Giant Breakfast Cookies

Today I tried a new recipe!  Behold the Giant Breakfast Cookies... 

Don't they look yummy?  I'm eating one right now (even after a filling dinner) because uploading these pictures gave me the urge to nibble on another one of these delicious and very healthy cookies.  They are full of nutritional value and can be grabbed for a quick meal-on-the-run (they are called Breakfast Cookies, after all).  

Here is the recipe so you can make and enjoy them for yourselves!

1 1/4 cups Granulated date sugar (or) raw sugar

3/4 cup Brown rice syrup (or) honey, molasses

2 Tbsp. Canola oil, expeller pressed (or) olive oil

10 oz. Prune puree or prune baby food

4 Egg whites (or) eggbeaters

1 tsp. Vanilla

3 cups Old fashioned rolled oats

2 cups Unprocessed bran, such as Quaker

2 cups All purpose flour (or) whole wheat

1 1/2 tsp. Baking soda

1/2 tsp. Baking powder

1/2 tsp. Salt

1/2 cup Raisins

1 tsp. Cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350.  Coat baking sheets with cooking spray.

In bowl, combine sugar, syrup, oil, prunes, egg whites, and vanilla.  Add oats, bran, flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.  Stir in raisins and cinnamon.

Drop 1/2 cup at a time onto prepared baking sheet.  Bake 20-22 minutes until lightly golden.

*For peanut butter cookies, add 1/2 cup peanut butter instead of raisins.

I had never pureed prunes before, so I didn't realize they should soak overnight first.  I had already started the process of mixing things together when I figured that out (by reading instructions HERE), so I ended up letting them soak for about 3.5 hours, and they were fine.  Also, the recipe calls for 10 oz. of pureed prunes.  We bought an 8 oz. package of prunes, and by the time they were soaked and pureed, we only needed about half of that for one recipe.

Another note - 1/2 cup of batter equals one HUGE cookie!  I went a little shy of that, and I ended up with eight large cookies on one cookie sheet (for a total of 16 cookies). 

Today I found a recipe for Warm Vanilla Soothers, which I plan to fix tomorrow morning to supplement these cookies for our breakfast.  The recipe for the soothers looks like it should be amazing, but I'm going to experiment a little and see if it will turn out well when made with Almond milk.  I have a slight lactose intolerance, so I've eliminated cow's milk from my diet.  We'll see how it turns out!  Hopefully the rest of my family will like it...  They're not exactly fans of my Almond milk (although I think it's delicious, and I'm the pickiest eater in the house!).  

ANYWAY...what's really neat is that the Vanilla Soothers recipe calls for 4 egg yolks, and the Breakfast Cookie recipe calls for 4 egg whites...so when you make them together it is a great way to utilize the entire egg and not waste anything!

  

Well, certainly had a beautiful day!  The temperature climbed up to 61 pretty quickly, and it was so wonderful to enjoy some warmer weather after all the cold temperatures we've been having.  My friend Laura came by after work, and we drove out to the new walking trail.  We walked pretty briskly for about 1.5 hours and covered approximately 4.5 miles.  We were both really feeling it by the time we got back and collapsed in the car!  We're going to sleep good tonight!  This is the third day in a row that we've exercised together (the last two days we used an exercise video), so I'm pretty excited about that!  Hopefully we can keep it up on a regular basis.

This evening, I stopped by a local Mennonite fabric store and bought some ADORABLE fabric for a summer dress!  It's so light and thin, and it has lovely pastel embroidery on it.  There is a special pattern around the bottom and the edge is scalloped.  Most of the fabric in the store was $5.25/yard, so I was very happy to find out that this was on sale for $2.50/yard!  That clinched the deal right there.  I only needed 3 yards, and you can't beat $7.50 for a dress!  Hopefully I can find time to start sewing it soon...even though I won't be able to wear it for a few more months yet...

Well, that's all the noteworthy news I have for now.  I hope everyone is having a wonderful week!  I'll leave you with this lovely passage that was used for a benediction in church last Sunday...

"Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen." (Jude 1:24-25)