Our New Favorite Recipe

Recently, my family has sworn off High Fructose Corn Syrup. A friend of mine was telling me all the bad things it does to our bodies, so I went home and did my own research. Sure enough, she was right. HFCS is seriously bad stuff. Among other things, it actually makes you crave sweets (big problem for me). So, in our continuing quest to be a healthy family, we've begun reading labels a little more closely. Just like a few years ago when we banned Trans fat from our diets, we are now getting rid of the HFCS. I can tell you it's in a lot of foods you wouldn't imagine, like ketchup and mustard! For some things we've had to go to Trader Joe's, and for other things, it's just a matter of changing brands at the local grocery store. Out with the old, in with the new!

Another friend who knew about my latest endeavor recommended "Better than Peanut Butter and Jelly", a kid friendly cook book. She doesn't even have kids, but recently became vegan and needed some simple recipes. That's where I found our latest favorite recipe, and I want to share it with all my friends. I must tell you that I changed a couple things from the original recipe to suit our needs. Enjoy.

Pumpkin Cookies:

4 TBSP light margarine or "Lighter Bake"
1/4 Cup pure maple syrup
1 TBSP water
1 tsp. Vanilla
1 Cup canned pumpkin
1/2 Cup unbleached white flour
1/2 Cup wheat flour
1/2 Cup wheat germ or toasted wheat bran
1/2 Cup Rolled oats
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. allspice


Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray cookie sheet with non-stick cooking spray.
In large mixing bowl, combine margarine, maple syrup, water, and vanilla. Beat with electric mixer on low until well blended. Add pumpkin and beat until thoroughly combined.
In separate bowl, combine flours, wheat germ, rolled oats, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice. Mix thoroughly. Add to pumpkin mixture and stir until well blended.
Drop batter by rounded teaspoons onto cookie sheet. Bake 12-14 minutes.
Makes about 4 dozen.

Because these cookies don't contain any refined sugar, they're not super sweet. That's just the way we like them. Tia and D.R. are not big on sweets. And since they're made with real pumpkin, we're getting another vegetable in, which can only be a good thing!

You'll see from the picture that I let the girls put a few white chocolate chips in a couple of the cookies. I didn't mix the chips in the batter, but had them each make their own special cookie by pushing the chips in. When the cookies were done baking, they knew which one was their own.

Live healthy. Live well.