Delicious high fiber cookies for dunking or crunching…
Well, I am not going to let mama put LONG recipes in my Tuesday Toque, but this one is so crunchy and tasty and good for getting into shape for spring that I let her do it. ONLY ONE, mama. All the rest have to be short and sweet (or savory).
Cereal Killer
This house is an all-bran house. No Corn Flakes, just the straight stuff for high fiber mornings and more than realistic roughage, haha. Hey, let’s call a spade a spade. Everyone skirts around the subject, right. One used to take a walk each morn for one’s “constitution”, or one day, the addition to breakfast of a nice little bowl of prunes promised to do wonders for one’s…er…constitution.
I don’t mind talking about these things. Foods with high fiber are still foods, right, and many, many fruits and vegetables contain enormous amounts of fiber, often more than all those cereals that post their percentages on the box.
Well, we need about 30 g of fiber per day, soluble and non-soluble. Soluble helps lower cholesterol and blood glucose while non-soluble fiber just slips through the body a little like a roto-rooter, making it easier for the system to get rid of debris. Think of it as WD-40 for the bod.
Artichokes are notorious for high fiber, along with split peas, lentils, raspberries, broccoli, Brussel sprouts, blackberries, avocados, and oatmeal. A very old friend, a nurse, told me that oatmeal cleans out your arteries like no other food and that if I ate oatmeal every day, I would never have heart disease. I happen to love oatmeal and when in Scotland years ago, discovered oat cakes, which have to be one of the best cookies around for a nutritious and efficacious breakfast.
I experimented with oatcakes in my kitchen and came up with one that you can count on to bring fiber with flavor into your life. Another sage cook convinced me that duck fat was far better for me than butter and so I added a teaspoon of it to my oatcake mixture, along with olive oil, to make a short, crisp breakfast cookie that you can crunch or dunk, depending on what your mother taught you. Fortunately, my grandfather stepped in just in time to show me the fine art of dunking, using as examples those cake doughnuts covered with powdered sugar that you can’t find any longer, and I never looked back.
The dough can be a bit sticky, so moisten your hands before pressing it onto the bake sheet. This is not a cookie dough, but only a compilation of pure, healthy fibers and nuts that will keep you away from sugar-laced breakfast cereals; even various mueslis have more calories and sugar than these little cakes. And you can use honey or maple syrup in the dough in place of sugar, or no sweetener at all. You can dot sugarless cookies with fresh cut peaches or pears or whatever seasonal fruits are available in place of jams or jellies.
Suzanne’s Oatcakes:
(24 cookies, depending on how you cut them)
Heat the oven to 175C or 350F
3 cups toasted or raw oats, or mixed oats, spelt flakes and bran
1/2 cup raisins
3 tablespoons flour of any kind
Pinch of salt
Pinch of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon of baking soda
3/4 cup almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts or nuts you like, maybe not peanuts, haha
2 tablespoons honey or maple syrup or brown sugar
2 tablespoons melted butter (or duck or goose fat – duck fat has less cholesterol than butter)
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 cup Greek yogurt
Heat the oven to 350F/185C.
In the bowl of a food processor, grind all of the ingredients to make a thick dough. If it is too dry, add a spoon more yogurt or orange juice.
On an oiled baking pan (wet your hands so they won’t stick) press the dough into a flat, thin cake to the edges of the pan.
Bake for 20 minutes until light brown, then turn off the oven and let the cookie dough crisp for another 10 minutes or so. Then remove the pan and let it cool a few minutes.
With a sharp knife, cut the baked dough into squares or simpiy break off portion-sized pieces and store in a tight container.
Note: If this sort of roughage is not appealing to you, make a nice bowl of guacamole and kick back with a mojito. Lots of fiber in rum!
Mama, that was a good breakfast…
The mom says these sound delicious! And something she could benefit from. MOL! She might try substituting the raisins for dried cranberries since she likes those better. ~Ernie
Cranberries would be DEE-licious and we love those, too. Just not a lot of those in France….
VERY delicious!!! My Mom makes a version of these and puts dried fruit in instead of nuts. Totally delish – she hasn’t made them in AGES so thanks for the reminder!!
Hugs, Teddy
Yes, dried apricots or any raisins. Prunes are a little moist so the dough would need a bit more flour or nuts, but nuts are one of the main helpers for longevity and health. We call our almonds ‘obamas’ because that amazing man eats 7 a day, haha.
Yum those crunchies look too delicious, Loulou. Your mama is very adept in the kitchen.
Well, she was in the food business, but started cooking at 5 with her mama, who was taking Gourmet Magazine in the 40s! Not many were doing that in Texas, haha. Grits and gravy was the norm, but not in her mama’s kitchen….
That sounds SO good! I want to crunch some right now! HmmmI do have most of the ingreds, but no duck fat.
Is there anything non-dairy to use for the yogurt?
If I use plant butter then my vegan son could nosh on these too. (Or maybe a nut butter, different than the nuts ground up at the top of the recipe…or coconut manna?)
We love to gobble up the fiber here, it helps to prevent bowel cancer which runs in both families, sigh…
Thanks for another good one, and we love your ‘post licking the spatula pose’, LouLou!
You may also use coconut milk, orange juice, almond milk, and of the nut milks or even water, in a pinch. Yes, these would be very good to eat in your family, and I would love a report on how they turn out. Nut butter is yummy in anything but there are lots of almonds in our cookies and we eat nuts in salad every day.
Thanks for the advice. I forgot that I have some almond or maybe coconut yogurt in the fridge. Next time I have the weekend off I will have to make these…but of course!
Tuesday was dentist and errands, today is go to the vet to pick up meds, and do the rest of the errands and laundry among other chores, Thursday is a work day…and then I have to work the weekend, after housecleaning on Friday. And blogging inbetween things, LOL!
LORDY, LORDY, Ms Ingrid, you are one powerhouse of a woman. Yesterday here in France was Women’s Day so we salute you and all the good things you do for our world. Mama would send you a mimosa branch if she could…
Sometimes ya gotta enjoy the yum Loulou!
Oui, and that batter was yum, before all that other stuff went in….
They look tasty. Thanks for the recipe. Oatmeal does lower cholesterol. My hubby’s was high until I started making that for him. Loulou, you are adorable. XO
Oh, merci Ms E and that quilt is simply marvelous!
They look enough like Rice Krispie Treats to lure us in !
Haha, you could probably throw a bit of rice crispies in the mix.
yum yum!! dee mum eats steel cut oatmeal eberry morning and she putz butter and parm cheese or nut yeast in it or roasted sunflower seedz. she like savory rather dan sweet, her furrendz fink she iz crazy, well… she iz but she tellz dem it iz just another grain, yoo no, like rice. but don’t fink dat she wood pass up a creme brulee or sum caramel gelato….
Haha, you could bind the dough with caramel gelato, haha. Mama LOVES steel cut oats…great taste but they may be to hard in place of flake oaks in the recipe.
Oh my word, Loulou!
We have oatmeal for almost every single breakfast.
And I will walk a mile in bare feet for an artichoke!
Thankfully, fresh, frozen, and picked artichokes are plentiful around us in the stores.
YUM
Oh, mama has so many artichoke recipes but you are lucky to have them near you. Many do not. And the trick with chokes is to put them immediately in the fridge to sit before preparing and the leaves will snap off easily if you are paring them down to the yellow part, which mama does with baby chokes to slice thin, toss in flour, salt and pepper and sauté until crisp and brown. Sprinkle with lemon and parmesan…nunmy num. SO good for the bod.