Cookies

Our toddler has been asking for cookies alot lately. As in, the requests start rolling in well before breakfast (while we're drinking maté). Rather than saying no all the time, I've started looking for recipes and making somewhat healthier ones. Carrot cookies and Company Muffins from Simply in Season are really quite good. I use yogurt for much of the butter in carrot cookies, which makes them a bit cake-y; they're great straight out of the freezer.

Yesterday I tried a new recipe: Oatmeal Peanut Butter cookies (adapted from here). Bananas and just a bit of honey provide all the sweetness. Well, that and the chocolate chips :)

OATMEAL PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES

2 ripe bananas

1/3 cup peanut butter

2 tbsp 2% milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 tbsp agave nectar (I used honey)

1 large egg

2 1/2 cups quick-cooking or rolled oats

1/4 cup whole wheat flour

Handful of chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°F. Make banana puree by mashing the bananas with a fork until smooth. Whisk in the peanut butter, milk, vanilla, honey, and egg. Add the remaining ingredients and stir until well combined. Drop dough onto a greased cookie sheet; flatten slightly. Bake 10-15 minutes.

And since we hover at the edges of bobo-ism (minus the income), I have to mention that these cookies are largely local for us: Bananas from the MCC yard (sometimes); peanut butter made by one of our MCC colleagues, probably using Mennonite-grown peanuts; whole wheat flour grown and processed by friends of rural MCCers; eggs and milk (all 2 tablespoons of it) from a former, long-time MCCer's farm, and the honey brought last weekend by our friends, in the Guaraní village of Caipepe. The photo below shows MCC worker Patrocinio Garvizu leading a honey bee workshop in Caipepe last year.



So there you have it. It's actually quite necessary to eat cookies.

p.s. My cookies look nothing like the photo above (maybe because the gas ran out halfway through baking....?)