Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Mookies? Cuffins?

There is a fine line between a 'good recipe' and 'binge inducing'.  I want to find recipes that I enjoy, but not too much.  For me, one of the keys to weight control is not to eat food that I like too much.  I think that's why vegan works for me.  Most of the foods that I really love, like cheese (glorious cheese) are way to easy for me to eat too much.  I'm not sure if the milk fat causes the binges and the cravings, or if its just a food that I find delicious and will eat even if I am not hungry because it just tastes so good.  Dr. Greger says that fatty foods have been proven to be addictive.  Dr. Fuhrman says it causes toxic hunger.  I've noticed the same thing with salt. I eat one salty food, then I want to balance it with a sweet one, then another salty one... vicious cycle.  It really is better if I just avoid it all together.

So, then I found these cookies.  I've already eaten 3 tonight, so I'm concerned they might be 'binge inducing'.  However, my 8 year old daughter has also eaten 2, asked if she could have some for breakfast and requested that I make more, so from the kid-friendly-vegan perspective, it's a winner.  It's also a super easy recipe that I could see making in many different variations.

I did not call these a 'cookie' when introducing them to my daughter, fearing that she'd expect something buttery, crunchy and super sweet. So instead I eloquently said, "Hey, do you want to try one of these ... uh... small muffiny-things?"  She bounced over and took one, then came back for another. Fantastic.

I've got to start a blog, I thought.  This is good information I should share. I can create a site that lists good vegan cookie recipes and rates them for taste, kid-friendliness and ease in the kitchen. ... and so this blog was born.

The recipe is here on AmbitiousKitchen's blog.
2-Ingredient Healthy Banana Bread Breakfast Cookies {with Add-ins!}

Modifications or Notes:  It's a pretty extensible recipe.  Basically I ground Old Fashioned Oats in my food processor, added bananas and pulsed until the bananas were all mixed with the oats.  Then, I transferred it all to a bowl and mixed in some white chocolate chips by hand. (Sadly, I realized later the chips were not vegan... but I'm sure you could find some vegan chips).  Then I used my cookie scoop to scoop out 16 cookies and plopped them on my silpat mat.  I convection baked them at 350 degrees for 9 minutes.

The cookies did not flatten out or change shape one bit, though they did get a nice a nice toasty color.  They looked a bit like coconut macaroons.  We've decided to call them 'muffin balls'.

Update Nov 24, 2013 - Made these again with 'green top' bananas.  They were much harder to mix in with the food processor, made a stiffer dough and I didn't think they were as good.  Definitely better to use riper bananas.

Kid-friendly: yes
Kid-rating: 4
Ease of prep: Super easy.
Cleanup: Easy: food processor, cookie scoop, silpat. silicone scraper. measuring cup.
Nutrition: C : very unprocessed, however, oats aren't that high on the nutrient-dense meter. The chips really lower the rating to 'cookie' status.
Overall Rating: 4 - company-worthy, will definitely make again and will vary the add-ins.

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