COOKIE?

I think about cookies, a lot. Mostly, I think about eating cookies. When, where, how many? I ask myself. Is eight thirty a.m. too early? Is obesity a possibility? These are all difficult questions, which I eventually ignore and simply eat cookies. My favourites include oatmeal chocolates chip in all its splendid varieties (Have you been to Pure Vanilla Bakery and tried the Kitchen Sink? Go! Go!), double chocolate, and peanut butter. Yes, this is a predictable list. I’ve come to accept that I’m not the most creative person. Quirky, yes, but I’m unimaginable to a fault, routine to the brink of boring.

A few weeks ago I lay awake at three in the morning. To calm my revving brain I invented ice cream flavours. I came up with apple pie.

Two nights ago, yet again, I lay awake at three in the morning. This time I brainstormed cookie recipes. After over an hour I had created two combinations. One involved oats, one involved chocolate. Why not use a pre-existing recipe, you are probably wondering, as over one million chocolate and oatmeal cookies already exist in the world? Despite the banality of my ideas, at three in the morning I felt the excitement of creativity, which is highly addictive and enabling, a word I hear spoken with reverence these days. So I enabled myself.

Besides, I like thinking about cookies. They are chewy. And sweet. Like fat little men. Or baby heads.

I tried the oatmeal recipe, which I’ve titled Honey Nut, and the cookies were truly tasty, and wheat free, for those poor, poor, allergy-suffering souls. I thought about selling the recipe rights to Martha Stuart for disgusting amounts of money, but then I’d be a SELL OUT, so instead, I’ve posted it here for your gorging enjoyment.

Honey Nut Cookies

1 cup barley flour

1 cup slivered almonds

1 ¼ cups old fashioned oats

1/2 cup coconut

1 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp salt

¾ cup honey

¼ cup applesauce

¼ cup oil

1 tsp vanilla

½ cup chocolate chips.

Mulch the oats in a food processor or a blender. Place them in a bowl. Do the same to the almonds. Add the almonds to the oats. Add the cinnamon and salt and mix.

Combine honey, applesauce, oil, and vanilla.

Add the dry mixture to the wet, mix and add chocolate chips.

Bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Take out the cookies even if they seem a bit soft. They will harden up as they cool.

Yum! I found the recipe a little sweet so I’m going to try cutting the honey to a half cup or upping the amount of barley flour.