Taste of Fall

I love dessert.

I love chocolate, ice cream, cookies, pies… you get the drift.  I’d probably eat an ice cream sundae for dinner multiple times a week if I thought I’d feel good physically after the fact.

However, most of the time my diet consists of whole grains, lots of fruits and veggies, nuts, low-fat dairy and some lean meats.  Very exciting;-)  I also like to incorporate healthy “treats”.

When I have the time, I’ll make something. like low-fat cookies, or brownies (Look for more recipes like that in the future:-)).  That way I am enjoying something that isn’t so processed.

So last night I decided to make myself a baked breakfast treat.  What better way to start the day than with a healthy baked good??

I made Pumpkin Banana Baked Oatmeal.  There are a ton of different baked oatmeal recipes around the web, so I just took bits and pieces of the different variations.

You Will Need:

2 cups of rolled oats

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

dash of salt

1/2 cup canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)*

3/4 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk (skim milk or soy milk, etc. is fine as well)

1/2 cup egg replacement

1 large or 2 small ripe bananas, mashed

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Spray an 8×8 or 9×9 pan with non-stick spray.

Combine dry ingredients (oatmeal through salt).  Set aside.

Combine wet ingredients (everything else).

Add oatmeal mixture to wet ingredients and stir until combined.

Pour into baking pan and bake for 23-28 minutes, or until a knife comes out clean.

Serve warm.

I topped mine with some peanut butter for protein and healthy fats plus a drizzle of  sugar-free syrup.

Notes:

*You could use up to 1 cup of pumpkin in this recipe.  I happened to be using leftovers and that is what I had left.

This recipe truly tastes like fall.  The pumpkin pie spice gives it a great aroma.

Note that there is no added sugar in the recipe.  The baked oatmeal is sweetened only by bananas.  That way, you can sweeten it with toppings based on preference.

I think this would be great topped with some greek yogurt and blueberries or banana slices.  Maybe even some baked apples, or apple butter.  Yum!

What healthy “treats” do you enjoy?

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I Don’t Mess Around With Raisins

Why eat cookies with raisins in them if you could eat cookies with chocolate in them instead???  I actually have an issue with raisins in baked goods and grew up picking raisins OUT of the oatmeal raisin cookies and bran muffins (it runs in the family, my dad is the same way!).  Eventually my mom caught on and started making oatmeal chocolate chip cookies instead of oatmeal raisin cookies.

Well tonight I spiced it up a bit and made Toffee Studded Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookies, quite the mouthful, but their deliciousness justifies the long name.

I bet you didn’t know the best recipe for oatmeal cookies comes from the Quaker oatmeal container!

Well, if you like chewy, melt-in your mouth cookies with a hint of cinnamon, you will agree.  After looking through a ton of different cookie recipes, I decided to stick with what I know works since this is a batch I’ll be sharing for the high holidays.  Ok, I mostly stuck with what works.  There is a little bit of whole wheat flour substituted in so that you start to think these are health food;-)

Before baking, I had a big decision to make:  Which chocolate chunks should I use?  Normally I stick with the brands I know (kind of like the way I refuse to use anything but Colgate toothpaste and the Husband will only eat Heinz ketchup), but when I went to re-stock the chocolate, there was only one brand choice (the woes of NYC supermarkets)!  As a result, I came home with these saco chocolate chunks instead of the Nestle I have grown up with.  Of course this called for a taste test!

There was no “official” blind study, but after a few bites of each, I decided that I actually preferred the saco chocolate!  The Nestle chunks are good, but just a little bit too sweet versus the saco chips which tasted more like quality dark chocolate.  The Taster did a blind study after the fact and knew right away which was Nestle.  He agreed with my summary, though.

Want to test out my judgement in cookie recipes?  Try out the below recipe, very lightly adapted from Quaker’s.

You will need:

1/2 lb (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 tsp baking soda (not baking flour!!)

1 tsp cinnamon

a pinch of salt

3 cups of quick or old-fashioned dry oatmeal

1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chunks

1/2 cup toffee bits

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix together flours, cinnamon and baking soda.  Set aside.

In large bowl, beat together butter and sugars until creamy.

Beat in eggs and vanilla.  I recommend cracking eggs into separate bowl first.

Make sure to scrape sides of bowl and mix some more.

With mixer on low, carefully add in flour mixture.  You want to do this slowly or the flour will fly all over your kitchen!

Once all ingredients are well-combined, stir in oats.

Stir in chocolate chunks and toffee bits until well-mixed.

Taste the batter. Ok, not mandatory but if you do this, be extra certain that your eggs aren’t on this list!

Now, refrigerate your cookie dough for 2 hours or overnight.  This is necessary to avoid flat cookies.

Once you are ready to bake, pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. You could use wax paper if necessary, but parchment paper works so much better for baking cookies!

Drop heaping tablespoons of dough about 2 inches apart on baking sheets.

My favorite tool made a reappearance!

Bake in oven for 8-10 minutes or until centers of cookies appear cooked and edges are light golden brown.

Try to let cookies cool on cooling rack…

and then enjoy!

Notes:

Although I used the saco chocolate chunks, any brand you like will work.

If you like your cookies to have chocolate in every bite, consider increasing chocolate amount to 1 1/2 cups.

Cookies freeze very well.  These are great to make ahead and snack on or defrost in batches for unexpected guests.

I don’t dislike raisins.  In fact, I enjoy stale raisins (yes, weird, I know).  Plump moist raisins just don’t work for me.

 

What are some products and brands that you won’t deviate from?

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