Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

The other day I was looking for a recipe to make a slightly healthier snack for Calvin (and me, to be truthful). I remembered that my mom had made a recipe from Cooking Light Magazine for cookie bars baked in a pie plate and sliced into wedges. I found the recipe and then promptly made a bunch of changes.

I used sliced almonds instead of the chopped pecans called for, since I was feeling lazy and didn’t want to chop my pecan halves. I also used a whole egg instead of an egg white. I used white whole wheat flour instead of all-purpose flour to up the nutrition and fiber a bit. I also doubled the original amount of chocolate chips, because, why not?

To top it off, when I made a second batch, I reduced the sugar because I thought the first ones were too sweet. You can use either amount of sugar listed, with no other changes to the recipe. I also reduced the canola oil to one tablespoon in the second batch. It made the bars a little more cake-like and less cookie-like. The difference was slight, so I’ll let you decide how you want them. The wedge in the picture is more cookie-like and the square bars in the background are more cake-like.

You can bake these in a pie plate and cut them into wedges, as in the original recipe, or use a square pan and cut squares. The wedges are a little fragile and tend to lose their points. The square bars are better for packing into lunches, or eating with your fingers while you stand over the pan. Just in case you know anyone who would do that.

The original recipe was called Granola Cookie Wedges, which I thought was slightly misleading. They have no granola in them. I think they are supposed to resemble commercial chocolate chip granola bars, but I’m not sure. There was no explanation in the original recipe. I ditched “granola” in the name in favor of “oatmeal.”

These truly go together in just minutes, and they only require a bowl and a spoon to make – no mixer. I mixed them up before the oven had time to preheat, if that gives you any indication.

While not exactly health food, these are healthier than a chocolate chip granola bar from a box. And they taste a lot better too. Take a few minutes to whip up a batch and see what you think.

Download or print the recipe.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
Adapted by The Cook’s Life from Cooking Light
Makes 12 wedges or bars

Use the smaller amount of brown sugar to make these slightly less sweet, if you prefer. Use the smaller amount of canola oil for more cake-like bars, the larger amount for more cookie-like bars.

¼-⅓ cup packed dark brown sugar
1-2 tablespoons canola oil
1 tablespoon melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ cup white whole wheat flour or all-purpose flour
½ cup oats (I used old-fashioned)
¼ cup sliced almonds (or chopped nuts of your choice)
¼ cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 9-inch pie plate or 8-inch square pan. Set aside.

Mix brown sugar, oil, melted butter, vanilla and egg together. Add salt, baking soda, flour, oats, almonds and chocolate chips and mix well.

Spread batter in prepared pan, making sure top is level.

Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until the center is set. Cool in pan on rack for at least 5 minutes before slicing into 12 wedges or bars.

Baked Sweet Potato Chips

I love the bags of sweet potato chips from the store, but I don’t love the calorie count or the price. I have been working on my own baked version for months now, with various levels of success. I have made leathery chips, shattering chips and many, many burned chips. I finally am to the point that I am consistently making crunchy chips with a nice sweet potato flavor, and without burning most of them.

I tried high heat in the beginning, thinking to treat the chips like oven fries. No go. I managed to burn most of the chips blacker than charcoal; only saving about six edible chips. Then I tried very low heat, which did make sort of crispy chips, while they were hot. When they cooled they were leathery and hard to chew. Not a pleasant eating experience when you are expecting crispy chips. I think sweet potatoes have a bit of a Goldilocks syndrome, liking it not too hot or too cold. I used moderate heat and they were just right, crispy without a hint of chewiness, lightly browned and full of sweet potato flavor.

It is important to slice the potatoes thin enough. Too thick and you will never get them crispy before they burn. I have a mandolin that works beautifully. If you don’t have one, use a food processor. You can use a knife, but it is hard to get them consistently thin enough. My slices were almost see-through and were certainly thinner than I could get them with a knife.

This is not a recipe to make when you are distracted with too many things. You can’t throw them in the oven and walk away until the timer goes off. Trust me. You need to be in the kitchen to make sure you aren’t incinerating your beautifully sliced sweet potatoes. You don’t have to pull up a chair and watch them through the oven door’s window, but you do need to be in the same room while they are baking so you can smell if they are getting too brown. You can certainly do these while you are making dinner. Or while you wash dishes or organize the pantry or whatever kitchen chores suit your fancy.

One sweet potato, sliced very, very thin makes a bunch of chips. Now I am even more amazed at how much a bag costs in the store, since it probably contains about a potato and a half. Leave the expensive bags of fried chips at the store and bake some of your own. And then eat them, warm from the oven, licking salt from your fingers and patting yourself on the back for making a healthy snack.

Download or print just the recipe here.

Baked Sweet Potato Chips
From The Cook’s Life
Makes 3-4 cups chips

Cooking spray
1 large sweet potato, scrubbed
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Lightly spray two baking sheets with cooking spray.

Peel, if desired, and slice sweet potato into very thin slices. I use a mandolin set on the thinnest setting – the slices are less than 1/16^th of an inch thick. You can also use a food processor with the thinnest slicing blade. A knife will work, but you need a very sharp blade and patience.

Arrange the sweet potato slices on the greased baking sheets. You can overlap them, but try to keep only the edges overlapping. The sweet potatoes will shrink when you bake them, leaving plenty of room later. If you end up with any half slices or extra thin slices, double them up so they won’t burn.

Drizzle the slices with olive oil and sprinkle lightly with salt.

Bake for 15 minutes. Remove pans from oven and turn slices over. Yes, you need to turn them all over. It is tedious, but it helps them to crisp. Move the browner edge slices to the middle of the pan and move the middle slices to the edges. Return to oven for 15 more minutes. Stay in the kitchen. If you start to smell brown sweet potatoes, check the pans immediately.

After 15 minutes, remove pans from oven. Remove any chips that are crispy and browning. Yes, take them off now. Don’t think they will be fine while the other chips cook. They won’t. They will burn. Take them off the pan. Return any limp chips to the oven for five more minutes. Stay in the kitchen. Repeat until all chips are crispy.

Cool on pans or on a plate. Chips will get slightly crispier as they cool. Store in an airtight container for a few days, or eat them warm from the oven until they are gone.

Sugar Topped Cranberry Orange Muffins

I was all set to make blueberry muffins for breakfast on Saturday when I realized I had used the last of the blueberries a week ago. I was not going to go to the store, so the frozen fruit choices were raspberries or cranberries. I made a batch of cranberry orange bread for a bake sale in November and have been craving it ever since, so cranberries won out. I decided to make muffins since they would bake in a short amount of time. You can bake just about any quick bread recipe as muffins, or vice versa.

The recipe I was starting with called for orange zest and orange juice, but I was feeling very Saturday morningish, and wanted an easy recipe, so I skipped the zest and used orange juice from a jug. Next time I will at least run the microplane over an orange to get a little zest to punch up the orange flavor just a bit. Not sure I will actually take the time to juice the orange, but I will do the zest.

I combined a couple of recipes and then made a few further variations. That is always a gamble, but this time it worked beautifully. The results were tender, orange-scented muffins with surprise bits of tartness from the cranberries. The sugar and butter topping was icing on the cake.

Download or print just the recipe here. 

Sugar Topped Cranberry Orange Muffins
From The Cook’s Life
Makes 10-12 muffins

1 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup white whole wheat flour (or ½ cup all-purpose flour)
½ cup granulated sugar
1½ teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon orange zest, optional
¼ cup canola or vegetable oil
⅔ cup orange juice
1 egg
1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries (no need to thaw frozen berries)

Topping:
2 tablespoons butter
¼ cup granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease 12 muffin cups and set aside.

Combine all-purpose flour, white whole wheat flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and orange zest in a large bowl. Set aside.

In a separate bowl mix oil, orange juice and egg, beating well.

Add oil mixture to flour mixture and mix gently until about half mixed. Add cranberries and mix gently until there are no dry streaks of flour.

Fill muffin cups half to two-thirds full – if you want taller muffins, fill the cups with the larger amount of batter. You may only get 10 of the larger muffins. If you have empty cups, place an ice cube in each one.

Bake muffins for 12-15 minutes, or until tops are just starting to turn golden brown and feel set when pressed with a finger. If the tops are pale or the centers are soft, bake a minute or two longer.

While muffins are baking, melt butter in a small bowl. Place ¼ cup sugar in another small bowl.

After muffins are baked, let them sit in the muffin pan for 2-3 minutes. Then run a knife around the outside of each one and ease it out of the pan. Dip the top of each muffin first in butter, then in sugar and set on a rack to cool for a few minutes before serving (see Note).

Note: It is best to dip muffins immediately before you eat them. If you are saving some muffins for another time, wait to dip them until you are ready to eat them. If you dip them ahead of time, the sugar melts into the butter as the muffins sit and makes them sticky instead of forming the desired white, slightly crunchy topping.

Muffins keep for a day or two in an airtight container, at room temperature. Freeze muffins for longer storage. Thaw muffins for a few hours at room temperature, in an airtight container. Dip muffins in butter and sugar after thawing.

Juice Jigglers

I have a bottle of cranberry-grape juice that I bought to use in smoothies. Turns out none of us like that flavor in our smoothies. And none of us are juice drinkers, so it has been sitting in the fridge, staring at me every time I open the door. I kept trying to think of things to use it in, but I hadn’t found anything until today.

Calvin and I are participating in a famine awareness lock-in tonight at our church. The kids, and adults, try not to eat to get a slight understanding of how hunger impacts people around the world. Obviously we can’t truly understand, since we are only missing a meal or two, and we have abundant food available when we decide we are done. But it is an exercise in awareness. We are shopping for a local food pantry with money donated from the congregation and then we are heading back to the church for more activities and (hopefully) sleep at some point.

The organizer asked for people to bring jello and juice for snacks in case anyone gets too hungry. I am fine with regular jello, but it always tastes artificial (go figure, since it is). I wondered if I could use unflavored gelatine to make my jug of juice into finger jello snacks, otherwise known as jigglers. A quick look at the box of gelatine showed me that, yes, I could.

The original recipe called for an optional addition of sugar or honey. I figured that cran-grape juice is plenty sweet enough, so I added no extra sugar. You can use any kind of juice you like to make these, and other kinds might need a bit of extra sugar. I like the slightly less sweet taste of just juice, but add sugar if you feel the need. Taste the mixture before you chill it and see if you want the extra sugar or not.

I think my jigglers are pretty tasty. Here’s hoping the kids do too, or I’ll be eating them for the next week.

Download or print the recipe here.

Juice Jigglers
Adapted from Knox Gelatine
Makes about 80 squares

4 cups fruit juice, divided
4 envelopes unflavored gelatine
2 tablespoons sugar or honey, optional

Measure 1 cup juice into a large bowl. Sprinkle gelatine onto juice and stir to combine. Set aside.

Heat remaining 3 cups juice until boiling. You can use the microwave or the stovetop. I did mine in the microwave and it took well over five minutes. I think using the stovetop would have been faster.

Pour hot juice into gelatine mixture and stir until gelatine is fully dissolved, 2-3 minutes. Taste the mixture and add the optional sugar if you think it needs it.

Pour mixture into a 9 by 13 inch pan. Chill for 3 hours, or until set. Cut into small squares to serve. Store in refrigerator.

 

Vanilla Granola

Every time I make granola I wonder why I wait so long between batches. I like it with milk for breakfast, mixed with plain yogurt and honey for a snack and by the handful. It takes minutes to make and keeps in the pantry for several weeks. I usually have everything on hand to make it. But even if you aren’t a grain and nut enthusiast like me, one trip to the grocery store should get you everything you need.

I am still thinking about vanilla, so I decided to make vanilla granola this time. It also has orange juice and honey, but vanilla is the dominant flavor. If you wanted more of an orange kick you could add orange zest along with the juice. Or you could go another direction and add a couple of teaspoons of cinnamon. I left out the dried fruit from this batch, only adding a few raisins for the picture. You could add a mix of fruit, or just keep it simple with one kind, or none.

I added rolled barley flakes to this batch, in addition to the rolled oats. You can get rolled barley, rolled rye and rolled grain mixes in the hot cereal section of the grocery store, or sometimes with the flours. They add another dimension to the granola, but feel free to keep it simple and use all oats. If you like the idea of rolled barley, you can also get it at some Asian markets. I get mine at a market that is heavy on Korean foods and it is all of .69 a pound, which is a steal.

If you have never made granola, give it a try. Make it as written, or try some of my suggestions for adapting it. As long as you keep the proportions of dry ingredients the same, you can mix it up anyway you like – replace the nuts with more oats, add rolled rye for some of the oats or go crazy with nuts and seeds. After it is cool, you can add any kind of dried fruit you like. Or jazz it up in your bowl, with extra honey, fresh fruit, yogurt or milk. How do you like your granola?

Download or print the recipe here.

Vanilla Granola
from The Cook’s Life
Makes about 8 cups granola
Serving size, about ½ cup

3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1 cup rolled barley flakes (or 1 cup oats)
½ cup sliced almonds
½ cup wheat germ
¼ cup chopped pecans
¼ cup sunflower seeds
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup honey
2 tablespoons maple syrup (I used grade B – use what you have)
¼ cup canola oil
½ cup orange juice
4 teaspoons vanilla
1-2 cups dried fruit, optional

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees and grease a large baking sheet. Combine oats, barley, almonds, wheat germ, pecans, sunflower seeds and salt in a large bowl. Warm honey in the microwave for about 30 seconds, or until thin. Add maple syrup, canola oil, orange juice and vanilla and mix well. Pour over the oat mixture and mix well. Spread onto baking sheet in an even layer and bake for 15 minutes. Stir well, moving the toastier outside parts to the middle and spread in an even layer again. Bake another 10 minutes and stir again. Turn the oven off and return the granola to the still hot oven for another 5-10 minutes, until golden brown and toasty, but not browned.

Remove granola from the oven and let cool on the baking sheet on a rack until room temperature. Add dried fruit, if using. Store in an airtight container for a month, or in the freezer for longer storage. Serve as cereal with milk, over yogurt, or eat by the handful.

Chocolate Pecan Butter

I had a plan for this week’s posts. I don’t always, but this week I actually had a plan. I didn’t have the posts written, but I had recipes ready and my thoughts organized. Then I fixed the food processor.

We have been without that glorious appliance since I managed to crack the shaft cover in September. I ordered the replacement part and had it a week later. And then it sat for over two months. There were no directions for replacing it. I wasn’t going to pay for a service center to install it. An online search wasn’t much help.

We pried, we pulled and we even bought a screwdriver to fit the star-shaped screw heads so we could take the whole thing apart. No luck – still the silly machine sat there with its cracked part stubbornly and firmly attached. I have a certain amount of stubbornness too. I was determined that I would fix it. I finally resorted to cutting the plastic shaft cover apart with a box cutter. I had visions of stitches as part of the process, but I managed to emerge with all my fingers intact. It took the box cutter, two screw drivers, a hammer, pliers, and Rich’s help, but we got it, finally. And we didn’t damage any of the rest of the machine, so it still works.

I immediately wanted to process something to try it out. I have been putting off making any Christmas cookies that call for chopped nuts. I know I could chop them with a knife, but the texture is never what I like. That probably says more about my knife skills than anything. I got my giant bag of pecans from the freezer and ground away until I had all the chopped pecans I needed. But that took all of three minutes, which didn’t seem an appropriate re-christening of the food processor.

I have seen recipes and directions for making your own nut butters for years. And I never did them. What better time than with my “new” food processor? I did a small amount, since this was a total experiment – why would I take the time to look up a recipe when I could just wing it? And why would I make plain nut butter when I could make it chocolate? The pecans ground to a paste in about a minute. I added a little cocoa, sugar and a touch of canola oil to make the whole mixture a little less grainy and dense. Success in one!

Think Nutella, but better (and pecan instead of hazelnut, obviously). Intense nutty pecans enriched with chocolate. Or intense chocolate infused with pecans. Either way it was a home run. After an overnight rest it was even better. I’m not sure what I am going to do with it, other than eat it with a spoon. I did spread a little on a small piece of French bread as a snack, which was sublime. I’m thinking sugar cookies sandwiched with this lovely concoction would be outstanding.

I tried again the next day, roasting the pecans first. This intensified the pecan flavor, and it made the nuts oilier. I added too much canola oil and ended up with a runny sauce. It would probably be great drizzled sparingly over chocolate cake. I wanted more of a spread, though, so I mixed it with the first batch – perfection. I do think I actually prefer the flavor of the butter with untoasted nuts. Try it both ways and let me know what you think.

Download or print the recipe.

Chocolate Pecan Butter
From The Cook’s Life
Makes about ½ cup

You can easily double, triple or even quadruple this – just multiply all the amounts. A small jar would make a great hostess or holiday gift. You can add more cocoa to taste – I kept it subtle to preserve the distinctive pecan flavor of the butter.

½ cup pecan halves
2 teaspoons unsweetened cocoa powder
2-4 teaspoons sugar, approximately
½-1 teaspoon canola oil (or other flavorless oil), if necessary

Optional step:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spread pecans in a single layer on a baking sheet and toast for 8-10 minutes, just until slightly darkened and fragrant. Let cool to room temperature on pan before proceeding with recipe.

Process pecans in a food processor until they make an oily paste, which should take a minute or two, by the clock. You will hear a difference in sound when the nuts go from chopped to paste. Process a few seconds beyond the sound change. You might have to scrape down the sides and process more than once.

Once you have a paste, scrape down the sides again and add the cocoa powder and sugar. Process for 60 seconds, or until well mixed. Taste the mixture and feel for texture. Add ½ teaspoon of oil if it seems dry and crumbly. You may not need any oil, especially if you toasted the pecans. Add more sugar if it isn’t sweet enough for you. Process again for 60 seconds, and test the texture again. Don’t add too much oil, or the pecan butter will be too thin and runny.

Transfer pecan butter to an airtight container and let rest overnight, at room temperature. The flavors will deepen and intensify.

Store at room temperature for up to a week. Refrigerate for longer storage.

Happy Experiment – Double Chocolate Banana Cupcakes

I came up with this recipe back in August, but haven’t had a chance to make it again until now. I wanted to recreate my results before I posted it, since the recipe was a total experiment. Those don’t always turn out the second time (or sometimes even the first time).

I had a lot of brown bananas when I came up with the recipe. I had succumbed to the ridiculously low price for a bag of overripe bananas at the grocery store. Of course, when I got home, I realized that I had more bananas than I knew what to do with. I made a double batch of banana bread and still had a bunch of bananas left over.

My brother and sister-in-law were in town that week, so I decided on banana cake, since we would have extra help eating it. I started with a recipe for banana cake that my mother clipped from the newspaper eons ago. There is no indication what paper, or what year. I ended up changing it so much that the only resemblance to the original is the fact that it has bananas in it. I exaggerate, but not much.

Mom never put an icing on this particular cake – she usually sprinkled chocolate chips and pecans on top right before she put it in the oven. I decided to take that one step further and make the cake chocolate too. I reduced the flour and sugar and replaced them with the same amount of cocoa. I also substituted half of the remaining flour with white whole wheat flour. I added vanilla, doubled the bananas and stirred chocolate chips into the batter, as well as sprinkling some on top.

The cake was a success, except somehow Rich ended up not getting any. He has been asking for me to make it again ever since, so he could try it. When I made it again, I decided to make cupcakes, for easier serving. I like the cupcakes better than the cake and probably will always make cupcakes with this particular recipe. I did include baking directions for the large cake so you can choose which to make. Which do you prefer – a cupcake or a piece of cake?

Double Chocolate Banana Cupcakes
From the Cook’s Life
Makes 18-24 cupcakes OR one 9 X 13 cake

½ cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups mashed ripe bananas (4-5 medium bananas)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup white whole wheat flour (can substitute all-purpose flour)
½ cup natural cocoa powder
2½ teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1½ cups semi-sweet chocolate chips, divided

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease muffin pans and set aside.

Beat butter with sugar until fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla and beat again until well combined. Add bananas and mix well.

Mix all-purpose flour, white whole wheat flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add to banana mixture and stir gently to combine. Do not beat. Stir in 1 cup of chocolate chips.

Fill muffin cups about half full for shorter cupcakes, or about three quarters full for taller cupcakes. You will get about 24 shorter cupcakes, or 18 taller ones.

Divide the remaining chocolate chips among the cupcakes, using 3 to 4 each.

Bake cupcakes for 10-15 minutes, until tops spring back when touched lightly. Do not overbake or cakes will be dry.

Cool cupcakes about 5 minutes before removing from pans to cool on racks.

Cake Variation:
Spread the batter into a greased 9 by 13 inch pan, leveling the top. Sprinkle remaining 1/2 cup chocolate chips over the cake. Bake 25-30 minutes, being sure not to overbake the cake – bake only until middle is set and springs back when touched lightly. Let cake cool in the pan on a rack.

 Download the recipe here.

Blueberry Almond Muffins

These are the muffins I mentioned last week in the post about Rich’s birthday celebrations. We are suckers for anything almond, and if you throw blueberries in the mix, we can’t ask for anything more (well, chocolate, but that is a whole other category). The first almond blueberry muffins we had were from Pint Size Bakery and they were like no other muffins I have ever had. They were the lightest, moistest cake I have ever eaten, perfumed with almond and dotted with berries. I should have asked how they made them, but they were super busy the day we were there, and I haven’t taken the time to contact them to ask.

I did a quick internet search and found a recipe for Blueberry Almond Muffins from Odense Almond Paste. And we happened to have a package of the paste, so I tried them, with a few adjustments. They were supposed to have lemon zest, which I replaced with vanilla extract. I wanted the focus to be on the almond, and it was. They turned out moist and tall, with a definite almond flavor and that close-grained yet rich texture that only almond paste can impart. While they weren’t really the same as the bakery muffins, they were a new twist on blueberry muffins that we will definitely be making again.

You will probably have to buy almond paste to make these, but the rest of the ingredients are pretty standard. I used frozen blueberries since blueberry season is long past. Blueberries are one fruit that I almost always have in the freezer, since it is so easy to throw some into a smoothie, pancakes or muffins on a whim. Next time I will sprinkle a little sugar on top of the muffins before they go into the oven.

As an aside, I only have the picture Rich took with his phone before he ate his muffin. We ate the batch over a few days, but didn’t ever stop to take another picture. That is how good they were. Our waistlines and cholesterol levels can’t take too many treats; so more pictures will have to wait until we have the dietary leeway to make these again.

Blueberry Almond Muffins
From Odense Almond Paste
Makes 12 muffins

2 cups flour
½ cup sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 (7 oz.) package almond paste, grated on a box grater
6 tablespoons cold butter, cut into small pieces
¾ cup milk (I used skim)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup blueberries (frozen or fresh)
Sugar (granulated, coarse or demerara), optional

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease a 12 cup muffin pan and set aside.

In a large bowl, stir together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Cut in grated almond paste and butter until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs.

In a separate bowl, beat the milk, eggs and vanilla until well mixed. Stir into the flour mixture gently. When just a few streaks of flour remain, add the blueberries and stir gently.

Spoon into muffin cups ­– the cups will be almost full of batter. Sprinkle tops sugar, if desired.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until tops are rounded and muffins are golden brown on top. A toothpick inserted in the middle of a muffin will come out clean when the muffins are done.

Remove muffins from pan to cool on a rack. Serve warm or room temperature. Muffins keep for several days in an airtight container. Freeze for longer storage.

Download the recipe here.

Cookies for Breakfast

I can’t believe I am advocating cookies for breakfast, but these really are healthy enough that I have been letting Calvin eat them for breakfast. They are certainly healthier than a commercial granola bar or cereal bar. If you aren’t ready to sanction cookies for breakfast, they also make a great snack, and just one leaves you more satisfied than a handful of pretzels, with a whole lot more nutrition.

I first saw the recipe on Emmy Cooks, which is worth a look, if you have time to check it out. Emmy got the recipe from another blog, Blue Kale Road, which she links to in her post. Another good read. Emmy made a couple of changes to the recipe and I made a few of my own.

The original recipe called for filling these with jam or preserves, as in a traditional thumbprint cookie. That sounded good to me, but I knew Calvin wouldn’t be crazy about them, so I filled some with raspberry jam, some with peanut butter and some with dark chocolate chips. Calvin prefers the chocolate and peanut butter ones, Rich the raspberry. I like them all.

These go together in minutes, and you only need a bowl and a wooden spoon. If you don’t keep whole wheat flour or oats on hand, these cookies are worth a trip to the store.

Play with these and see what you like the best, or what adaptations you want to make. Maybe more spices, no spices, almond extract instead of vanilla or no extract. Make changes, or make them as is, but make them. These are too good and too easy to go in the “someday” file. Post back and let me know how you like them when you try them.

Breakfast Thumbprint Cookies
Makes 24-30 cookies

I have used both imitation and real maple syrup in these. Use what you have on hand.

1 ½ cups rolled oats, old fashioned preferred
¾ cup oat flour*
1 ½ cups whole wheat flour (I used white whole wheat)
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ cup maple syrup
½ cup oil, olive or canola or a combo of the two
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Filling suggestions:
Jam
Peanut butter mixed with honey or maple syrup
Chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease two cookie sheets, or line them with parchment. Set aside.

In a large bowl, mix the rolled oats, oat flour, whole wheat flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Add maple syrup, oil and vanilla and mix well, until there are no dry pockets of flour or oats. You might not think it will come together, but keep mixing and you will get a stiff dough.

Use a small cookie scoop (mine holds a scant 2 tablespoons) or your damp hands to make  balls of dough. Flatten each ball slightly and use your thumb and fingers to make a well in the middle, building up the edges to hold the filling. If the cookies crumble, just press the edges back together with your fingers. Keep your hands damp and the dough won’t stick to them.

Now it is decision time: If you are using jam, fill each depression with about a teaspoon of jam at this point.

If you want to use peanut butter or chocolate, you will fill the cookies about halfway through the baking time. Bake them empty for the first 5 minutes and then fill. While they are beginning to bake, mix the peanut butter with a little honey or more maple syrup to loosen it just a bit. I used about 3 parts peanut butter to one part honey. Fill the cookies with about a teaspoon of your peanut butter mixture. Spread the filling out with a damp finger – it won’t change shape in the oven.

Or use about 5 chocolate chips per cookie. The chips will melt during the second half of the baking time. After the cookies come out of the oven, use the tip of a spoon or knife to gently smooth the chocolate.

Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes, or until the tops are just starting to brown. If you are using peanut butter or chocolate, fill the cookies after 5 minutes in the oven.

Carefully remove cookies from baking sheets and allow to cool completely on racks. These keep well at room temperature, or you can freeze them for longer storage. The chocolate ones are good warmed in the microwave for a few seconds to melt the chocolate.

*If you don’t keep oat flour on hand (and I don’t) you can make it by grinding oats finely in a food processor, blender or coffee grinder. I find that ¾ cup of oats makes slightly more than ¾ cup of oat flour. Grind the oats, then measure the oat flour. Use any leftovers in pancakes, muffins or cookies.

Download the recipe here.

Zucchini Muffins

I think I have mentioned that my parents grow a large garden. It is my dad’s baby more than my mom’s, but she is out there, doing plenty of the watering, weeding and planting. She just doesn’t get into it as much as Dad does. Vegetable gardening is Dad’s passion (one of them) and Mom prefers the flowers, I think.

We can count on coming home with a bounty of vegetables almost any time we visit my parents during the gardening season (which we totally appreciate!). We were at their house a few weekends ago and the zucchini was growing like gangbusters. They had several on the counter, waiting for us to take home, and we found several more in the garden when we walked out for our customary tour. One had grown overnight into baseball bat size, as zucchini tends to do. We took them all, from babies to bats.

I decided that zucchini muffins or bread were in order. I paged through cookbooks and found a recipe I liked. Of course it only called for one cup of zucchini. I needed something that called for pounds of zucchini. But I settled for doubling the recipe.

The muffins were very good, though I was adapting a bread recipe and should have watched them more closely. They got a little brown on the bottoms and were a little dry. But they were tasty and I am going to make them again, maybe today. The bat sized zucchini grated into six cups and a slightly smaller one came out to five. I froze several bags of grated zucchini, ready for recipes. And we have eaten zucchini at least every other night with dinner for the last two weeks. I think we are down to two zucchini in the fridge. Any takers?

Whole Wheat Zucchini Muffins
Adapted by The Cook’s Life
From “Country Baking” by Ken Haedrich
Makes 12 muffins, easy to double

The original recipe was for bread, baked in an 8 ½ by 4 ½ inch loaf pan. Baking time was 50 minutes.

1 2/3 cups white whole wheat flour
2/3 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1½ teaspoons cinnamon
2 eggs
1/3 cup canola or vegetable oil
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice (optional, I didn’t use it)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup grated zucchini (don’t peel it and don’t squeeze it dry, you want all the moisture)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease 12 muffin cups. Mix the white whole wheat flour, the all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in a medium bowl.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs; then add the oil, brown sugar, lemon juice (if using) and vanilla. Mix well, then add the zucchini and mix again.

Add the flour mixture to the egg mixture and mix gently until all the flour is mixed in and there are no dry streaks. Do not beat. Batter will be very thick.

Divide the batter evenly between the muffin cups. Bake 15-18 minutes, or until the centers are firm when pressed or a toothpick inserted in the middle of a muffin comes out clean.

Cool the muffins in the pan on a rack for 5-10 minutes, then remove from the pan and let cool on the rack. The muffins will get moister the next day from the zucchini. Store in an airtight container for a few days or freeze for longer storage.

 Download the recipe here.