Christening the Blog!

With my very first blog post comes the sharing of my favorite oatmeal raisin cookie recipe. Now wait...this is a blog about making things with vegetables. Right? Yes my friend it is. A few years back I got a fun new cookbook as a gift. "Deceptively Delicious" by Jessica Seinfeld holds this moist, texture fantastic cookie recipe. She uses fruit and veggie purees to sneak nutrition into recipes. Though I have tried maybe 2 recipes in this book I'll be sure to try more as the blog progresses.

I made it tonight as a snack but quite frankly I'll probably eat one for breakfast too! Here's how the recipe goes but please be warned I am not a firm measurer but I'll give you what I got here:

1 cp of whole-wheat flour
1 cp old-fashioned oats
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
3/4 cp firmly packed light OR dark brown sugar
6 tablespoons trans fat free soft tub margarine spread(I cheated here I used regular ol' country crock)
1/2 cp banana puree*
1/2 cp zucchini puree*
1 large egg white
1/2 cp raisins
1/2 cp walnuts(I don't add these)

*Making the puree is a cinch, cut your zucchini into about 1in pieces, steam them and then put them through the food processor or blender. For the bananas, smash them up a bit then whirl them through the processor too.

1. Preheat your oven to 350 and spray your baking sheet with some cooking spray.
2. In a bowl combine the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Stir it to get it combined.
3. In another bowl, large enough to house all the ingredients, beat the brown sugar and margarine until just combined. Add the banana and zucchini purees, the egg white and stir just to blend. Add the flour mixture from Step 2 and the raisins and walnuts at will.
4. Drop the dough by heaping tablespoonfuls onto the baking sheet about an inch apart. They won't spread out all over though so don't get carried away measuring because it's not too big of a deal. Bake until golden brown, 12-15 minutes. Let cool on baking sheet for 4-5 minutes, just until firm enought to handle.

Enjoy! While baking these I thought of a few variations I may try as I have a little zucchini puree, several bananas and half a bag of chocolate chips in my cupboard. I'll let you know how that turns out......with a photo to come.

~Word to all the dog lovers out there, remember that raisins ARE NOT our puppies best friends. If you drop a few while making these pick them up.