Recipe: Pumpkin Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

So, this is not my recipe originally, but it's amazing and my friend's notes were so helpful that I'm including them with the rest (as it changes the recipe anyway). My notes will come at the end.

Not my picture, but ours didn't really last long enough for one

2 cups flour (I use half wheat, half white)
1 cup quick oats
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup butter/margerine, softened
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup raisins **
1 cup nuts (any kind) **

Preheat oven to 350. Combine flour, oats, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Cream butter, gradually add sugars, beating untill light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla, mix well. Alternate additions of dry ingredients and pumpkin, mixing well after each addition. Stir in chocolate chips, raisins, nuts. For each cookie, drop 1/4 cup dough onto lightly greased cookie sheet, spread with spatula. Bake 20-25 min, untill firm and lightly browned.

**My changes to the recipe: Overmeasure all the dry stuff except for sugar, which I undermeasure. I use a whole 15oz can of pumpkin. I added some flax seed meal and a couple shakes of nutmeg. I left out the nuts and raisins and added extra chocolate. I tried these with the addition of dried cranberries once, it was pretty good. I used teaspoons to drop globs of dough onto the ungreased cookie sheet, didn't smooth them out at all, and they took about 15 minutes to cook.

My changes: I didn't have craisins this time and didn't want to use extra chocolate (plus we only had half the needed cinnamon), so I used cinnamon chips. I used a whole can of pumpkin. Plain, instant oatmeal in place of quick oats (three packets). Ovemeasured dry ingredients, lightly undermeasured sugars. No nutmeg. No nuts or raisins. I squish ours out because they already puff up HUGE. I just use all purpose flour.

Musing on The Spectrum of Sexuality

This was originally a post I made on facebook after a friend's sexuality was attacked. I felt it was important enough to turn into a blog post.
 
Sexuality is not a choice. You can choose to act on it, sure. But not what you feel. Not who you're attracted to. Or not attracted to.

Lesbians don't need "a good fuck by a man" to become straight. If anything, that's just a recipe to prove to them how not heterosexual they are. Same in reverse with gay guys. Sex with a girl will not "cure" them.

Asexual people will not suddenly develop an interest in sex just because they have it. It doesn't matter if it's from the best lover in the world. Nor does--and this one may surprise you--being asexual mean a lack of libido. It can. But what it means is a lack of sexual attraction.




Sexuality is a spectrum. It's not Straight and Gay. It's heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, asexual and levels of each. Then there's romanticism--it's a spectrum, to. A person can be romantically attracted to someone without sexual attraction. And someone can be sexually attracted to a gender/multiple genders without experiencing romantic attraction.

These are not mental issues. These are the broad spectrum of humanity. Of love and sex and all of that. It is not caused by abuse (it can be exacerbated by it). It is not "cured" by further abuse. It is not your place to judge, condemn, diagnose or attempt to "save" or convert (sexually) people of a different orientation.

Acceptance, not 'tolerance,' is what this world needs. Love. Not conditional, based on what you are comfortable understanding. It's okay not to understand. It's okay to ask questions, as long as it's not in a derogatory way. It's okay to feel weird until you know more. It's okay to not know, and to learn. It's okay to be Takei, gay, straight, bi, pan, asexual or anything in between.
This is nature, how we were designed.  Homosexual behavior has been observed in close to 1,500 species. It is real, it is as natural as heterosexuality--it's just less common.

So please, don't just 'tolerate' your friends and family of a different orientation. Love them. Accept them. Defend them against fools who refuse to learn or think. Be the change that this world so strongly needs.

And congratulations to the UK for taking the next step in this process!