FISH FAVORITES

by Stefanie

My favorite thing to eat--hands down--is a cookie.  (Actually not a cookie, but cookies--one is never enough.)  I think most of my family would say cookies are one of their favorite things as well.  We didn't have a lot of store bought treats growing up, but my mom did make homemade cookies and pies.  She loved to make chocolate chip cookies and eat the dough...who doesn't?!  She always had a stash of chocolate chips in food storage room--I think specifically for cookies--and I stole more than my share for midnight snacks.

Unfortunately, cookies are not the most healthful thing, so I've tried many recipes of healthful alternatives--none so great that I would make them again and again.  When we are hunkering for a treat at our house, we default to our Mrs. Field's oatmeal, chocolate chip recipe.  I've made it so many times I can do it without the recipe, with my left hand, and with my eyes closed.  Tonight I experimented (again) with the recipe trying to make it a little more nourishing.  A woman told me about a flour mix--equal parts of spelt, barley, and brown rice--that she uses in place of white flour in all her cookies and cakes.  She claimed her kids love the substitution, and she never makes her cookies with white flour anymore.

Well, I thought I would give it a go since I will eat just about anything that has chocolate chips in it.  I happened to have those three grains on hand, so I ground my own instead of buying the flour.  (For those of you in Utah, you can get the flour mix at the Bosch kitchen store.)  I didn't want to chance ruining a whole batch of cookies, so I still used half of the white flour.  And...THEY TURNED OUT DELICIOUS!  Here's my modified recipe:

3 cubes of butter, softened
1/4 cup coconut oil
4 eggs
2 cups organic sugar (at Costco!)
2 cups brown sugar (and if you're daring you can substitute sucanant)
1 T real vanilla
Cream together in a Bosch or Kitchen Aid mixer.  Then add:
2 cups organic white flour
2 cups of the spelt-barley-rice flour
(The original recipe calls for 4 cups of white flour.  I've also modified it by doing 3 cups of white flour and 1 cup whole wheat flour without my kids noticing.)
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
Mix. Then add:
4-5 cups of rolled oats (part of this can be quinoa flakes!)
2 cups coconut (raw, shredded, unsweetened to be most healthful)
1 1/2 - 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
Then if you wish, you can add raisins if you are weird like me or if you are like my mom, you would add nuts.  If you do add these extras, I would stick with only 1 1/2 cups of chocolate chips.
Bake at 400 degrees for approximately 9 minutes.  Enjoy!