Greetings. This recipe includes ingredients which you may not normally have in your pantry:  almond flour, rye flour, and quinoa flour. A large grocery store most likely will stock these items. If you substitute regular unbleached flour, use 1 cup, and increase the oats to 3 cups. 

Oatmeal Cookies

¾ cup butter, at room temperature

¼ cup molasses

½ cup sugar

½ cup brown sugar, not packed

1 egg        1 tablespoon vanilla

1 cup almond flour

½ cup rye flour    ½ cup quinoa flour

1 tablespoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

2 cups oats     1 cup raisins

1 cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Fit parchment paper to cookie sheets, or lightly coat with butter.

Beat butter until creamy. Beat in molasses, sugar, and brown sugar, until creamy. Beat in egg and vanilla.

Combine almond flour, rye flour, quinoa flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl. Stir into butter-sugar mixture, leaving some streaks of flour.

Combine oats, raisins, and pecans in the empty bowl from the flour mixture. Add oat mixture to the cookie batter, and stir until evenly blended.

Scoop up batter into golf ball-sized portions (recipe makes about 4 dozen cookies) and drop onto cookie sheets, spacing 2 inches apart. With damp fingers, press down on each cookie to flatten to about ½ inch thickness. Cookies will not spread during baking.

Bake for 10-12 minutes. Allow cookies to remain on cookie sheet for a few minutes before removing to cool on a rack.

Makes about 4 dozen.

 

 

captions, page 1: Private Harvey Stevens

 

caption, page 6:

Purple Heart

Left: Members of the Stevens and Thurlow families gathered for a family portrait after WWI Private Harvey Stevens' Purple Heart medal was presented to his two surviving children. Below: U.S. Congressman Joe Courtney presents the Purple Heart medal and certificate to Phyllis Thurlow (in black) Stevens' daughter, and William "Bill" Stevens. Stevens' wife Floris Stevens sits to her husband's left.

 

 

By Linda Lemmon

Town Crier Editor

PUTNAM --- The fact that some 95 years had intervened  between Private Harvey M. Stevens' service and the presentation of his Purple Heart to his two surviving children was of no consequence. His son, William Stevens, and his daughter, Phyllis Thurlow, both cried. As did many Stevens/Thurlow family members watching with pride as U.S. Congressman Joe Courtney presented the Purple Heart certificate and medal to the pair.

Stevens was wounded by shrapnel while fighting in France in World War I.  Daughter Phyllis Thurlow said her father was very proud to serve his country. He often told stories about the war but scarcely discussed his being wounded.

Courtney, clearly thrilled at the prospect of presenting a medal for a World War I hero, told those attending that he was proud to listen to the stories of service of the family, from even before the Revolutionary War.

"These are amazing stories of our history," he said. He said the Purple Heart, created by George Washington, has always been the thread between present day and our past.

Ryan McKenna, who began as a veterans rep at Courtney's office in August, is a military man himself. He served three years in the 82nd Airborne and is currently in the Air Force Reserve. He said the paperwork for the Purple Heart for Stevens had been submitted to the National Personnel Records Center by his predecessor.

Carl Thurlow, a nephew, approached McKenna to ask if there was any word about his grandfather's Purple Heart. McKenna tracked down the paperwork, reworked it so that the medical evidence was conclusive and resubmitted the packet. This time it came through.

McKenna said he did the work in October/November and the medal arrived around the beginnin

 

 

Still Life

A solitary birch tree stands in front of a calm Quinebaug River at Rotary Park. Linda Lemmon photo.