There's a lot of awkward and painful stuff happening over here right now, so I'm only going to blog about happy things. One thing that makes me very happy is Fantastic Cookies. It so happens I have a recipe for Fantastic Cookies, so when I met up with Paula and Cat this week, I took along a few. Here, as requested from the two of them, is the recipe for Oat and Peanut Butter Cookies*:

225g plain flour
175g rolled oats (the bigger the better)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
175ml vegetable oil (or sunflower or rapeseed or anything with a neutral taste)
175g crunchy peanut butter (I usually go ahead and use nearly a whole 340g jar instead. I love peanut butter)
200g caster sugar
225g brown sugar
125ml milk (moo, soy, rice or oat is fine)
2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C/350 degrees F/gas mark 4. Lightly grease two baking trays.

In a large bowl mix the liquids, the peanut butter and the sugars.

In another bowl, mix the dry ingredients, then add dry to wet and mix. You want a firm, moist dough, so if it's a little runny - as it may be if, like me, you've used extra peanut butter - just add more oats to bulk it up a bit.

You can make these any size you like, but I normally go for a tablespoon-sized lump. Roll it into a ball (you may need to flour your hands to stop them getting too sticky), place well apart on the sheet and flatten slightly. These will spread quite a bit.

Bake for around 12 minutes, depending on their size and your oven, until golden brown. Leave on the baking tray for at least 10 minutes before transferring to a rack to cool completely.

These are yummy-delish eaten still warm with a glass of milk.

Enjoy!

*Adapted from a recipe from "Vegan With A Vengeance" by Isa Chandra Moskowitz.

Just came across an amazing illustrator, Victoria Maderna, here. I love this image. It's very sexy and retro and funny and makes me want to get up draw! Shocking, I know. I can't seem to get her website or blog to load, though, but I'm going to keep on trying. Fab stuff.

Last week I asked the lovely fairies at the Society of Secret Fairies if there was to be an autumn exchange. The reply said they hoped so, but things were a bit manic. I offered to help out, and so here I am creating my first invite and taking on my first stint as fairy organiser!:



I hope lots of people will want to take part. All the info for the exchange is over on the SOSF blog.

How bizarre that your home grown produce totally dies off in the July rains, only to come back to life again at the end of the season, thus:



And here:



They did look like this:



and most of them still do, but the others have literally come back from the dead after a bathe in the sunshine. Odd.

Shame it's pretty much the sum total of this year's harvest, though!