Oatmeal/Chocolate Cookies Recipe

Gosh, i have been remiss in the recipe department lately! That is mostly due to the nature of what i've been eating lately: the last of the garden lettuce/spinach/fava beans in big, delicious, balanced dinner salads every night. People look at my funny when i say i eat salad for dinner - as the main course. They clearly have not had one of my salads. They're as big as my head and leave me full and satisfied until morning and usually have a pretty decent amount of protein in the form of nuts, seeds, beans and corn, or fish/chicken.

Anyhoo - last night i whipped together some delicious tilapia and sweet potato oven fries, but as with most last minute dinners i just threw togehter things i knew would go together well and consumed heartily - no proportions noted in which to share with you to use. Most of my dinners are like this "miranda glops"  or  other one dish sort of meals that contain mysterious and wonderful things. I made the hubby's fish into two fish burgers, and mine was a delightfully steaming plate full of two fillets and caramelized onions. Yum! Sweet potato fries are so easy and quick to pull together too, and go great with lots of things.  The basics:

• Wash potatoes well
• cut in half, in half again, and slice into fairly evenly sliced 'fries' about 1/4 inch thick or less
• Spray baking sheet with nonstick
• Scatter the pieces of potato and spray with nonstick (you can also toss in a bowl with olive oil)
• Coat with seasonings: salt, pepper, chilly powder, cayenne, garlic, paprika whatever you want!
• Flip and repeat
• Stick in the oven at about 400 and bake until a good sizzle and squish when touched (about 20 minutes). Flip a few times during that time. I also increased the tempt to 425 for about 10 minutes to add a little more crisp

But today i'm going to try something i rarely if ever do: bake cookies. I have a new neighbor, and i like to welcome new neighbors. He's a young 20 something guy who works at a gym, i figure he can afford to eat a few cookies, and the husband would be happy to have cookies baked when he comes home, i'm sure.  I'll whip together something kind of healthy/naughty and see what happens. I'd like to throw coconut into this recipe, but some people don't like coconut (!) so i don't want to risk alienating the dude. I have an old recipe i used to bake known as "Real F***in' Good Cookies."  They are made with hazelnut flour, dark chocolate and golden raisons. They are to die for and they're almost vegan. I think i'll try and mix that recipe with oatmeal cookies and add some cocoa powder and see what happens! Here's what i came up with (TOTAL EXPERIMENT!):

• 1 cup oats
• 1 cup flour  all purpose/white whole wheat
• 1 cup ground almonds and pecans
• -1/4 cup rapadura + good squirt of agave nectar
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 egg
• 1/4 tsp salt
• cinnamon
• 1 Tablespoon cocoa powder
• dash vanilla
• 3 Tablespoons milk
• 1/4 cup applesauce
• Bake 350 11-12 minutes

Upon tasting the batter: not sweet or salty enough.
I added some coconut to the second batch which seemed to brighten the taste somewhat.
These could really use chopped dates, golden raisons, chocolate chips: SOMEthing. But i had none of those things, so they remain not quite sweet or salty enough. I added a pinch more sugar and agave and the cookies turned out dense little balls of something. Woudlnt' really call them cookies. Rather doughy. Miranda cookies i guess. I honestly thought the oil of the ground nuts would make them moister. I think they're pretty tasty though. I think if i did this again i'd double the cocoa powder, or better yet use melted bakers chocolate. That would help with the moisture as well.

All in all, not a bad outcome. They're doughy cookies, which is fine. Good for an after lunch sweet without too much whamo sugar. Might make awesome ice cream sandwiches if they were bigger... hmmmmmmmmmmmm ice cream saaaaandwiiiiiiiiiich.

Have a great weekend!