Healthy Cookies. No, Really!

She Said:

I have been on the hunt for some tasty healthy cookies for a while now and I think I've found them. I have bought different kinds of pre-packaged organic and natural cookies but they all fell short. So yesterday I tried this recipe and they are actually really tasty! I followed the recipe almost exactly. Here's what I did:

Healthy Honey Oatmeal Cookies

3 tablespoons butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
1 egg
1 tablespoon water
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350℉. Spray a cookie sheet with nonstick cooking spray. Using a mixer with paddle attachment, mix together the butter, brown sugar, honey, egg and water thoroughly. Sift together the flour, salt and baking soda and then stir in the oats. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix. Add in the chocolate chips. Drop by heaping teaspoonfuls onto the cookie sheet. Bake 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

A couple of things that I learned. 1) Do not spray the cookie sheet with nonstick cooking spray - it just burns. I'll use parchment paper or a Silpat next time. 2) I would have preferred raisins to the chocolate chips. Or along with. These cookies just needed raisins.

That's it, though. They're quite tasty, still soft the next day, and, yep, even relatively healthy. I will use more organic and/or natural ingredients next time. I just had the standard stuff on hand this time. Why buy the expensive stuff if you don't know whether or a not a recipe is good, right?

Oh, also, I think I would do a light drizzle of a white chocolate glaze over the top next time, too. They could use a little punch of sweetness on the top.

Holiday Shortcuts

We have had a very busy but nice holiday season so far.  It's still going on!
I wanted to share a couple of shortcut recipes that really worked out well for us.
The first is a breakfast casserole.  It has all of the standard breakfast casserole ingredients but it's not done overnight, like most of the ones I've seen.  This is a Pillsbury recipe.  They call it their Holiday Breakfast Bake. Here's the recipe:

12 oz. bulk pork sausage
1/3 cup chopped onion
1/3 cup chopped green pepper
1/3 cup chopped red pepper
10 eggs
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
1 can Pillsbury Grands! Flaky Layers biscuits

1. Heat oven to 375℉. Spray 13x9-inch glass baking dish with cooking spray. In 10-inch skillet, brown the sausage, onion and bell peppers; drain well. (I actually did this the day before and refrigerated the meat mix until the next morning, when I microwaved it just for a minute to rewarm.)

2. In large bowl, beat eggs. Stir in cheese and sausage mixture. Separate dough into 8 biscuits. Press biscuits into bottom of baking dish. Pour sausage mixture over biscuit crust.

3. Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until egg mixture is set and crust is deep golden brown. Cool 5 minutes before serving.

We had several of our kids stop by on Christmas morning and this was great to have available for whenever they showed up. It also reheats well in the microwave. And it's really delicious!

The second thing we made was also a Pillsbury recipe. It's their Maple-Cinnamon-Pecan Pull-Aparts. These are sinfully delicious as they start with Grands Cinnamon rolls. It only gets better! Here's the recipe:

1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/4 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon maple flavoring or vanilla (I used vanilla)
1 can Pillsbury Grands! Flaky Supreme refrigerated cinnamon rolls with icing

1. Heat oven to 350℉. Spray 8x4-inch loaf pan with cooking spray. In large bown, mix all ingredients except cinnamon rolls with icing.

2. Separate dough into 5 rolls; set icing aside. Cut each roll into quarters; add to pecan mixture, tossing to coat. Spoon roll mixture into pan.

3. Bake 45 to 50 minutes or until deep golden brown. Cool 10 minutes. Turn upside down onto serving platter. Spread with icing. Serve warm.

These were fabulous and fun! Again, they reheat well in the microwave (just enough to take the chill off).

So for our semi-homemade Christmas morning, I think we came up with two winners! And there was no stress to be found anywhere at all!

One Local Summer, Week 6

This was our dessert last night.  It's a plum and blueberry cobbler.  It was good enough but the blueberries were much sourer than I had anticipated.  The plums we used were incredible!

One Local Summer, Week 4

And how about some dessert to top it all off?

Ricotta with Strawberries and Honey