Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Recently my mom has been told she has high cholesterol. I've been trying to help her out by finding healthy treats for her. She has a sweet tooth, must be where I got mine, so it has to be hard going off sugar. Admirable really. Although she did slip off the wagon when the hospital gave her an eclair. Really? You're a hospital aren't you supposed to help people be healthy? I guess that's how they get repeat costumers. I came across these and thought might be good. I made some other healthy cookies that were a big flop and since they had bananas in them I didn't even try them. So I was hoping for better results with this recipe.

The recipe is basic really. Allergic to eggs? No problem, doesn't have any. All it has is rolled oats, applesauce, peanut butter (you can use whatever nut butter you want), vanilla, raisins, honey, and cinnamon. Next time I'll try a little flax seed or add a little wheat germ in them just to up the goodness. So throw all the ingredients together.

 Mix them up.

 It needed a close up. Put them on a cookie sheet and bake.

A few minutes later you have cookies! I have to say I was a little worried when I brought one up to my lips to taste it. Then I bit in and hey, they're good. The nice thing about these cookies? When my kids ask for cookies at 8 am I can say, why not. Are my kids the only ones asking for cookies at ridiculous times of the day?

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
(Slightly adapted from Chocolate Covered Katie)
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup applesauce
1/4 cup peanut butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3 tablespoons raisins
pinch salt
1 tablespoon honey
2 teaspoons cinnamon

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine all ingredients. Place on greased cookie sheet and bake for 14 minutes.

Makes 10-12 cookies.

This recipe doesn't make a lot of cookies so if you want more double it (or triple it). You can add banana instead of the applesauce and you could add chocolate chips if you wanted.

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Buttermilk Blueberry Cake

I have a confession to make, I ate this for breakfast. Although I did exercise while it was baking, so I'm good right? Another confession, it was delicious.

I started out by combining my flour and my baking powder and setting it aside. I used whole wheat but you're welcome to use white.

I didn't have fresh blueberries, only frozen so I used what I had. I reserved some flour and coated them with it.

I creamed together the butter, applesauce, lemon juice and sugar. (Lemon juice because I didn't have any lemons do zest.)

 Added my egg and vanilla and mixed.

 Then I alternated between the flour

 and the buttermilk.

Very thick. I was a little concerned by how thick it was. I wanted to add more buttermilk but I wasn't sure if the blueberries would add more liquid to the cake so I held back.

Here's the blueberries ready for their moment.

Mixed them all up and put them in my pan and sprinkled with some sugar. Because we need more sugar on top.

Here it is after it's all done. My kids were complaining of being hungry after the cake came out. Even though they both had a bowl of cereal. Who can resist cake?

A few pieces for my morning breakfast!

In case you needed another shot because I know I did!

Buttermilk Blueberry Cake
(adapted from: Alexandra's Kitchen)
Ingredients:
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup applesauce
2 teaspoon lemon zest or 1 teaspoon lemon juice
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour (white or wheat or a mix)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 cups blueberries
1 tablespoon sugar

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 9 inch square pan.

Combine butter, applesauce, lemon zest, and sugar. Cream them together.

Reserve 1/4 cup of flour to mix in with blueberries, set aside.

Add in egg and vanilla and beat until mixed.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Alternate between flour mixture and buttermilk and add to sugar and egg mixture.

Mix in blueberries and poor into greased pan. Bake for 35 minutes until done. Check with toothpick. May take additional time. (Mine took an extra 5 minutes)

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Root Beer cupcakes

I set aside my unfounded fears of these cupcakes and jumped right in. I mean, why should I be afraid of a cupcake? It should be afraid of me and I think in the end it was.

I could have done this from scratch and probably should have but I was just too lazy so I started from a yellow cake mix box.

 Added a few eggs.

 Some root beer concentrate.

 Some root beer.

And blended. I should have added sour cream or yogurt to help the cake be a little moister but I just wasn't sure what the root beer would do.

 Made up some vanilla frosting. I wanted these to be more like a root beer float.

Here they are. I didn't take any pictures of the filling I used but you can see it there on top.

Cake:
1 box yellow cake mix
3 eggs
1 Tablespoon root beer concentrate
1 cup root beer
1/2 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine cake mix, eggs, root beer concentrate, root beer and sour cream. Spoon into muffin pan with liners. Bake for 17-20 minutes.

Filling:
2 cups root beer
2 Tablespoons ultra gel (or any thickener)
1/2 Tablespoon root beer concentrate

Boil root beer on stove for ten minutes, remove from heat and add ultra gel. Add root beer concentrate and pipe into cooled cupcakes. You can use a piping tip or since I don't have one I used the number 2 tip from Wilton. Put tip in cupcake and push a teaspoon (or more) of liquid in.

Frosting:
1 cup crisco
3 1/2 cups powder sugar
8 Tablespoons milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

Combine Crisco, powder sugar, vanilla. Add milk slowly until you reach the consistency needed. You may need more or less than 8 tablespoons. A good way to tell is if it sticks to your finger easily.

Lemonade Cupcakes

I've actually had root beer cupcakes on my mind but they just intimidate me. Not sure why, just do. I'll man up just letting the thoughts brew. I was looking in my kids closet because that's where I keep my cake mixes (we're tight on room). I saw the lemon cake mix and knew I had to do something with it.

Here's my cake mix with some water.

I added the oil and sour cream but before I could take a picture my daughter decided it was time to mix. Oh well.

I added the eggs and had to take a quick picture before my daughter decided to break them. The pull of eggs is strong but the wrath of mothers is stronger.
Mix up the batter throw it in your muffin pan and cook.

While it's cooking start the filling. This filling is like a lemon meringue filling. Lemon and water plus some cornstarch.

Two eggs. Like two peas in a pod.

Break them if your mother will let you.

Once their broken add some of the water corn starch mix but not enough to cook it. We don't want cooked egg yolk in the middle of the cupcake.

Pour the egg mix back in the lemon juice and water mix and then add some butter and sugar. This batch only made a little so if you want a lot in your cupcakes I suggest doubling it.

Cut your hole in the cupcake once they're cool.

Fill it with your lemon meringue filling.

Make up some butter cream frosting and top them off.

Ingredients:
1 lemon cake mix
1/2 cup sour cream
3/4 cup water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degree.

Combine cake mix, sour cream, water, vegetable oil and eggs. Mix together pour into muffin pan. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until golden brown.

Filling:
4 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon corn starch
2 egg yolks
4 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup sugar

Combine lemon juice and water in a pot over medium heat. Mix in corn starch a little at a time, stirring constantly. Once ingredients are combine beat egg yolks. Pour some of the corn starch mixture into the egg yolks being careful not to cook the eggs. Blend together. Pour eggs back into corn starch mix and blend together. Mix in butter and sugar and remove from heat once butter is melted.

Stuffed Pancakes with Caramel Syrup

I was going through the newspaper as usual last Sunday and came across this pancake recipe from a local store, I knew right then I was going to make them. Stuffed pancakes? That's taking breakfast to a whole different level of yummy. I decided to finish mine off with some homemade caramel syrup and a dollop of whipped cream.

I decided to stuff my pancakes with apple filling. You can use whatever you want. I would have used cherries but those are being saved for President's day, you'll see. I make my own apple pie filling but my husband complained the apples weren't soft enough for him so I threw them into a pot and let them simmer for a while till the apples were very soft. You can just open a can and go at it.

You could even choose to do a cream cheese filling, which sounds fantastic to me. If you try it let me know.

I made the syrup first since it needed to cool before eating it. Started out with a stick of butter hiding there in the bottom. If you were under the impression that this was going to be healthy and help you towards meeting your New Year's resolution you would be wrong, I mean we're cooking with a stick of butter here. Plus a whole lot of brown sugar.

The recipe I use for the syrup calls for corn syrup, I try to steer clear of the stuff so I used some Ultra Gel. My sister gets it for me in Utah at Macy's. I'm actually not sure where you would get it outside of there. The stuff is amazing though so if you come across it, buy it.

I put my butter and brown sugar in the microwave for a few minutes until it boiled, you can also do this on the stove.

 Add some condensed milk and some Ultra Gel to thicken it and you're set.

Then I started on my pancakes, I just made my typical whole wheat apple pancakes. Except I made it thinner by adding less flour. You need a thinner pancake batter for this.

 Once it's set up put some (or a lot) of filling in it and then flip one side over the other.

Put a lid on it. Literally, put a lid on it. It helps insure the pancake doesn't burn before the middle gets cooked. No one wants the middle of the pancake uncooked, although as a kid I did like mine that way. My mom had a tendency to do that, my sister hated it, I kind of liked it. What can I say, I was a weird kid.

 Here it is all done and looking great!

Add some other breakfast foods and you've got a meal. Except you'll probably ignore those other foods and just eat the pancakes.

Caramel Syrup:

Ingredients:
1 cube of butter or 1/2 a cup
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2/3 cup karo syrup (if desired)
3/4 cup condensed milk
2 tablespoons Ultra Gel (if not using karo syrup)

Combine butter, syrup and brown sugar. Bring to a boil and boil for 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat and add milk and stir well. Cool before serving. Store in the refrigerator.

Stuffed Pancakes:

Ingredients:
Pancake batter of your choice
Filling of your choice

Pour large pancake onto griddle. Wait until the center is almost cooked, put in 2 tablespoons filling. Flip side over filling. Put lid on pancake until middle is cooked through.

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Whole Wheat Banana Muffins

Trying to get back on the health wagon. I found these and decided that it would be nice to have something healthy for my husband to take to work with him. I made a batch and then froze some so he could grab them and go to work when we were running late in the mornings, which is every morning. The originally recipe called for chocolate chips which you're welcome to add but I didn't have any. That's right I didn't have chocolate chips, I'm not sure how that happened but I'm going to make sure that doesn't happen again.

 Start off with some eggs. Look how nice they look just waiting to be pulverized.

 I had some frozen bananas and so I thawed some to use.

 Here they are all mashed up.

Here's the oil, applesauce, waiting to be mixed. I decided to use half the oil and switch in some applesauce which turned out nice. I'm saying this even though I never tried them. (bananas, not a fan)

 Milk and vanilla.

 Everything all mixed in together.

I added all whole wheat. My daughter is a great helped and is always wanting to get in there and cook with me. One of those small things that makes me happy. Hopefully I can pass the cooking bug on to her. You really should mix the dry ingredients separately but hey I wash dishes by hand, I'm not making more work for myself.

 To add some extra healthiness I added wheat germ.

 And flax seed. Why not?

 Mix them all together throw them in the oven and you get some healthy breakfast food.

Whole Wheat Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins (adapted from Keep your diet Real)

2 eggs
3 mashed ripe bananas
5 Tablespoons oil
5 Tablespoons applesauce
1/4 cup milk
1 Tablespoon vanilla
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 Tablespoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon sea salt (or regular salt)
1 Tablespoon flax seed (optional)
1 Tablespoon wheat germ (optional)
1 cup chocolate chips (optional)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Mix the wet ingredients together. Bananas, oil, applesauce, eggs, milk and vanilla. Set aside.

In another bowl mix flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, flax seed, and wheat germ together. Mix into the wet ingredients until blended and add the chocolate chips. Spoon 3/4 full into muffin pans.

Bake for 18-20 minutes or until tops are golden brown.