Cookie Makeover

This weekend concludes the calm before the storm of busy August weekends, and then we are into football season, high holidays, and other things which mean fewer weekends at home! But for cooler weather, I’ll take it.

I took advantage of my weekend at home with a 5 mile treadmill run on Saturday. It’s been great that I can do consecutive Saturdays with runs of 5+ miles. I really surprise myself. Then went to the Houston Galleria for a long walk. I have probably mentioned before, but the Galleria here is an L shape, and it makes parking and walking the mall long and tedious. I miss the square of Northpark Mall in Dallas. After a run and walk, the inside of my lower right leg was killing, so I iced and hoped for the best. Again don’t know why each week I have new pains, but I hope the go away!

On Sunday, I swam for an hour. It was great, but I lose track of my laps. Need to start using a lap watch! I timed 300 meters twice (300 m is the distance of the aquathlon in 3 weeks), and a lot of paying attention to my front stroke in between that. I also snagged a few pointers from the swim coach and learned that my overall stroke is good (hooray!), and I should focus on keeping my head down, not lifting my head as much when I breathe, and pausing my front arm when I breathe before pulling it down. Make sense? I’ll practice.

Our Sunday night dinner was a repeat of a Chicken with Tomatoes, baked asparagus, and a 4 ingredient cous cous.

4 Ingredient Cous Cous

1 box cous cous, any brand (I used Near East). Cook as instructions say. After cooked, add scallions, feta cheese, sliced apricots, salt and pepper. That’s it!

Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Cookies

Onto the cookie makeover. Jeffrey says that the cookies and muffins I make taste too healthy. Like the PB Chocolate Chip Cookies made with teff flour, or the Oatmeal Raisin Muffins with sweet potatoes and bananas in them. So I found a recipe from a normal magazine with real butter, sugar, and eggs to make for him. But I decided to try and make it a little better. Shhh don’t tell him.

makes 35 cookies

Ingredients:

1/2 C butter or margarine (original recipe called for 2/3 C)

1/2 C brown sugar (original recipe called for 2/3 C)

2 eggs

1 1/2 C old fashioned oats

1 1/2 C whole wheat flour (original called for white flour)

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

6 oz Craisins

2/3 C white chocolate chips

I added 1/2 tsp cinnamon and 1/4 C flax seeds (not in original recipe)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 375*. Combine butter and sugar in medium mixing bowl using electric mixer. Beat in eggs. Combine oats, flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and flax seeds in separate bowl. Add to butter mixture in several additions. Stir in craisins and white chocolate chips.

Make balls of the dough and drop onto ungreased cookie sheet or Silpat. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Cool and enjoy! And PS: If you aren’t using a Silpat or haven’t heard of them, you must look it up. The cookies never stick, and I literally picked each one up with my hand after they had cooled to place them on the rack. No scraping cookies off a sheet.