Shhh… Use This One Trick for Healthier Cookies.

And now for a cookie recipe!

I know what you’re thinking. You’re wondering if I might be a little schizophrenic.  I’m blasting sugar’s reputation one minute and trotting out a baked sweet treat recipe the next.

Really, I can explain.

My son had invited two friends from school over to our house for a sleepover.  We’re talking teenagers. Tough audience.  Nice kids who would stare down a bowl of tofu chili with blood in their eye.  So I did the only thing I could think of.  I caved.  Frozen pizza.

Which left them wanting more, of course.  We’re talking 8th grade boys here.  They wanted dessert, naturally.  Apples and oranges were not going to placate this rowdy crowd.  It was a party of sorts after all.

So I made cookies.

This is a recipe I recently modified to make just a bit more nutritionally friendly.  I used a simple trick.  One you can use at home with your favorite cookie recipe.

Use 1/4 less sugar.  It works!  Use a quarter less sugar than your recipe calls for and no one will know.

My original recipe called for 3/4 cup of sugar so I used 1/2 cup instead.  I also cut the amount of chocolate chips in half in this version.

Here’s the end result:

Not So Bad Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

• 1/2 Cup butter
• 1/2 Cup packed brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 1/2 Cups of rolled oats
• 3/4 Cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/3 Cup millet (uncooked)
• 1/2 Cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until fluffy.  Beat in egg.  Mix in vanilla.

Whisk next 4 dry ingredients together.  Add to butter and beat until just mixed.  Stir in millet and chocolate chips.

Bake on a greased cookie sheet for 9-10 minutes.

Those cookies were barely out of the oven before they were gone.  No need to mention that they contained less sugar and more whole grains than the average cookie.  My son loves the pleasant crunch of the millet and apparently the others did too because I heard nary a complaint.

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Baby Meets Butternut (and alternatives to rice cereal)

There’s a new baby in the house!

OK, so she’s not my baby.  But we are related.

Mia is my grand-niece.  7 months old and full of personality.  Just like her mother, Alex. They drove up today to pay me a visit.

Time to make baby food.

Admittedly my “baby” is now 13.  It’s been a while since I had to feed an actual baby. Today was my lucky day.

And with all the hoopla over baby rice cereal, it’s good to know that there are other stand-in grains that make good first cereals.  They’re easy to make at home.

All you need is a blender.

Pearl barley ground to a fine powder.

We adapted a couple of recipes from The Baby & Toddler Cookbook by Karen Ansel and Charity Ferreira.

We made grain cereal from pearl barley which is similar to a plump rice and packed with fiber.  I had some millet on hand as well.  It’s easily digested and loaded with B vitamins, amino acids and minerals.

Simply mix the cereal (created from blending a 1/4 cup of grain to a fine powder) into a saucepan with a cup of boiling water.  Reduce heat and whisk until smooth and water absorbed, about 5 minutes or so.

These cereals are wholesome first foods, but the American Academy of Pediatrics suggests that partially breastfed babies–who get more than half of their food from breast milk–receive an iron supplement of 1mg/kg per day if they aren’t eating other iron fortified foods.

We also whipped out a butternut squash puree.  Making baby food is so ridiculously easy and requires so little work that it’s hard to see how Gerbers has stayed in business as long as it has.

So here’s a perfectly roasted organic butternut squash.  It was so large that I had to cut it in quarters to get my knife through it.  It was as easy as scraping the flesh out of the shell (after it cools!) and running it through the blender.  It was a perfect consistency although it could be thinned if necessary with water, breast milk or formula.

It’s a great first food for babies–full of lots of vitamins and beta-carotene.  Keep it stored in a covered container in the fridge for up to 3 days or freeze in ice-cube trays and store in plastic freezer bags for up to 3 months.

Mia is known for her discerning palate and is quick to send food back to the kitchen if it is not prepared to her liking.  We waited anxiously while she examined it for texture and color.

First encounter with butternut squash.

OK so far…

She loves it!

Meet the new poster baby for butternut squash everywhere!

What first foods did your baby(ies) love?