Cookie of the Week!- Lowfat Oatmeal Date Cookies

Sorry I'm a little late in the day getting to this, but it has been one of those days! I will spare you all the details, but I had the choice this afternoon to either blog or nap. I chose nap! My camera is acting funny today also so I took the picture using the good old Mac. So these were alright. Not good and not bad. The recipe calls for 3/4 cup of water, and I just think that was way too much. If I make these again, I will try just a half cup of water. I was lucky to come into a huge bag of chopped dates through a mom in my mom's group. She bought a bag at Sam's and her family didn't like it, so my family was the lucky ones to get the bag. Ever since we hosted Middle Eastern students, dates have been a favorite in our house (except for me, I tasted them while pregnant and have never liked them). Adam was super happy about these, and they did go kind of quickly down at the in-laws house this weekend. So here is the recipe: (It calls for raisins also, but I was out so they were just date cookies!)


Low-Fat Oatmeal Raisin Date Cookies
44 min 20 min prep and makes 36 cookies

3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup oil
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup water
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup raisins
3/4 cup chopped dates

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Cream sugars, oil, egg, and vanilla in large mixing bowl.
3. Add water and beat on low speed until well mixed.
4. Stir in flour, baking soda, and salt.
5. Fold in oatmeal, raisins and dates.
6. Stir until blended.
7. Drop dough by spoonfuls onto a baking sheet sprayed with Pam.
8. Flatten slightly with a fork.
9. Bake 12 minutes or until golden brown.

Cookie of the Week!-Root Beer Float Cookies

Let me start off by saying this was a FAIL! I was not happy with this recipe. The cookies spread very wide while cooking, the first batch was underdone in the middle and the second batch was over done. I also felt that the root beer candies did not impart enough of a root beer flavor. I think if I were to use a root beer extract instead these might have tasted better! I have had this recipe on my hard drive for awhile so I will have to try and find which book from the library that I got it from. Here is the recipe:


Cookies:
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup finely crushed root bear candies (about 10)
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. allspice
2 eggs

Glaze and Garnish:
1 cup powdered sugar
4-5 tsp. root beer or milk
additionally finely crushed root beer candies

Heat oven to 350. Grease cookie sheets with shortening. In large bowl, beat brown sugar and butter with a mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, or mix with a spoon. Stir in remaining cookie ingredients.
On a cookie sheet, drop dough by rounded tsp. about 2 inches apart.
Bake 8-10 min. or until almost no indentation remains when touched in center and edges are golden brown. Cool 1 min; remove from cookie sheet to cooling rack. Cool completely, about 20 min.
In small bowl, mix all glaze ingredients except additional candies with spoon until smooth and thin enough to drizzle. Drizzle glaze over cookies. Sprinkle with additional candies.


I think this recipe is from this book:

Sweet!
From Agave to Turbinado, Home Baking
with Every Kind of Natural Sugar and Sweetener

by Mani Niall

but I'm not really sure. If you know could you let me know?

Or it was a Betty Crocker cookbook that I can't find the name of. Oh well, you get the idea!

Cookie of the Week!!!- Soft Ginger-Apple Cookies

These were an amazing hit!!! The kids gobbled them up and so did the people in Adam's office. The thing that we found out with these, my kids LOVE crystallized ginger! Who knew!! This one comes from the September 15 Woman's Day magazine. I got this one in the mail and just had to make these. Now, I am not a fan of ginger in anyway, but even I loved these. The ginger flavor is a more subtle one, and the yummy apple buttercream frosting helps everything go down. And now for the recipe!

Cookie:

1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 unsweetened applesauce
1 large egg
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup finely chopped crystallized ginger SEE SIDE NOTE *
Apple Buttercream Frosting
Slivered Crystallized ginger


Apple Buttercream Frosting:

3 oz. cream cheese, softened
2 Tbsp butter, softened
2 cups confectioners' sugar
1-2 Tbsp apple juice
1/4 tsp vanilla extract


1. Heat oven to 350. Beat butter and sugar for the cookies in a loarge bowl with an electric mixer until fluffy. Beat in remaining ingredients, except flour and crystallized ginger, until blended (mixture will look curdled).
2. With mixer on low speed, add flour and beat just until blended; stir in crystallized ginger.
3. Drop by level tablespoonfuls 2 in. apart on ungreased baking sheets. Bake 10 to 12 min. until tops look dry. Cool on Baking sheet 1 min. before removing to wire rack to cool completely.
4. Frosting: Beat frosting ingredients in medium bowl with electric mixer until smooth. Then beat on high speed 1 min. until fluffy.
5. Spread a rounded teaspoonful of buttercream frosting on each cookie. Sprinkle with slivered ginger. Refrigerate in an airtight container with wax paper between layers.

*Side Note- You can find crystallized ginger at most Asian groceries for dirt cheap, and some grocery stores are starting to carry it. You could always make some yourself, but it would be easier to just buy it. Or become friends with someone that can get some!

Cookie of the Week! Lemon-Zucchini Cornbread Cookies

Okay, so welcome to a new feature on my blog. I am going to do a cookie of the week every Friday (which the people who work with Adam are very happy about, they get leftovers!). I am going to try some new and different cookie recipes. I can tell you what worked and what didn't. If I enjoy myself I will keep this up, but right now my goal is just until the end of September.

For our first cookie I really needed to use up some of the zucchini laying around the house. A bunch of my friends are growing zucchini and are giving them to me, so I have a big pile. Then the newest Everyday Food magazine arrived and lo and behold there was a cookie recipe with zucchini. I wanted to try it. I had to go buy the lemon and cornmeal, but those were not expensive at all. The lemons were on sale for .69 and the cornmeal for a large box was under $3. I had everything else in the pantry. If you are thinking that the cornmeal might be much, just think, now you can make polenta too!

So here is the recipe:


1/2 cup butter softened
1 cup confectioner's sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. packed finely grated lemon zest
1 tsp. coarse salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup fine cornmeal
1 medium zucchini grated on small holes of a box grater (about 1 cup)

1. Preheat the oven to 325. In a large bowl, mix butter and sugar with a wooden spoon until pale and fluffy. Stir in vanilla, lemon zest, and salt. Add flour and cornmeal and mix until mixture is crumbly. Add zucchini and stir until a thick dough forms.

2. Drop dough by rounded tablespoonful, 2 inches apart, onto two parchment lined baking sheets. Bake until cookies are light golden brown at edges, 25-30 min., rotating the sheets halfway through. Let cool completely on wire rack.

Makes 25 cookies.



Now, this cookie came out without a heavy zucchini taste. I also didn't get the amount of cookies it claims! Not sure what I did wrong to not get that, but oh well! I even got the kids to eat them, and I would consider them some what of a healthy cookie ;-)