Happy Father's Day to the man of the house and partner in crime ... the guy astute enough to figure out that even though he had asked for waffles, I would somehow find something new to make so I could blog and IG it! No wonder I married you.

They're like Laceys but with a whole less sugar and other stuff you can't pronounce. They're portable oatmeal, I say ;) And we made them virtuous with the addition of hemp hearts and ground flax seeds.


But no ... these are not your holier-than-thou cookies, because they contain the holy trinity of baking: butter, eggs, and sugar, albeit really less of them.


These are super crunchy, so delicious, and quick to whip up. Makes 24 medium sized cookies. I didn't, couldn't, share. There wasn't enough to make it out of the house!

Ingredients:
120 g (1 cup) all purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
200 g (14 tbsp) unsalted butter, at room temperature
100 g (1/2 cup) granulated sugar
50 g (1/4 cup) light brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
285 g (2-1/2 cups) rolled oats (quick cooking, not instant)
2 tbsp ground flax seeds
2 tbsp hemp hearts

Directions:
1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, on medium-high, cream the butter with the sugars, until pale and increased in volume, scraping down the sides as necessary.

3. Preheat the oven to 175C or 350F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

4. To the creamed butter and sugar, add the egg, then the vanilla.
5. Reduce the speed to medium and fold in the flour, followed with the oats (in 2 additions), then finally the ground flax seeds and hemp hearts.
6. Remove the bowl from the stand, give it a final scrape and stir, then start forming the dough into balls, placing them 5 cm (2 inches) apart on the baking sheet.
I like them on the thin side, so I flattened them a bit.
7. Bake 1 sheet at a time for 15-18 minutes until they turn golden.
8. Let cool on a rack while finishing up the rest of the batter.

What? Warm cookies out of the oven? Yes, of course, you may ... have a bite, that is. So long as you know that as it cools, it gets crispier ;) You decide.

Then we made a batch with cocoa (6 ingredients now) and got my favourite version ... the Chocolate Oatmeal Almond Maple Cookie:


We made another kind that included sunflower seeds and hemp hearts in it. We'll call it the Amped Up Almond Oatmeal Maple Cookies. I'm at 7 ingredients at this stage. This can easily be a breakfast cookie, something you can gobble on the go and still have a nutritionally sound ... er, cookie ... for breakfast. I loved it with my morning coffee.



And this was made especially for my hubbie. Anything that's with chocolate and walnuts is a treat for him. Okay, maybe I over-compensated on the chocolate, but hey, it was an 85% dark chocolate bar that I chopped up for this cookie. So I guess we're good! By the way, still 7 ingredients on this one ;)





See how versatile this easy recipe is? Of course you can make one batch of the same and yield about 16 cookies. And you can do what I did, split the batch in 4 and just add on an ingredient or two to make four different kinds of cookies. How awesome is that?

Ingredients:
125 g (1 cup) almond meal / almond flour
125 g (1 cup) oat flour (ground quick oats)
1/2 tsp baking powder
80 g (1/4 cup) maple syrup
Add 1/4 cup each sunflower seeds and hemp hearts, or 1 tbsp each for the 1/4 batch to the dry ingredients

For the Hubbie Special:
Add 1/4 cup each chopped dark chocolate and chopped walnuts, or about 1 tbsp each for the 1/4 batch to the dry ingredients

Directions:
1. Prepare a parchment lined baking sheet.
2. Preheat the oven to 175C or 350F.

3. Whisk all the dry ingredients (almond meal, oat flour, and baking powder) in a medium bowl.
4. Add the maple syrup and vanilla extract to this and stir well to combine.
5. Shape dough into balls and slightly flatten to make disks, these will crisp nicely.
6. Place on the baking sheet, an inch apart, and bake for 12-15 minutes.

If you are just making one kind of cookie, stir in your mix-ins with the dry ingredients. If you're splitting the dough, there is seriously no harm in working in your mix-ins after the basic dough is done. You may need to oil your hands before shaping them into disks because they do get sticky.

Happy baking!

We can now argue that even classic cookies have the potential to rise to new heights with the slight addition of salt. Flaked salt, that is. And this Salted Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie just proves it.


Don't we all have our go-to chocolate chip cookie? Depending on your personal preference of chewy, crunchy, or even cakey, there is a recipe for each and every one of you out there. Mine is this one here, a crispy, crunchy cookie that I would 'sacrifice' a pricey, super-dark chocolate bar for ;)


But sometimes, we find ourselves straying off the beaten path ... because variety is the spice of life, n'est pas? And this, my friends, is a fabulous recipe to stray to.

A chunky cookie loaded with fiber-rich oatmeal, accented with blackstrap molasses, and just barely sweetened with light brown sugar, only because the chocolate chips will do the talking. What about the salt? Better splurge on the good stuff because it's definitely going to steal the show.


This is a comfort cookie at it's best. Chewy, crumbly, chocolatey and utterly scrumptious. And infinitely better paired with milk (or your non-dairy beverage of choice).

Another breakfast classic, transformed. These waffles turned out so moist, and tasty.


Besides flaxmeal, I'll always have oat flour in the pantry. And that's simply oatmeal processed in the VitaMix.  Use them for pancakes, cookies, and muffins. Gives it a wonderful aroma. Use them both and you have a super charged batter.




Update on June 14, 2015 - Pecans were the order of the week. First the Butter Pecan Ice cream, and now a decadent Sunday morning treat for the kids.

I had some of the toasted pecan butter from the ice cream that I was actually saving for this recipe. It exuded an amazing aroma ... browned pecan butter ... hmmm ... But if you don't have any leftover butter from making the Butter Pecan Ice cream, don't sweat it. Browned butter on its own is magical in batters! Also ... I had homemade applesauce and I substituted a third of the butter for it. Ingredients updated. And that gave another pleasant nuance to the waffle. Another great recipe improved!

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
1-1/2 cup oats
1 cup oat flour
1/2 cup flaxmeal
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
4 eggs, whisked
3 cups milk
3/4 cups melted (or browned) butter (you can also substitute 1/4 cup for applesauce)
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp vanilla extract (I love all things made with my very own vanilla extract)
1 cup chopped pecans

Directions:
1. In a small bowl, stir together dry ingredients: flour, oats, oat flour, flaxmeal, baking powder and salt.
2. In a medium bowl, lightly beat eggs, then add milk, butter, brown sugar and vanilla and beat again lightly till combined.
3. Mix dry ingredients into the egg mixture, just folding it through.
4. Then stir in the pecans.

5. Butter the waffle press and wait till steaming or beeping. Then carefully wipe off excess oils.
6. Pour 1-1/2 cup batter (it will be thick!), and wait for the aromas to fill the kitchen.
7. Enjoy with maple syrup, or my fave, honey.

This recipe makes 10. Cool leftovers, refrigerate them, and pop them in the toaster the next day.

'I like pancakes. They're good for breakfast. Breakfast is important,' said Cheekie. That was all she could say about it. Ha.. ha..




With this in mind, we tried a twist on the pancake recipe and found this amazing version, full of the good stuff.

Ingredients:
2 cups milk (we used whole, could use skim as well!)
1-1/2 cups oatmeal (for texture)
8 eggs, separated (yolks optional)
1-1/2 cups oatmeal flour (popped it in the blender)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup chopped walnuts (pecans, or a mix)

Directions:
1. Heat milk in a saucepan till warm.
2. Soak oatmeal in milk till tender, if using regular oats, this may take some time. Give it a good stirring now and then.
3. In the meantime, beat egg whites until stiff.
4. When oatmeal starts getting mushy, add the oatmeal flour.
5. It'll be a tad thick, so fold in the egg whites now, give it a good stir.
6. Add the egg yolks (you can omit this and add water instead if avoiding yolks)
7. Fold the nuts in.
8. It'll be a bit chunky, though, but it'll do.

This recipe makes 20 mini pancakes or 10 medium sized ones.

Nice to know it's so much for healthful.

Ingredients:
170g light brown soft sugar
75g brown rice syrup
130g unsalted butter
75ml apple juice
380g oats
95g sultanas
50g pumpkin seeds
50g sunflower seeds

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350ºF.
2. Line a deep square 8 inch baking pan with parchment paper.

3. In a medium saucepan, boil sugar, syrup, butter, and juice.
4. Once the mixture is boiling, take the saucepan off the heat and stir in the oats, sultanas, and seeds.

5. Pour the mixture into a deep, baking pan and use a spatula to even out the mixture.
6. Place the pan in the oven for about 15 minutes.
7. Once the granola is cool, remove it from the pan and cut it into bars.
8. Wrap each piece in plastic wrap if carrying individually.

Take them to school, work, field trips and on the course. Oh ... and take extras, you may want to share.

With three recipes of chocolate chip cookies, you can tell that it is a favorite at our home. This time, I wanted something 'slightly' different, mind you, just slightly. So when I looked into my 'food closet' and saw that I had quite a bit of almond butter, a little light bulb flashed and here's the result...

All my cookies are 'healthful' and this is no less. I added a bit of oatmeal for texture, threw in some flax meal for good measure, and of course, the chocolate chips guaranteed an instant hit ;)

Ingredients:
2-1/2 cups flour (if I hadn't mentioned this, I always use unbleached, all purpose)
1/2 cup flaxmeal
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 sticks softened butter
3/4 cups white sugar
3/4 cups brown sugar
1 cup almond butter
2 large eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 cup chopped almonds
1/2 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Directions:
1. Sift first five dry ingredients together.
2. Beat butter with sugars until creamy, around 5 min.
3. Beat in almond butter.
4. Add eggs, one at a time, followed with vanilla.
5. Now is a good time to turn on the oven at 350F.
6. Mix dry ingredients into wet batter, stirring with a wooden spoon.
7. Fold in almonds, oatmeal and chocolate chip.
8. Drop batter into parchment lined baking tray with a medium cookie scooper.
9. Then roll into balls, and slightly flatten them to shape.
10. Bake for 10 - 12 minutes.

It's wonderful to watch cookies disappear while cooling on the rack..

Enjoy with steaming coffee.

Makes about 48 cookies.

This fiber-rich option of a classic makes us feel less guilty of consuming this decadent cookie. 
Plus, the flaxseed and walnuts make it heart-healthy. 
G's favorite .. keeps on asking for more.