Ultimate Breakfast Cookie

It's not "Cookies for breakfast?" 

It's "COOKIES for breakfast!"

It's hot here in Texas, imagine that. Too hot to take the kids on our normal 10 o'clock walk to the park. I need to get out of the house earlier. I've contemplated waking them while it's still dark out, but Boy Child still doesn't sleep through the night, so I refuse to get out of bed before seven. In order to get out of the house quickly I need to feed these two munchkins breakfast in the stroller. I realize I could have purchased some sort of pre-packaged, foil-wrapped stuff but if you know me, you know that's not my style.


I found this recipe and tweaked it up to my (and the kids') liking.


3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour (or bread flour)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 Tbsp butter, melted
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 Tbsp honey
1/4 cup unsweetened, natural peanut butter
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup high-fiber, high-protein cereal, crunched up a bit (I used Kashi Go Lean)
1/3 cup raisins


1. Preheat oven to 350. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.


2. Whisk together flours, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl. Set aside.


3. With a wooden spoon mix butter, sugar, honey and peanut butter until well blended. Add egg and vanilla mix well. Add flour mixture and mix until combined. Fold in oats, cereal and raisins. 


4. With hands roll about 2-3 tablespoons of dough into a ball. Flatten on prepared baking sheet. Cookies won't spread a lot so make sure you flatten them well. Repeat with remaining cookie dough. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Let cool on baking sheet for a minute and then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.


Yield: 12 cookies

Review - Well I thought they tasted ok. Josie said, "Not yummy mama.  I don't like the raisins." Then she hid it in the refrigerator of her play kitchen. Eli took one bite and said "Tsee" and shook his head. The cookies turned out a little dry.  I think 1/4 cup of applesauce would help. The flavor was good, the texture was just off a little. I'll keep trying.

Chewy Chocolate Cookies

I've discovered my new goal in life, ok maybe not life, maybe just this month. Perfect. These. Cookies. They are inches away from mind-blowing. I'm not exaggerating. Part of it is the fact that you can whip these up in a matter of minutes and you probably have the 5 main ingredients in your pantry right now. 

I just baked my second batch of these in three days. They were only half batches, don't judge. I had to shove a stick of gum in my mouth so that I'd stop eating them. That's how good they are. 

The first time I made these I used walnuts, like the original recipe calls for, and they were good, but I knew they could be better. Today I decided to try almonds. I had a bag of almonds, dried cherries and dark chocolate covered almonds from Back to Nature (love that brand), so I decided to chop everything up and throw it in the batter. I usually don't like fruit and chocolate together in my cookies, but the zing from the cherries was nice. The almonds were a little chewy, so think I need to toss them into the food processor next time and pulse them to get a finer result.

This recipe yielded 12 cookies. I wouldn't trust myself with 24 of these chocolate pieces of heaven, but go right on ahead and double it up if you dare.

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1/2 cup cocoa powder (I used a combination of dark cocoa and regular cocoa)

pinch of salt (omit if you're using salted nuts)

1 cup nuts, dried fruit, chopped

2 egg whites

1 tsp vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 320.

2. Line a large, rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper and grease the parchment paper. Do not skip either of these steps.

3. Whisk together sugar, cocoa, salt and nuts. Pour in egg whites and vanilla. Mix with wooden spoon until blended. Batter should be wet, but not runny. Let batter sit at room temperature for 15-20 minutes. I'm not sure what this does, but it gave me a thicker cookie that didn't spread as much.

4. Spoon onto prepared baking sheet. Bake 14-16 minutes. Cookies should be glossy and slightly cracked. Transfer cookies, still on the parchment paper, onto wire rack. Cool completely. Enjoy.

I like this picture because it looks like a light from above is shining down on this cookie. It's fitting.

Chocolate Peanut Spread

What? There's no meat in this dish. It's completely vegetarian.

I don't know how I stumbled upon Smitten Kitchen, but boy am I glad I did. This is the second recipe I've tried (with more on the way) and so far I've been extremely pleased with the results. You could easily whip up this spread in under 10 minutes. However, if you have a 3 year old begging for every snack under the sun even though she's just had lunch, it's going to take you a little longer. Chances are you have all of these ingredients in your pantry right now, so hop to it, try this recipe.

2 cups roasted, unsalted peanuts

1/2 cup unsweetened, dark cocoa powder

1 1/4 cups powdered sugar

1/4 - 1/2 tsp Kosher salt

2-3 Tbsp oil (I've used olive oil and canola oil, both worked fine)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spread peanuts in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Toast in oven for 5 minutes to deepen the flavor.

Place peanuts in a food processor and grind them for about 5 minutes. First they’ll become a paste and then they’ll liquefy. Scrape down the sides as needed. Add the cocoa, sugar, salt. Turn on food processor and drizzle 2 tablespoons of oil. Blend for about 1 minute. Add more salt if needed. Add the last tablespoon of oil if the consistency seems too thick.

Store in refrigerator up to a week in a covered container. 

Nap time snacks don't get much better than this.

Review - Right out of the food processor, this was heavenly. It was warm from being blended for so long. I've been wandering around my kitchen trying to come up with things to dip into it. The apples were delicious. I'm sure this wouldn't be too shabby on a piece of toast topped with banana slices. This recipe made about 1 1/2 cups and turned out to be a heck of a lot more economical than those tiny jars of chocolate hazelnut spread we all love so much. 

I realize that I didn't include anyone else in this review but me. Well that's because I didn't share. If it were up to me I wouldn't share. I plan on hiding the jar in the back of the fridge, probably behind the spinach, where I know no one will ever find it.