Breakfast Cookies!

It’s about time these two words had their day together, isn’t it?

I have been baking/cooking up a storm and have lots of fun new recipes that I will be sharing with you over the coming days.  I’ve gotten them from all different sources, but I figured I’d start with my favorite dessert blog, Chocolate Covered Katie.  She has tons of “healthy” desserts, and such an upbeat style of writing – I really enjoy reading her blog.

Yesterday, I made this recipe because I had some really ripe bananas that needed to be used:

Oatmeal-Raisin Breakfast Cookies

(gluten-free!)

Also one of My Sugar-Free Recipes.

• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• scant 1/2 cup applesauce or over-ripe banana (mashed)
• 1/4 cup nut butter
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 3 T raisins (or other dried fruit, or even chocolate chips)
• pinch salt if desired (taste the dough to decide)
• 1 packet stevia (or 1 tablespoon sugar. I actually omitted this altogether. If you have absolutely no sweet tooth, you can try it that way. And if you have a huge sweet tooth—or are used to “non-healthy-tasting” desserts—try adding 1/4 cup sugar. As I said above, don’t expect these to taste like your everyday oatmeal-raisin cookies. I’ll post a recipe for those soon!)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mash the banana with the nut butter, then add all other ingredients and mix until well-combined. Shape into cookies and bake for around 14 minutes. (Alternatively, you can try pulverizing the raisins and oats before combining them with the banana mixture, if you want more sweetness.)

Click for the cookie Calories and Nutrition Facts.

This recipe probably yields around 10-12 cookies, but I had to guess… because I ate a considerable amount of the raw dough!

Here’s how I did it:

I knew this recipe wouldn’t yield a lot of cookies, so I doubled it.  I made my own sunbutter (use peanut butter or whatever your family enjoys) using roasted, salted sunflower seed kernels from Trader Joe’s.  I put the whole bag in the Vitamix with a spoonful of coconut oil.  The oil was hard, but the Vitamix melts it in seconds.  When that was done, I scooped it out and put it in a container for a few minutes (I made more than I need for this recipe because I will be needing it for another one).  Then, I combined the oats and raisins and turned them to dust in the Vitamix.  Katie says that this helps make the cookies sweeter.  I then put them in a separate bowl.  Finally, I threw a couple of bananas in and liquified them, as well.  Finally, I just stirred everything together in a big bowl, and then spooned them on to a cookie sheet that I had greased with coconut oil.

Judge not my sunbutter for my horrendous food styling

She typically makes her desserts so naturally sweet, that people won’t realize that they are eating healthy.  She cautions that this is not one of those recipes.  Since there are no eggs in the recipe, you can definitely taste the batter and see if you’d like to sweeten it further.  I did not, and the girls were delighted with the two cookies I let them each have with their breakfast.  Actually, Kathleen and Belle were delighted.  I don’t think Mary liked them.  She doesn’t like sunbutter though, so maybe next time I’ll make them with peanut butter for her.  Update:  Mary just came in from school begging for more of the cookies.  I guess they grew on her!  Dave and I liked them, as well.  I was very happy knowing that they got an extra protein and fiber boost with their breakfast, and they thought I was the nicest mom for letting them have dessert in the morning!

One is missing because I could not restrain myself from sampling before I got the camera

I think this is a great opportunity to look at gluten free/whole foods eating.  I did not need any special (weird/expensive) ingredients, I had everything I needed in my house, and it was a fun break from the usual morning routine.  Beautiful.