Healthy Cooking: Cookies

            You are in your kitchen, preparing to bake up a storm and you pull out the first ingredients...  Two cubes butter, one cup white sugar, one cup brown sugar...  
            Whoa there!  Stop.  Reverse.  Do you really want to put all that in there?
             Okay, what is healthy cooking?  Is it even applicable or is it just for those crazy health fanatics (all organic, everything from scratch, vegetarian, fat-free, no sugar added)?  
            I have news... You Can Do It!  You CAN cook and eat HEALTHY! (And you don't have to be a CRaZy health fanatic).
             Let's start with something everyone loves... COOKIES!  Can you have healthy cookies without surrendering the gooey, yummy, sweet flavor?  YES!  Okay, maybe not completely healthy...  Maybe just a little less unhealthy, ruin-your-diet-less-quickly, kind of cookies.
             Let's address the first ingredient: Butter.  The hint of salt, buttery flavor is desirable, but Oh!  So unhealthy.  Maybe we can make some substitutions.  Ever thought of throwing in some beans instead?  I learned this tip from my mom.  White (I use Great Northern) beans, soaked, blended up, and you can freeze them in 1/2 cup balls.  My mom substituted these bean balls for half the butter in our cookies all the time while I was growing up and no one ever knew the difference.
            I did a small experiment.  I was curious to see and taste if there was difference between my normal cookie recipe and my bean cookies.  So I made two batches of cookies.  I used all the same ingredients (except bean substitution), mixed all ingredients in the same order, and cooked both batches 11 minutes…
            Results:  My bean cookies came out of the oven beautifully.  Perfect, round little cookies, lightly browned, came off the pan easily.  
            The butter cookies came out more gooey.  I had to let them sit on the pan a few minutes because they crumbled when I tried to take them off the pan.  They also melted into a flat cookie.
            Taste test: the butter cookies won.  Some had a hard time choosing which cookie they liked more, but everyone I asked eventually came to the same end result.  Most people like the gooier, buttery cookie.  However... no one disliked the bean cookie.  
            Conclusion:  When the cookies were compared side by side, the butter cookies won.  However when tried alone, the bean cookies got good reviews.  Myself, I love the healthy and tasty cookie best.

           

            A week after my first experiment, I tried a second cookie make-over.  Getting even more healthy.  I replaced all the butter, some of the sugar, and the white flour.  In my Oatmeal Chocolate-Chip Cookies I used white beans, honey, wheat flour and oats.  With these new ingredients, you might be able to use up your dusty food storage in your cookies!

            There are lots of healthy cooking tips that I’m sure you use and many of us don’t know about.  I’ve talked with several people who also use applesauce to replace part of the butter.  Leave your comment… What are your healthy cooking tips??

 Grandma's Oatmeal Chocolate-Chip Cookies (healthy version)

Cream:

½ c. blended white beans

½ c. coconut oil

½ c. brown sugar

¼ c. honey

*(Next time I think I will add some applesauce replacing part of either the beans or coconut oil, just to give it more good flavor).

Add:

1 tsp. vanilla

1 egg

In a separate bowl combine:

1 c. wheat flour

1 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/8 tsp. nutmeg

Then add to wet ingredients.

Add:

3 c. oats

1-2 c. chocolate chips

1 c. chopped walnuts

Bake @375 degrees for 11-12 minutes.

** (The white beans and coconut oil are a substitute for the butter or shortening.  Coconut oil is solid at room temperature, heats to a liquid and actually has many health benefits.)

** (There are other sweeteners that can be substituted for sugar like sucanat and stevia.  However I don’t have these in the house and I haven’t done the research on them enough to give a good recommendation).

            Watch out, I may be springing these cookies on you at a ward gathering soon!

By McKell P.