When in Doubt...Blog

Somehow I managed to get sick again.  Came down with a high fever late Sunday and spent Family Day Monday curled up on the couch with an achy body after the fever broke.  Now I am in the midst of sort of head/chest cold, the kind that does not allow you to sleep and the kind that I am pretty sure Breathe Right was invented for.  The NyQuil knocked me out only for so long and now I am sitting in our office with a box of Kleenex trying not to wake up Homer with my nose blowing, which sounds like a ship coming in.

But enough complaining.  A while back I mentioned that I bought the Eat Shrink and Be Merry cookbook in order to see what they had to offer in the way of healthy foods.  I like that every recipe offers the nutritional analysis and since they are Canadian all the ingredients can be found at your local Loblaws.  

While it is not culinary adventure at its finest, it does offer some good nutritional tips for beginners and the recipes are easy to follow.  While the corniness of the titles might drive some bonkers, I can overlook them, and simply admire the number of puns.

I made the following cookies from the book on Sunday and since this blog is sort of lacking in sweets I offer the recipe to you below.

Transgender Cookies (called Girl-Guy Cookies in the book, get it?)

*A quick note that the gals who wrote this book are "undecided" on how healthy artificial sweeteners are, since it is all we have in the house I cooked with them here.  Still tasty.

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/3 cup whole wheat flour

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp ground cinnamon, divided

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp each ground allspice and salt

2 tbsp Splenda (or granulated sugar)

1/2 cup Splenda Brown Sugar (or 1 cup brown sugar)

1/3 cup light peanut butter

3 tbsp butter, softened

2 tbsp molasses

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1.  Preheat oven to 350F.  Spray a large cookie sheet with cooking spray and set aside.

2. In a medium bowl, stir together both flours, baking soda, 1 tsp cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and salt.  Set aside.  Combine Splenda and 1 tsp cinnamon in a small bowl.  Set aside.

3.  In another medium bowl (preferably one fitted to your stand mixer), beat together Splenda Brown Sugar, peanut butter, and butter on medium speed of mixer for about 1 minute.  Add molasses, egg, and vanilla.  Beat again until smooth.

4.  Using a wooden spoon, stir flour mixture into peanut butter mixture.  You will be making a stiff dough.  Using your hands, shape dough into 1 1/2 inch balls.  Roll balls in reserved cinnamon-sugar mixture. Place on cookie sheet at least 2 inches apart (they spread while baking).  Flatten cookies using a fork.

5.  Bake cookies for 7 minutes.  They may appear undercooked, but that's okay.  You want them chewy in the middle.  Remove cookies from oven and immediately transfer from pan to a wire rack to cool.

Recipe says they make 20, I made 18.