Cherry Walnut Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

The best thing to do during a big storm is bake cookies! The warmth of the oven, plus the comforting smell of them baking, makes for a cozy afternoon.

These cookies are full of natural, healthy ingredients. Spelt flour, oats, cinnamon, cherries, & walnuts all add health benefits. Everyone loves eating a cookie & still feeling like they put something healthy into their body!

Enjoy & stay dry. My thoughts & prayers are with everyone as Hurricane Sandy comes through!

Cherry Walnut Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
Adapted from Cooking Light
Makes 32-34 cookies

2/3 c (3 oz) spelt flour (or sub white whole wheat flour)
1 1/2 c old-fashioned oats
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
6 T organic butter
2/3 c sucant
1 tsp. vanilla
1 organic egg
1/2 c dried cherries (or sub raisins or dried cranberries)
1/2 c chopped walnuts
1/3 c semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Mix together flour, oats, baking soda & salt in the bowl of a mixer. Stir to combine.

Melt butter in a small saucepan over low heat. Once melted, watch closely until butter begins to brown. Remove browned butter from heat & add sucanat. Add to flour mixture and beat at medium speed until combined. Add vanilla and egg; beat until blended. Fold in cherries, walnuts, & chocolate. 

Drop dough by tablespoonfuls onto baking sheets. Cookies will only spread slightly. Bake for 12 minutes, then remove from oven & cool on pans for 3 minutes before removing. Finish cooling on wire racks.

Tasty Tidbits

It's weekend time again! Time flies. The days may stretch on a little, but the weeks fly by! This was a tiring week, so I'm glad that tomorrow will be pretty laid back. I'm not going to go to the grocery store, no matter what, because I'm sure it will be packed with all the people picking up last minute items before the big storm that's on its way.

I'm going to do some experimenting with my ice cream maker this weekend, plus make some other staples for the week, like more granola, hummus, & bread. I'd also like to finish The Feast Nearby: How I lost my job, buried a marriage, and found my way by keeping chickens, foraging, preserving, bartering, and eating locally (all on $40 a week) (long title!!). It's an inspiring book about a woman who does a lot of cooking/preserving & does it all from local sources. She has a lot of great facts about eating locally & about various foods, plus recipes for the things she mentions.

Hope you all enjoy your weekend & stay dry!

Here's what we've been eating in the last week:

Breakfasts

• Cherry Protein Smoothies
• Peach yogurt with Cherry Almond Granola
• Pumpkin Baked Oatmeal with peanut butter & apples/bananas

Lunches

• Leftovers
• Cauliflower mash topped with steamed kale, roasted butternut squash & peanut sauce
• PB & Apple Butter Sandwich
• Mama Pea's Chex Mix - A couple times a year, I make this as a special treat. It's SO good - much better than bought chex mix, or any other recipe I've tried.
• Apples

Dinners

Sunday:

• Pumpkin Chili
• Homemade Whole Wheat Bread

Monday:

• Spaghetti Squash with Tomato Sauce
• Sauteed Brussels Sprouts & Red Onions

Tuesday:

• Tuscan Kale & Bean Soup
• Homemade Whole Wheat Bread

Wednesday:
Birthday dinner with my in-laws at The Hershey Pantry

• I ordered the Eggplant Stackers (one of the specials) with a sweet potato seasonal salad. The eggplant was delicious! The salad was mayo based - blech - so I scraped off the mayo as best I could & ate the cubes of sweet potato. Yes, it was messy. :-)

Thursday:

Traditional choir night dinner at Mom & Pops' house. 

• Lemon Lentil Soup
• Green Salad

Friday:
Dinner with friends

• Out at Chalit's Thai Bistro - I looooove Thai food!

Treats

• Reese's PB Cake & Pumpkin Layer from Vegan Treats, courtesy of our friends who live nearby
• Katie's Healthy Cookie Dough Ice Cream, made in my new ice cream maker attachment - We loved this! Homemade ice cream is going to happen a lot!

Birthday Weekend

Last Friday was my birthday & the Bup & I took off work to celebrate with a 3-day weekend. We met my grandparents at Shady Maple to take advantage of my free birthday breakfast. Whew they have a lot of food there. I'm overwhelmed everytime we go. The main reason I like to go is for the fresh pancakes. This time, I got 2 small pumpkin pancakes - one with coconut & apples, the other with pb & choc chips. So good!

After breakfast, we went to the market next door. Look at these crazy huge, "overly obese" pumpkins!

Such abundance! We bought some produce off of the $1/bag rack, plus a few other things. They had avocados for 77 cents each!

I was drooling over their almond & coconut milk selection. None of the stores around us sell So Delicious brand. Plus, they also had rice milk & flax milk. I didn't get any, but now I know where to go if I want to.

We spent the afternoon around the house. I finished my book (Let's Pretend This Never Happened: (A Mostly True Memoir) - for a snippet, go here & prepare to laugh!). Tink curled up with me & was being so sweet.

My parents had us up for my birthday dinner. Mom & I split a Blue Moon Caramel Apple Spiced Ale. It was really good, although not as caramely or appley as I expected.

I requested pizzas, & Mom came up with some tasty topping. The one on the left has a pumpin parmesan sauce topped with bell peppers & artichoke hearts. The right pizza is fresh smoked mozerella with thinly sliced lemons & fresh basil.

The third flavor was basil-lemon balm pesto topped with broccoli, jalapeno slices & mushrooms.

I couldn't decide which one I liked best. I kept alternating bites, trying to decide. So delicous! We also had a big green salad with dinner - yum!

Before we had cake, we played a game of Farkle. We played another game afterwards. I didn't win either, but it was still fun.

My cake was Happy Day cake with chocolate icing - my favorite!

Mom swapped a few ingredients & made the cake with whole wheat flour & coconut oil - just how I love it. It was fantastic.

We tried for some nice family photos afterwards, but everyone was being a ham. Here we are, all in red.

My family. <3

When we got home, the Bup hung my final b-day present. He made me a rack to hang my necklaces! The free necklaces I got from my jewelry party this summer didn't fit in my little box. I think I tripled my necklace collection at that party! Tink kept trying to play with them, so this was the perfect solution.

On Saturday, we went for an hour long bike ride & then worked a little around the house. We stopped to play a round of mini golf (I had free coupons - can't let them go to waste!) on the way to my friend's birthday party. This pic makes me laugh - he looks sorta short. We were a little dressed up for mini golf.

Celebrating with the birthday girl!

The Bup bought his own bottle of wine because the wines offered were sweet. They made sure that they knew it was his! I was surprised by how much I liked the dry wines offered. My tastes are changing!

Sunday was pretty quiet. We went to church, had lunch, took a walk, worked in the garden, did some cooking for the week, cleaned out part of the basement, & watched a little Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Netflix. It was a relaxing final day of a great weekend!

Thanks to everyone for all of the birthday wishes!