Figgy Oatmeal Cookies

Quite often in the past couple of months I have heard the question, “Do we have any cookies in the house?” My response has always been negative but on more than one of these occasions I've thought to myself that I should make some type of healthier cookie than I could by in most stores. Eventually one afternoon about a week ago, I decided to not only think about making a great cookie, but decided to actually make some. Even before I started on this very short and sweet baking adventure, I already had a name for them: Figgy Oatmeal cookies!

I've never been much of a baker, but like most things that need some hands on experience I've taken on the phrase for many things. If you can read, you can.... and in this case it was bake cookies. I haven't baked a thing in over twenty-five years, but I figure the Web is my recipe book, at least to get some of the basic mechanics of the tasks required to not ending up with a failed project. After a quick search for some healthy oatmeal and fig cookies I found a recipe which I could play substitution with what I had on hand.

Taking stock

One thing I've been trying to keep around the house as a nice quick snacking food that hasn't gone through some strange mechanical process before it arrives in the local store:dried figs. I knew for fact that I had a few packages and these would give my cookies both some natural sweetness and an interesting texture. In addition to adding to what I would call these three bite morsels. Rolled oats was also something that I have, and while not steel-cut they are still miles cleaner than the plethora of breakfast cereals which the corporate food businesses try to ply to consumers.

While I didn't have some of the ingredients that I found on one of the simplest recipes, I knew I would be able to substitute out the honey with some fresh homemade strawberry and rhubarb jam as my natural sweetener – no processed sugar in that jam as I made it myself earlier in the season. And while I didn't have the called for almond flour I did have flax-seed and wholewheat flour.

The other simple ingredients were simply the glue to hold all the dry stuff together and add a little flavour. They included baking powder, eggs, vanilla extract and cinnamon.

Ingredients – about 129 calories per serving of two cookies (makes between 20 and 24 cookies)

• Oatmeal, 1 3/4 cups
• Whole wheat flour, 3/4 cup
  
• Figs, dried, finely chopped, 1/2 cup
  

• Brown flax-seed, ground 3 table spoons gr
• Cinnamon, ground 1 tbsp
• Baking powder, 14/ tsp
• eggs, two
  
• Olive oil, 2 tbsp
  
• Strawberry-rhubarb jam, 1 tbsp
  
• Vanilla extract, no-alcohol, 1 tbsp
  

Putting it all together

Preparation is anywhere between ten and fifteen minutes and baking time is ten minutes.

The magic starts when you turn on your oven and preheat it to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and start to chop up your figs, make sure you remove the stem, though while they are probably edible they do not enhance the consumption experience. Once you have half a cup of figs finely chopped put them aside. For the purpose of this recipe they are not considered dry ingredients but a building block.

While you can buy pre-ground flaxseed, I keep my flaxseed in a bag and grind it when I need it. Sometimes I sprinkle it in with my oatmeal and yogurt in the morning, and at times I have even included ground flax-seed sprinkled over salad, or mashed potatoes along with some chopped dill.

Mix all your dry ingredients in a bowl, ensuring they are well combined. That includes the three tablespoons of freshly ground flaxseed and your cinnamon.

In a small bowl break two eggs and beat them together with the jam, olive oil, vanilla extract. Once you have this mixture well blended add your chopped figs a bit at a time. You want to make sure that the little building blocks of fig all get coated with your mixture of wet ingredients. Once done we move on to making the batter.

Mix the wet ingredients in with the dry to create your batter a little at a time to make sure it becomes one wonderful well mixed mass of ingredients which, in just a short while become your Figgy Oatmeal cookies. The batter will be pretty firm once you have mixed it well enough.

Prepare a cookie sheet. It can either lined with parchment paper, sprayed with your preferred non-stick coating or wiped with a light coating of your favourite cooking oil.

Then you will be scooping your little dollops of dough on to the cookie sheet using a teaspoon as a basic measuring device. You will have to shape your dough on the cookie sheet as they will not change their form during the baking process. Don't be afraid do use your fingers, as long as they are clean. My little mounds were about one and a half to two inches in diameter. Though had I made them smaller I would have been able to avoid doing two batches in the oven. Live and learn.

What's in it for you

When I set out to bake these Figgy Oatmeal Cookies, I was looking for health alternative to store-bought cookies and I think I found one. This snack or desert is very low in sodium and high in dietary fibre and manganese which plays important roles in bone development, skin integrity, blood sugar level control and damage by free radicals. I don't think I have to give you much about the importance of dietary fibre as we do hear a great deal about it in the mainstream media, though these morsels are packed with it.

 

Calories	129	RDA
Carbohydrates	20 g	7 %
Fat	5 g	7%
Saturated	1 g	3%
Polyunsaturated	1.3 g	-
Monounsaturated	2.4 g	-
Trans	0 g	-
Cholesterol	0 mg	0 %
Sodium	62 mg	3 %
Potassium	147 mg	4 %
Dietary Fibre	4 g	14 %
Sugar(s)	5 g	-
Protein	4 g	%
Vitamin A	3.3 IU	0 %
Vitamin C		1 %
Calcium		6 %
Iron		6 %

Other important vitamins and minerals include vitamin K, Choline, Folate, Magnesium and Phosphorus with at about 10% of the RDA and about 13% of daily Selenium requirements.

These Figgy Oatmeal Cookies are simple to make, and you, like I did, can substitute out certain ingredients adding your favourite ones such a pumpkin seeds or sesame seeds, or using other natural sweeteners: honey, maple syrup, or agave nectar.

Bake up a few batches and you can include them in your or kid's lunch without any guilt for feeding them or you eating sodium and sugar packed manufactured goods.

The Goodness of a Killer Tuna Sandwich

It's been some time since I posted here, but I've been inactive much too long and I have refocused on goals in my life and the foods I eat. I took a look around the kitchen after coming out of the shower after the first long walk of 7.25 km that I've taken in over a year. I needed something that was going to give me the protein I needed as well as some key elements that would keep me from wanting to nibble on other things later on in the day as it was still a couple of hours of a slow simmer of my Black and White Bean soup which was on the plan for dinner later that evening and for the next day or two.

Taking stock

I was pretty hungry and I didn’t really have a want to spend a lot of cooking, so it had to be quick and easy. Scanning around made some quick decisions. Tuna would provide my need for protein, avocado would replenish my potassium stores, iron and some good monounsaturated fats, and a little bit of Keen's Dry Mustard will give this a bit a bite. Holding it all together would be some plain low yogurt from one of my favourite local suppliers. I put this all on a locally supplied Austrian Sesame Bread, which was also locally bought. All of this I would turn into a Killer Tuna Sandwich, and when you do the same you too will realize just how good it is.

Ingredients – about 317 calories per serving (makes three sandwiches)

• 1.0 whole avocado, Fresh Avocado
  

• 0.5 cup (8 fl oz), Yogurt - Plain, whole milk
• 1.0 can, Fish - Tuna, light, canned in water, drained solids
  

• 0.25 tsp(s), Dry Mustard
• 6.0 slice(s), Austrian Sesame Bread (Nut Free)
• 1.0 cup(s), Cucumber, Peeled, Raw, Sliced
  

Putting it all together

Like I mentioned this was something that had to short and sweet regarding preparation and assembly. I a bowl mash together the avocado, tuna and yogurt and mix the mustard powder into the yogurt as you mix it. You can substitute the mustard powder with your favourite flavour of mustard, a nice Dijon with some crushed mustard seeds would add some extra texture to this killer tuna sandwich. Make sure that all your ingredients are well mixed together then let them stand so that mustard taste penetrates every last spot and will tantalize your taste buds as you eat it a short while later.

The next step is to toast your bread, this adds some body to your sandwich and there are actually some benefits of toasted bread over plain bread and just how you body will process that primary intake of carbohydrates and starches.

While you're toasting your bread you can slice up your cucumber. In this case I peeled my cucumber from the garden as the skin had some tough blemishes that did not look extremely appetizing. The cucumber is a stark contrast to the light bite of the mustard, though had you mixed a bit more the contrast would be much more clear.

Dollop your mixture evenly between three toasted pieces of bread, top them off with cucumber slices and cover them with the remaining pieces of toast. If you like be fancier, hide the cucumber between two layers of your filling. Regardless of how you do it you will have one hell of a Killer Tuna Sandwich.

What's in it for you

In a closer examination of what's in it for you, take a look at the breakdown below. This could all be changed by improving the type bread that you would use in putting together this Killer Tuna Sandwich.

 

Calories	317	RDA
Carbohydrates	36 g	12 %
Fat	10 g	16 %
Saturated	2 g	9 %
Polyunsaturated	1 g	-
Monounsaturated	5 g	-
Trans	0 g	-
Cholesterol	22 mg	7 %
Sodium	505 mg	21 %
Potassium	5 g	13%
Dietary Fibre	5 g	22%
Sugar(s)	4 g	-
Protein	23 g	46 %
Vitamin A		8 %
Vitamin C		47 %
Calcium		13 %
Iron		21 %

I was actually quite hungry so I had two of these sandwiches and shard the third with my mother. She is in her eighty-fifth year and unfortunately was brainwashed by those TV dinner advertisements and instant this and that food that was being pushed on everyone mother of post war boomers. She seemed to enjoy it, which for me is always a delight, because she is extremely finicky when it comes to how things taste.

Cinnamon squash and tomatoes for pasta

About two weeks ago I had a hankering for something different, some type of comfort food. I wasn't sure what I wanted. I looked around the kitchen and I could see some tomatoes left from the garden, I figured I would cook up something different with them, but I wasn't certain what. Then I recalled the butternut squash I picked up at the market a few days earlier. In in the last couple of years I have been using squash a great deal more when I cook, then I had in the past, and I have found it quite versatile as it mixes so well with many different things.

Taking stock

So it had been decided, I would start with chopping the elongated part of the butternut squash I had on hand. First I cut off the long end. Sometimes I use a vegetable peeler to peel my squash but I was feeling like using my knife yesterday, so I cut off the upper piece of the squash were there are no seeds of the bottom part for starters. Then I cut it up in slices so I ended up with little discs of squash. With the discs having a flat side it made it easy to keep them still on the cutting board and trim off the tough outer skin.

Once I had done that I sliced those discs into thin strips no more than a quarter of an inch thick, in most cases I tried to cute them thing, size has everything to do with cooking time. Once I had my squash cut up, I measured it and I found hat I had about three cups. I put this chopped up butternut squash in a bowl and liberally sprinkled it with ground cinnamon, I added a dash of cayenne or two and about a quarter teaspoon of turmeric. Then I mixed it all up so every single slice of squash was coated with a fine layer of the three magical ingredients.

That done I measured out three portions of linguine. I usually measure this long type of pasta as one serving being measured between my forefinger and thumb formed into a circle at about the size of a beer bottle cap.

I then cleaned three cloves of garlic and chopped it up as fine as I could, as it would be going in to cook with my thin pieces of squash. I threw this into my big frying pan with about a table spoon of olive oil, Cinnamon adds such an interesting taste to squash and things like pumpkin, not to mention the other spices I decided to add in as you will soon see.

Ingredients – about 350 calories per serving

Butternut squash – three cups

Cayenne pepper – to taste

Cinnamon – about a tablespoon

Garlic – three cloves

Cherry Tomatoes – quartered – three cups

Turmeric – quarter teaspoon

Cooking mediums

Extra Virgin Olive Oil – 1 tablespoon

Water – as you would for any portion of pasta

Enriching flavour

One thing I learnt many years ago that there are many spices that seem to let out their flavours when heated. Over the years I began to understand that there is an actual term for this his. It's called blooming, and usually involves a liquid medium of hot oil. What happens when you heat these spices they release their essential oils and in turn it bursts into a bouquet of flavours that you will find it hard to imagine. I also learnt that often ground spices can often be mixed with a bit of liquid and mixed into a paste before doing so but given that my squash has a bit of natural moisture in it, the cinnamon, cayenne and turmeric will nicely stick to all those pieces of squash! As the spices are bloomed and the squash lightly cooked, you end up with something that is quite magical in taste.

Later after my tomatoes were in and when everything was just about cooked I would add my more gentle spices like oregano and parsley, if you put these in two early their flavour simply disappears.

I decided that I would only cut up about three cups of tomatoes, so after each cup was filled I tried to make estimates of which size tomatoes I should pick out in order that I come to three cups of tomatoes as well. After each cup of tomatoes I would toss them in to join the pool party with the squash, and always sure to mix it all up. Once all my tomatoes were in with the squash I cooked them and mixed them on medium high heat for about 6-10 minutes more, making sure that the squash was cooked and that the tomatoes had released much of their fluids and the saucy mixture had reduced.

By the time my linguine was ready, al dente, I knew that I would have something that was a little out of the ordinary in terms of flavours and tastes, but whatever I make I eat. There is simply no reason to throw food out unless it is rotten, though if it is compostable, it goes on the compost pile and not in the garbage. Besides there hasn't been anything that I have made since the time I was in my early twenties and in university that I would consider inedible. With my linguine drained I threw it into into the frying pan tossed it with my admixture of tomatoes squash and various spices. I had cooked enough for three good servings or two very large servings, so I plated my serving and enjoyed the labours in the kitchen. I had my second part for dinner, after having returned from a bit of a walk on a miserable day – I enjoyed those leftovers reheated. 

What's in it for you?

I realized that unless I contributed some value to the recipes I think up, very often at a whim, there really would be no reason to be putting in the effort to even records these recipes, with the exception it allows me to go back to the ones I like for inspiration. Hopefully in providing the values below, you will become more informed about different foods. As you may have noticed in the past, when I introduce some type of new ingredients I try to include addition sources in order that those visiting this blog can better understand what it is they are eating.

The values below are approximations based on each ingredients included in the recipe. The last four values are estimations of my recommended daily allowance based on my own personal dietary needs, and are here only to serve as a guide.

 

Calories	343
Carbohydrates	67.9 g
Fat	6.3 g
Saturated	0.7 g
Polyunsaturated	0.8 g
Monounsaturated	3.4 g
Trans	0 g
Cholesterol	0 g
Sodium	13.6 mg
Potassium	530.9 mg
Dietary Fibre	8.4 g
Sugar(s)	9.2 g
Protein	9.8 g
Vitamin A	327 %
Vitamin C	83.2 %
Calcium	10.9 %
Iron	19.7 %

While I love to cook, I don't claim to be a chef, nor do I have an formal food preparation training or education, my personal experience of cooking for myself and friends over the years has been my teacher and has taught me the following: if you like to try new things it makes it very easy to take up cooking. You must be willing to be your own guinea pig quite often, if something doesn't work out live with it. I grew up in an environment that was void of many spices that we have available to us if we are not intimidated on trying something new.

I probably never used raw ginger in cooking until I was away from home for a few years. I even went as far as having my own batch of sourdough starter in the fridge that I would have to feed regularly and to have on hand to whip up home made cresent rolls to serve to friends who had dropped by for tea or coffee. I figure if you can read instructions, have an idea of what your own tastes are, you can cook up anything that is tasty.