Baking Day

After a romantic weekend spent walking hand in hand with DH at the aquarium and many home improvement stores, and having a good carpenter/roofer friend over for dinner, I feel much better. Apparently, where our roof is leaking indicates that it is an easy fix, and our friend even offered to help us when it's time. I think he will also get really into our solar heater design, too. I had so much fun at Lowe's that I am going back today to pick up some bamboo blinds for our bedroom (they look so great in the other window we put them in).

Today is baking day, again, in my house, and today Luke and I had help from our friends, a mom and daughter, age 3. We made bread and my magic oatmeal cookies. They are magic because they are so healthy that I don't mind if my son eats them all, and they taste divine! Every time I make them they are a little different, b/c I always change the flours, the dried fruits, the nuts and kinds of chocolates I put in. But here is the basic recipe:

MAGIC OATMEAL COOKIES:

2 cups flour (any kind! mix them up. I love using a 1/2 cup almond meal for added nutrition)
2 cups rolled oats
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/3 cup olive oil, vegetable oil or butter
1/2 cup sugar (or honey, agave, molasses, maple syrup, or stevia powder, adjusted)
1 Tbs Baking Powder
1 to 1.5 Cup Add-ins: I usually put in dried fruit, chocolate chips & nuts. Mix it up! 2 of the best combos I've done were: Prunes, Cranberries, Currants, Walnuts, Hazelnuts and Semi-Sweet Chocolate OR White chocolate chips, apricots, almonds and cranberries.

Spoon onto trays and bake in preheated oven at 350*F for 15-20 minutes.

Today's batch used dried pineapples, walnuts, and semi-sweet chocolate chips. No sugar, just 1/4 cup of powdered green stevia leaf. For flour, I had some old jiffy cornbread mix I needed to use before it expired, so I used that for one cup of the flour, and regular unbleached flour for the other half. This was one of my most experimental batches and it is fantastic. My friend ate about 7 cookies before she left! I've even made them with rye flour, with great results.

Enjoy!