Spicy Zucchini Raisin Cookies

Coming in to summer its always great to have recipe ideas for the abundant summer produce that will soon be available. I'm pretty excited to have my vegetable garden begin to bear veggies but in the meant time, I guess I'll rely on my grocery store.

Does your grocery store have a produce clearance rack? Mine does. I know that Carrots-n-Cake has posted about her produce clearance rack as well. I'm in love with my grocery store's produce clearance rack. I tend to go grocery shopping in the mid afternoon - which is perfect. They have finished stocking the produce area for the morning and have taken away any of their imperfect produce. My store packages it back up at a significantly reduced price. It might not always be the prettiest produce but its much cheaper. I usually go there first to see what fruits and veggies I can score, then hit the regular produce section to supplement my bargains. I often get slightly over ripe bananas which I freeze and use in smoothies or replace for fat in recipes. I almost always get my peppers from the clearance rack. Sometimes I can get romaine, potatoes, apples, oranges, .... really anything.

Last week there was a giant package of zucchini. There were about 10 medium sized zucchinis and it was listed for $0.59. Steal. Thankfully, zucchinis are pretty easy to incorporate into recipes. There was a bake sale coming up at church for Relay for Life and I thought I'd try to bring the healthy option to sell.

I found this recipe on allrecipes.com. The only change I made was substituted applesauce for margarine. You could also try this with wheat flour or ground oat flour instead of white flour or some kind of substitute like Splenda for the sugar. After making these I realized they sounded very similar to Megan's Low Fat Zucchini cookies but these have raisins instead of chocolate chips. (either way - sounds pretty tasty!!!)

As originally posted, each cookie provides: 84 calories 2.8 g fat 14.3 g carbohydrate 0.4 g fiber 1.1 g protein

Zucchini Raisin Cookies - BETTER

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 cup grated zucchini
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 cup raisins

In a medium bowl, cream together the margarine and sugar until smooth. Beat in the egg then stir in the zucchini. Combine the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and cloves; stir into the zucchini mixture. Mix in raisins. Cover dough and chill for at least 1 hour or overnight.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper (or spray with nonstick spray). Drop by teaspoonfuls onto the prepared cookie sheets. Cookies should be about 2 inches apart.

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven until set. Allow cookies to cool slightly on the cookie sheets before removing to wire racks to cool completely.

Makes 36 cookies. Per cookie: 63 calories 0.2 g fat 14.7 g carbohydrate 0.5 g fiber 1.1 g protein

Almond Butter Cookies

I'm not quite sure how long the almond butter from yesterday's post would stay fresh in the fridge so I felt I needed to find a few recipes to use it up. Why not make some cookies?

Apparently finding an almond butter cookie recipe was harder than I anticipated but I finally struck gold at the Almond Board of California's website. The recipe already used whole wheat flour and minimal butter as most of the fat comes from the healthy fat source of almond butter! If you used my recipe for almond butter, then your cookies would additionally have flax seed in them.

When I made these I was first a little taken aback by the amount of oil that was on my hands as I was rolling them out. I'm not quite sure why but they are very greasy when you roll them. The recipe also makes 36 cookies. At first, I didn't think I'd have enough dough to make that many as the dough balls were very small. But they spread out a bunch when you cook them so make sure your dough balls are about the size of ping pong balls, not bigger.

These were pretty good! They had a more subtle flavor than peanut butter cookies but tasted a bit butterier (if that's a word...). For the most part they were tender and soft although I did overcook one batch and those got a little crispy.

Almond Butter Cookies

3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup smooth, unsalted almond butter. (recipe here)
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
36 raw whole almonds

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Spray two baking sheets with cooking spray (or just use parchment paper or Silpats like me).

In a large bowl, whisk together the flours, salt, and baking soda. In another large bowl, beat together the butter, almond butter and sugars until fluffy (about 2 minutes) Add the vanilla and egg and beat until well combined. Gradually stir in the flour mixture, blending well.

Shape the dough into 3/4 inch balls (about the size of ping pong balls or a little smaller) and place on the baking sheets. Place an almond in the center of each cookie and press down lightly. Bake for 10-12 minutes until lightly browned. Cool on a wire rack.

Makes 36 cookies. Per cookie:
80 calories
5 g fat
9 g carbohydrate
1 g fiber
2 g protein

Sugar Cookie Bars (and a ROYAL fail)

I am not really all that interested in the royal wedding. My neighbor/friend/day care provider, however, is obsessed. She did us a HUGE favor today and watched Finley on an off day starting at 6:15am - such a trooper! At first I felt really bad about asking her to get up so early but when I found out she would be up to watch the wedding anyway I guessed it wasn't that much of an inconvenience.

Out of appreciation, I wanted to make her a special thank you treat. I had been looking for the occasion to make these sugar cookie bars from Annie's Eats and I thought this would be perfect. I had these grand plans of piping royal crowns and "Will+Kate" on the cookie bars. Until I realized my piping skills mimic a 2 year old's....



Needless to say I just ended up putting sprinkles on the rest and calling it a day!

I did not intentionally health-i-fy these cookies. I did, however use unsweetened applesauce in place of the eggs since I somehow ran out of eggs. I also cut the recipe in half so I could use a 9x13 pan instead of a 13x18 pan.

These were super tasty! The frosting is especially delicious. Good for you - no. Good for your taste buds - yes.

Sugar Cookie Bars

For the cookie bars:
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce (or 2 large eggs)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
zest from 1/2 a lemon
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda

For the frosting:
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
pinch salt
2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
2 1/2 Tbsp milk
food coloring (optional)

To make the cookies, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13" pan with butter. Combine the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat on medium-high speed until light and smooth, about 2 minutes. Mix in the applesauce (or eggs). Blend in the vanilla, seeds from the vanilla bean, and lemon zest. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, salt and baking soda. Stir together with a fork to blend. Add the dry ingredients to the mixer bowl and beat on low speed just until incorporated.

Transfer the cookie dough to the prepared baking sheet and press into an even layer. Bake 10-15 minutes, until light brown. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let cool completely before frosting.

To make the frosting, place the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat on medium-high speed until smooth, about 1 minute. Blend in the vanilla, salt, and confectioners' sugar until smooth, 1-2 minutes. Mix in the milk. Tint with desired food coloring. Spread over cookie in the pan, cut into bars and serve.

Makes 24 bars. Per bar:

188 calories 7.8 g fat 28.6 g carbohydrate 0.4 g fiber 1.5 g protein

Snickerdoodles

Last week I ran my first 5k since my surgery/pregnancy. It was good to get out and race. I met my "logical goal" but in my head it was still disappointing that I ran it two whole minutes slower than I did two years ago. I'll get over it.... by getting faster.

Well I used the husband as a pacer since keeping a consistent pace is my biggest weakness (KINDA a big fan of going out too fast). Although he's apparently not good at pacing at my slow pace because we started out WAY TOO SLOW and ended up going super fast for the last 1.5 miles. Oh well. ANYWAY since we were both running in the race we needed somewhere for this precious child to go.



So I put on facebook that I needed someone to watch Finley on Saturday morning and would pay in cookies. Within 5 minutes I had a suitable taker! I'm not sure if its because Finley is so cute or because cookies are so tasty ;)

Anyway, I made snickerdoodles which I did not healthify in any way, shape or form. Sigh.... but they were good! I got the recipe from Martha Stewart's website.


Snickerdoodles

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1 3/4 cups sugar, plus more if needed
2 Tbsp ground cinnamon, plus more if needed
2 large eggs.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees with one rack in the top third and one rack in the bottom third of the oven. Line baking sheets with silpats or parchment paper; set aside.

Mix together flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine butter, shortening and 1 1/2 cups sugar. Beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Scrape down sides of bowl. Add eggs and beat to combine. Add dry ingredients and beat to combine.

In a small bowl, combine remaining 1/4 cup sugar and the ground cinnamon. Use a small ice cream scoop to form balls of the dough. Roll in cinnamon sugar. Place about 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. Bake until the cookies are set in the center and begin to crack (they should not brown), about 10 minutes, rotating the baking sheets after 5 minutes. DO NOT OVERBAKE. Transfer the sheets to a wire rack to cool about 5 minutes before transferring the cookies to the rack. Store in an airtight container up 1 week.

Makes 4 dozen.

Nutrition facts per cookie:
94 calories
4.3 g fat
13.1 g carbohydrate
0.3 g fiber
1.0 g protein

Pistachio Chocolate Chip Cookies

My grandfather was a very active man. In the last few years of his life after my grandma had passed away, he lived with my parents. Even though he was 89 years old, he still enjoyed hiking at the local state parks and walking around the indoor track at the local high school as part of the town senior center. Every day he would drive to the track and walk at least a mile with one of the ladies from the senior center (after all, once you're 89 its mostly ladies at the center as all the men have died off). One day in December, my grandfather drove to the track, began to walk around it and had to sit down to catch his breath. It was there that he passed away quickly and painlessly from a heart attack.

I don't mean to tell this story as a sad one, but rather to show the commitment to physical activity that my grandfather had. When he passed away my parents hosted visiting hours at their house the day before the funeral. (That is a WHOLE other story - he narrated his own life video and had us show it at his funeral, talk about creepy!). At the visiting hours my brothers and I chuckled at all the ladies from the senior center who knew exactly how to work the situation. They came in, signed the guest book, walked straight to the food, filled up a plate and claimed seats around the dining room table. I suppose at a certain age going to visiting hours for a deceased friend is pretty common.

The biggest hit at the visiting hours was a batch of cookies brought over by a neighbor. They were so good that no only did myself and my sister-in-law ask for the recipe from my mom's neighbor. BUT, one of the cute little ladies from the senior center even wrote a thank you note to my mom for hosting the visiting hours and asked her to pass along the recipe if possible.

Now these cookies aren't necessarily healthy but they are a tasty treat! They are small cookies so I suppose if you can stop yourself from eating 5 of them they could be calorie controlled. The key ingredient in these is pistachio pudding mix. I've tried the same recipe with other flavor of pudding mixes and never have liked it as much as the cute green originals. Give it a try!

Pistachio Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 sticks (1 cup) margarine
2 boxes instant pistachio pudding mix
1 egg
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
12 oz. bag chocolate chips

Mix together until well blended margarine and pudding mix. Once well blended, add in egg. Stir in flour and baking soda. Once well combined stir in chocolate chips with wooden spoon.

Spoon by level tablespoon (they are small cookies) onto baking sheet. They don't spread out much but give them about an inch between cookies. Bake at 350 degrees for 11-13 minutes. They should not turn brown.

Makes 60 cookies.

Per cookie (good luck eating just one!)
74 calories
4.8 g fat
7.1 g carbohydrate
0.3 g fiber
1 g protein

What's the most unusual way you acquired a new recipe?

Pumpkin Blondies

A few nights ago I hosted my husband's track team at our house for dinner. I made a baked potato, chili and salad bar for the 30+ athletes that could make it out to the middle of no where to our house one snowy night. Even though those athletes brought with them a big appetite, I still had a TON of food leftover (some of it not even prepared). But with all these chopped veggies for salad toppings, I knew they wouldn't stay fresh forever and I needed a way to use them up quickly. So I sent an email out to a bunch of our friends and invited about 10 more people over for lunch after church on Sunday. Everyone was up for a tasty free meal!

Well Sunday morning rolled around and I had a mini-panic when I realized I did not have any dessert to serve with my leftover chili/potato/salad bar. So I did a little brainstorming and decided that a bar cookie would be the fastest to prepare since I wouldn't have to form each cookie. I could whip up the ingredients and put it in the oven while I finished getting ready for church. I found this recipe for Pumpkin Blondies on The Girl Who Ate Everything and I had all the ingredients (except white chocolate chips, so I substituted semi-sweet...). It was perfect!

As originally posted, each bar provides:
229 calories
12.3 g fat
32.6 g carbohydrate
1.1 g fiber
2.5 g protein

It turned out awesome, I got lots of complements on how tasty they were. I made a couple changes. I swapped out half of the flour for whole wheat flour. I also substituted half of the butter with unsweetened applesauce. In a traditional cookie I wouldn't normally do this as the butter provides structure to the cookie. But since it was a bar, I figure it didn't need to hold its shape as much in the oven. I also like that this recipe calls for 24 servings which is a decent size bar once they are all cut. If you wished to slash your calories or fat even more, cut them into smaller pieces.

Pumpkin Blondies - BETTER

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 Tbsp pumpkin pie spice
3/4 tsp salt
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 1/4 cup brown sugar
1 large egg
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup pumpkin puree
1 cup white chocolate chips (or semi-sweet in my case)
1 cup butterscotch chips
1/2 cup pecans, chopped (optional and not included in the nutrition facts)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9x13-inch baking dish with foil. In a medium bowl, combine the flours, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda and salt. Stir together and set aside.

In a separate bowl, beat butter, applesauce and sugar on medium-high speed of a hand mixer or stand mixer until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the egg and vanilla until well combined. Mix in the pumpkin puree. With the mixer on low speed, add the dry ingredients and mix just until incorporated. Fold in the chocolate chips and butterscotch chips (and pecans, if using) with a rubber spatula.

Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan. Bake until the edges begin to pull away from the sides of the pan and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with just a few crumbs, about 35-40 minutes. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let cool completely before cutting.

To serve, lift the cake from the pan using the foil and transfer to a cutting board. Peel off the foil and using a sharp knife, cut into 24 squares.

Makes 24 pieces. Each pieces:
195 calories
8.5 g fat
32.8 g carbohydrate
1.6 g fiber
2.6 g protein

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

Christmas cookies have always been a great tradition in my family. I remember my mom making a handful of varieties of cookies and making dozens of each variety. We would get to snack on them through out the Christmas season as well as make up trays for our teachers, take them to cookie exchanges and walk a few over to our neighbors. In past years I have also kept up the tradition of making a bazillion kinds of cookies over the holidays. In fact, at my own wedding I had a homemade cookie buffet in which I served over 100 DOZEN homemade cookies made by myself and the women in my family.

But the last two years have been a little bit of a dry spell for me in the cookie making department. Last year, I had just had foot surgery 1 month prior to Christmas and had a hard time hobbling along in the kitchen on one foot and crutches. We also lived in a TINY apartment with a poor excuse for a kitchen for the small amount of time between when our old house sold and we were building our new house. So, Christmas of 2009 was cookie-less. Christmas 2010 rolled around and I never seemed to have the time make cookies. I'm not sure if having a new child threw my cookie making schedule a curve ball but it just seemed it wasn't going to happen this year.

Finally, on December 23rd, I got the Christmas treat bug and jumped to action. I decided I would make one batch of cookies and would try to make them healthier. I had saved a link to the Swanky Pear's Pumpkin Whoopie Pies a few months back and thought I could still bake with pumpkin in December. So that was the start (and end) of my Christmas cookie baking this year.

Each cookie in the original recipe provides:

161.5 calories

7.8 g fat

24.3 g carbohydrate

0.8 g fiber

1.5 g protein

These cookies have almost a cake like consistency and therefore, could handle a few changes in them. First, I substituted unsweetened applesauce for the oil. (Obviously I canned a lot of applesauce this fall!). Next for the filling I used fat-free cream cheese instead of full fat cream cheese. I also used 1/4 cup butter, instead of 1/2 cup butter (actually by accident as I read it as half a stick but really it was supposed to be a full stick). But, either way, it turned out delicious!

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies - BETTER

3 cups flour
2 Tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp allspice
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
3 cups chilled pure pumpkin puree
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

Filling:
3 cups powdered sugar
8 oz. fat free cream cheese
4 Tbsp (1/2 stick) butter
1 tsp vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ginger, all-spice and nutmeg. Set aside.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk the granulated sugar, the dark brown sugar, and the unsweetened applesauce together. Add the CHILLED pumpkin puree and whisk to combine thoroughly. Add the eggs and vanilla and whisk until combined.

4. Gradually add the flour mixture to the pumpkin mixture and whisk until completely combined.

5. Use a small cookie scoop or a large spoon to drop a rounded, heaping tablespoon of the dough onto the prepared baking sheets, about 1 inch apart. I also kept the bowl of batter in the freezer between batches to keep it chilled. The batter is quite thin and works better a little chilled.

6. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, making sure that the cookies are just starting to crack on top and a toothpick inserted into the center of a cookie comes out clean. The cookies should be firm when touched. Remove from the oven and let the cookies cool completely on a cooling rack.

7. To make the filling, beat the butter on medium speed until smooth with no visible lumps, about 3 minutes. Add the cream cheese and beat until smooth and combined, about 2 minutes. Add the powdered sugar a little at a time, then add the vanilla and beat until smooth.

8. To assemble the whoopie pies: Turn half of the cooled cookies upside down. Pipe the filling (about a tablespoon) onto that half (I used a ziplock bag with the corner clipped, made quick work!). Place another cookie, flat side down, on top of the filling. Press down slightly so that the filling spread to the edges of the cookie. Repeat until all the cookies are used. Put the whoopie pies in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes to firm before serving. These also freeze well for later.

I made 52 sandwiches in my batch.

Each cookie provides:

107.5 calories

1.3 g fat

25.0 g carbohydrate

0.8 g fiber

1.8 g protein