Cookies For Breakfast??

This is me, your health guru, giving you permission to have cookies for breakfast! Now before you tsk tsk at me, just take a look at the fiber and protein in these babies: oats, walnuts, yogurt, egg, flax, dates, apricots and go ahead and buy a bag of almond flour to up the protein even more!  Did you notice there’s only ½ cup of brown sugar in this recipe?? That barely qualifies this to be a "cookie" but just trust all the other delicious ingredients to carry the banner.

2 cups walnuts (8 ounces) 

1 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (6 ounces)

3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour or rice flour or 1 ¼ cup almond flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. kosher salt

1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

¼ cup ground flaxseed

½ stick (4 Tbl.) butter, softened

4 Tbl. Coconut oil

1/2 cup brown sugar

orange zest (from 1 orange)

1/2 cup plain, low-fat yogurt

1 large egg

¾ cups dates, pitted and chopped

¾ cup dried apricots, chopped

Preheat oven to 350°. Toast walnuts on a baking sheet until golden, about 8 minutes. Let cool, then coarsely chop. Set aside. 

Increase oven heat to 375 degrees. Prepare 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, combine oats, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and flax seed.

In a larger bowl, beat butter, coconut oil, brown sugar, and orange zest until creamy. Add yogurt and egg and beat to combine. Add oat mixture to this butter bowl and stir to combine. Fold in dates, apricots and reserved walnuts. 

Mound dough in 1/4-cup scoops on prepared baking sheets. Bake until golden, switching the positions of the pans halfway through, 18 to 20 minutes. Let cool on baking sheets for 10 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.  These freeze well but you probably won’t want to.

P.S. This is a variation of a recipe I got from the Oprah magazine so many years ago and I still make them and eat them (2) with a cup of hot, black coffee.

Try to limit yourself to 2 