Easy, Healthy, Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ever get tired of all the complex ingredients vegan cookie recipes call for? I was too! So I fiddled around in the kitchen for awhile, made several batches different ways, and finally landed on this one. And I think it's pretty super!
Easy Healthy Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies (low sugar)
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup wheat flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 cup Earth Balance (or if having butter doesn't bother you, use butter)
1/2 cup brown sugar, not packed
1/2 cup applesauce
1 ripe banana, mashed
1 tsp. vanilla
Vegan chocolate chips or regular, whichever you prefer
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Cream butter and sugar in med. sized bowl. Add applesauce, mix well. Add ripe banana and vanilla. Mix.
In separate bowl mix flours and baking soda. Add flour mixture to wet mixture a little at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add amount of chocolate chips desired. Scoop onto cookie sheets with spoon or scoop and bake for 10-12 minutes until bottoms are brown and tops are slightly golden.
Remove to cooling racks and let cool before eating because they are even better cooled!

Now here's some cookies you don't have to feel too guilty about! If you want them even healthier, I would take out the brown sugar and use only whole wheat flour. Maybe you can work up to that as you slowly decrease the sugar in your diet, because as you do, you will become satisfied with less. But in the meantime you can enjoy these!

Let me know what you think! Or if you have any healthy recipes, I would love to hear about them :)

Thanks for stopping by! Taniya

Baking For Christmas!

Hi Everyone! This week, and actually most of this month, has been spent baking. Which I love! I look so forward to this time of year because I love baking, love shopping for that special gift for those I love, and decorating the house and Christmas tree with my family is an amazing time as well! But today I'm going to write about all this yummy-ness going on around here. First I made
PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES
These are just such a simple recipe and everyone loves them so I like to include them on the plates I give away.

Next I made a batch of fruit bars. This time I made APRICOT FRUIT BARS. Usually I have to make many more batches of these lovely things because everyone eats them before I can plate enough of them to give them away! Ha ha!

And who doesn't love SNICKERDOODLES?

We also made two pans of fudge, one regular and one PEPPERMINT CHOCOLATE FUDGE.

But the regular got eaten so fast I only got a photo of the peppermint! Lastly, we made PEPPERMINT BARK.

I still have more baking to do and will continue until Christmas Day with the grand finale being Christmas dinner with ham and all the lovely side dishes that go so well together. If anyone is interested, I'll be posting recipes of these fun Christmas cookies and desserts soon! Until then may your days be merry and bright...and full of good food! And may your stove look like this.

Kisses, Taniya

A Sugar Cookie Kind of Day!

From time to time my children like to head over to their "Hannah's" house (my first born couldn't pronounce Grandma, so it came out as Hannah, so it's been Hannah ever since) for some good old sugar cookie making. And decorating! I think that's their favorite part!

Luke wanted lots of bears, but there are lots of others as well...

like donkeys, and sheep and elephants waiting to be fancied up with these.

Luke wanted to be sure to have some black too!

Alani hard at work. Of course she painting her favorite...an elephant!

At first Luke and Hannah were going to do this together,

then Alani joined in, and pretty soon I was painting them too! Who can resist?!

They all got spots and stripes and eyeballs.

And we ended up with so many, my mom packed some in a box to ship them up north to MY grandmother! This is something that is so fun and so easy peasy, anyone can do this with the kids in a snap! And it's lots of fun!! Here's my basic

 SUGAR COOKIE RECIPE:
2 3/4 cups flour (I mix white and wheat half and half)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar ( I always use less)
1 egg
1teaspoon vanilla
DIRECTIONS:
1. Heat oven to 375. In small bowl mix flour, baking soda, & baking powder. Set aside.
2. In large bowl cream sugar and butter until smooth. Beat in egg and vanilla. Slowly stir in dry ingredients. Now you can roll them into balls and place on cookie sheet if you just want round one. Or you can roll them out on a well floured surface till about 1/8 inch thick but ours were about 1/4 inch thick! Ha ha! Keep your rolling pin well floured as well or the dough will stick. Then cut out any shapes you want!
3. Bake 8-10 minutes or until golden.
4. Cool and decorate.
EASY ICING:
1 cup powdered sugar
1/4 tsp. vanilla
1 tbsp. milk or if you want it orange flavored use orange juice instead!
Stir together adding milk a little at a time until you get the consistency you want. Makes only about half a cup so you may need to make more. It depends on how artistic you want to be! Some little paint brushes are very helpful for making all the details on your cookies but if you don't have them, just use toothpicks! Or whatever you have available.
Now get up and go have some fun in the kitchen!

Happy decorating, Taniya

Two Eggs Short

My 11-year-old son has been asking me to make chocolate chip cookies for a couple days, so today I started to make them. After I had the butter and sugar all mixed up, I realized I was short on eggs. Oh no! My husband took the truck to work and our other car is in the shop so I couldn't go to the store. But luckily I didn't have to because right in our neighborhood are Bill and Vivienne! Bill and Vivienne keep chickens and sell their eggs. So Luke and I jumped on our bikes and went straight over there to find out if they had any. And guess what, they had plenty!

Aren't they cute little eggs with those speckles? So we went back home and finished up those cookies!

We ended up with so many I couldn't fit them all in our cookie jar!

So we've decided to jump on our bikes and head back over to Bill and Vivienne's house to deliver some chocolate chip cookies made with farm fresh eggs. Have a fresh, warm, chocolate chip cookie kind of day! Taniya