A tweaked cookie

I'll tell you making healthier food choices in the Bacon house is easier than finding time to blog about them. But I haven't left you all out.  I have hundreds of pictures on my camera just waiting to post on here!  In our quest to better food, I'm happy to have tweaked the good ol' chocolate chip cookie!  I've searched and tried several recipes in the past few months and this one the judges, aka Mr. Bacon and the kids have approved of. FINALLY!  This eating better and healthier stuff isn't that hard to do. Honestly!  For those who are starting out on this journey to, what have you though?  I'm finding it easier to just substitute healthier ingredients in many of our favorite dishes.  Baked goods is one of those areas this works pretty well with.  So here is my "bacon approved" whole wheat chocolate chip cookies for everyone to try!

"Bacon Approved" whole wheat chocolate chip cookies:

 1 cup white whole wheat flour
1/3 cup oat flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 stick cold butter (yes we only use real stuff!)
1/4 c up white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup almond milk (or any milk)
1 tsp vanilla or almond extract. (we prefer almond)
1 cup chocolate chips (not one bag)

 What I think makes this cookie so great is the white whole wheat flour I found . And guess where I picked it up- Walmart. Are you surprised?  Sure it's not organic, but we buy what we can afford and it's better than white flour! And for $3.50 for a 5 pound bag it's not bad.   Also if you are curious about oat flour it's nothing fancy.  I took my box of oatmeal and tossed it in my Ninja blender and gave it a whirl.  Once you have something that resembles flour (I blended mine for about a minute) I poured it back in the container to use for baking.  Super easy! 

Preheat your oven to 350*.  Now it's time to mix everything up. In my kitchenaid mixer I placed my cold butter and my sugars.  Beat until well combined. This is important because if you don't mix all the cold butter you'll have chunks that melt in the cookies when they bake.  Next add in the egg, milk, extract of your choice and mix well.  Then add in your dry ingredients- flours, soda and salt. Combine it well and mix in chocolate chips.

Now some of you might be second guessing only 1 cup of chocolate chips.  Again this is a compromise, Mostly good ingredients and a few not so good. These would be great with dark chocolate chips too!  Really the kids and Hubby didn't miss the extra chocolate chips in the cookies, and one bag can now make 2 batches unlike my old recipe. 

 Place your cookies by teaspoon full on the baking tray.  I get about 2 dozen cookies out of this recipe.  And they're not super small cookies, but not huge either.  Bake them in the oven for 9-12 minutes, or until golden brown.  Let them cool on a wire rack and enjoy your healthy cookies!

While I was baking those I made up something else for dessert that night.  I had a container of heavy whipping cream in my fridge that needed to be used up (from my homemade healthier coffee creamer- more to come on that in another post!)  I already had my mixer out so I cleaned up the bowl and tossed in 1 cup heavy cream.  With the whisk attachment I started mixing.  Making homemade cool whip is super easy.  I beat the creamer for about 5 minutes our until firm peaks formed. Be careful not to mix too long or you get butter! 

 Once it's forming peaks add in 1/4 cup sugar and 1 tsp vanilla and mix just to incorporate it.  There you have it, super easy homemade cool whip! 

 Next I tossed about a cup of frozen strawberries in my ninja blender. Have I told you how much I LOVE my ninja blender?  Mr. Bacon and the kids got it for me for Christmas and it' was my favorite gift!  I use it almost every day.  I blended up the frozen berries (which came from my garden last year. I froze them to enjoy later on!) and it resembled crumbles. 

 Then I mixed the two together.  This is heavenly!  Strawberry fluff. Try not to eat the whole bowl at once!  It's a much lighter texture than ice cream and only 4 ingredients!  Not too bad for a healthy dessert. 

 I did take a little of the extra and stick it in these cute ice Popsicle molds I bought. They'll make a great after school treat for the kids!

So tell me what you think when you try these healthier treats for your family! I love to hear back from my blog followers!

Ever heard of a healthy cookie?

I can't say I've been ignoring my blog, but I had taken a break for a bit.  Mr. Bacon and I have had some serious discussions lately about food.  Good, bad and nasty discussions actually.  We've also been doing some reading, video watching and blog reading about how unhealthy some of the foods we had been putting into our family really are.  No we're not super health nuts now, but lets say we think a bit more before dumping a lot of chemical rich or refined that into our belly and the bellies of our Bacon kids.  Because lets face it, there are LOTS of 'healthy' recipes out there, but some do take just like cardboard!  I'm happy to say I'm ready to share some of our tried and true recipes with you.  And no, we're still not using a lot of 'weird' ingredients because well, I have kids and a budget!

One that we have found to love is the healthy cookie. There I said it, there is a healthy cookie out there, several in fact.  I knew if I was to clean up our eating I needed to still have treats be a part of it, and this is one that even Little Miss Bacon approves of.  And to say that is a lot because well, there isn't much she does like these days.  Show of hands who else has a picky eater? Ugh, good I'm not the only one!

These cookies were not entirely thought up by myself, however the original recipe did taste like cardboard, ok that was a stretch, but it did taste like beans. Perhaps because that's one of the main ingredients, but if you're a going to make a cookie, it should taste like a cookie!  These little cookies remind me of a cross between a cookie and a brownie after I fancied up the original recipe. 

Now I'll say, I couldn't seem to find my camera while I was making these, but I promise next time I make them, I'll get more pictures.  None the less, these are super easy to make. Here is what you need.

Ma Bacon's Healthy Cookies:

1 cup Pecan halves
1 can rinsed and drained Garbanzo beans
3 TBSP ground flax seeds
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/3 cup cocoa
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup honey
1/2 cup peanut butter (I use smucker's natural but any will do)
1/4 cup milk
1 cup chocolate chips (mini are the best!)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

Place beans and pecans in blender or food processor  and mix until fine and crumbly. I mixed mine about 2-3 minutes. Add in flax, cocoa, sea salt and baking powder and blend some more until all is mixed in.  Dump in a bowl. Add in vanilla, honey, peanut butter and milk and mix well.  I actually use my hands for this job.

You could just dump the wet ingredients into your blender or food processor too if it's got enough power to mix it all in.  For some reason my ninja doesn't mix it all that together well so I just use my hands.  When everything is mixed, add in the chocolate chips. 

Now you could just eat this dough this way. it's actually really good.  Or roll them into small balls and dip in chocolate like a truffle!  Humm.. I'm going to have to try that next time.  But this time I took out a teaspoon full at a time and rolled it in a ball, then flattened it with my hand when I placed it on the baking sheet.  You can also place the dough on some wax paper and roll it into a log. Place the log in the fridge for an hour or so and slice the log into cookies.  Either works great.  See how easy this eating healthier thing is!
 Once they are on the cookie sheet you can toss them in the oven.  Oh and you can load up your cookie sheet if you'd like, these cookies don't rise or expand so you don't have to leave a lot of room for them to grow.   Bake them in the oven for 10 min and cool on a wire rack.  That's it.

 Now they do taste great just this way.  Or you can make them fancy by drizzling them with a little melted chocolate (dark is my favorite!) or lightly dust them with some powdered sugar like Mr. Bacon likes them.  Any way you eat them, you can feel a little less guilty about having that second cookie!