I did splurge and buy a little white chocolate to melt and slather on the bottoms of a few of them...it turns them into a pumpkin spice latte you can eat!!)
*Here’s the recipe in a SLIDE-SHOW of pictures!
use paper towel to pat out some of the moisture
notice the texture/moisture of the squash as it is added in
white chocolate is optional
Pictured below are the squash soup and the cookie platter I made for the weekend with friends! I cut the cookies in half so we could try them all: with and without white chocolate. The other cookies on the platter are a cranberry-orange-almond shortbread I’m working on and yes, I dried the apples…we have sooooo many this time of year! Please let me know if you try – and especially if you likethem, give the post a like (at the bottom of the page). AND…if you know someone who is a Cookie Monster like Darrell is, please share. Thanks in advance!
The squash soup that led to the cookie!From left: cranberry-orange-almond shortbread and squash cookies with white chocolate; far right without white chocolate
I’ll end with a favorite quote of mine which has nothing to do with squash or cookies but about a deep look inward – maybe even as each of us continue to define what it means to be mindful.
May we continue to look into ourselves. May we see things exactly as they are. May such clear, direct seeing, free us.
Mindfulness - in practice 