Trail Mix Cookies Recipe

Having teenagers is a double-edged sword.  On the one hand, it’s kind of cool that my girls are old enough to have adult conversations and share clothes with me.  On the other hand, it bums me out that they prefer to be with their friends over their parents.  I don’t take it personally, of course.  But if all goes according to plan, Daughter #1 will be going to college in two years and her younger sister two years after that which means I don’t have a lot of time left with them in the house.  This is one reason I encourage them to invite their friends to hang out at our house or spend the night as much as possible.  Not only does it make the house more lively, but I know what they’re up to and sometimes I’ll even overhear some good gossip.  Just recently did I figure out how to make my home the place to be.  It’s called FOOD.

Teenagers are always hungry.  No, I take that back.  They’re always “STAR-ving.”  They don’t even know what the word means.  My daughters complain that they’re starving if they haven’t eaten in two hours.  My point is that if you want to have the house that the kids want to hang out in, other than breaking the law and supplying alcohol (not recommended), you need to have some good eats.  I don’t think my house is considered to have the “best” food by any means.  There are no Cheetos, no soda and no microwave popcorn.  But I do always have tons of fresh fruit, leftovers from dinner, the makings of a quesadilla and lots of homemade cookie dough in the freezer, especially in the fall when the kids are back in school.

These Trail Mix cookies are a new favorite around here.  They’re like oatmeal chocolate chip cookies PLUS.  There are so many goodies in the cookies, it feels like you’re eating a handful of trail mix held together with some oatmeal cookie batter.  In fact, you could use trail mix in this recipe, hence the name.  I’m not sure I’ve made this recipe the same way twice since I’ll often use it as an excuse to clean out the bottom of my nut and dried fruit jars.  Before you get excited about a cookie that sounds like it might be healthful, it’s still a cookie, just maybe a higher quality one.  If you want a cookie that you can eat for breakfast, make these.  This recipe uses whole wheat pastry flour, rolled oats, flakes of unsweetened coconut, and chocolate chips.  My kids love pecans, so I generally use them here, but if I have a handful of walnuts or macadamia nuts, those can go in too.  Same idea with dried fruit — use whatever you’ve got.  The key with these cookies though, is to make sure you don’t decide to just eliminate an entire ingredient without coming up with a substitution.  All the “stuff” helps give your cookies structure and without it, your cookies will go a tad flat.  If you can’t eat nuts, I have used sunflower seeds with success, or you can just add 1/2 cup extra of chocolate chips, dried fruit and coconut to make up for the 1 1/2 cups of nuts.  What I did struggle with was the sugar in the cookies. The quantity is quite a bit less than you would find in a comparable cookie, but I didn’t have as much success substituting coconut sugar or maple syrup for the white and brown sugars.  At the end of the day, it’s still a cookie which we should enjoy in moderation.

If you like to be prepared for weekday school lunches or unexpected playdates, it’s always nice to have some cookie dough on hand.  You can make this batter and keep it refrigerated for a week, baking off as many cookies as you like at any given time.  I also like to scoop the dough onto baking sheets with my ice cream scooper, freeze them raw (the same way you would freeze fruit), and when they are frozen solid, gather them up and put them in a container to freeze for a rainy day or the next sleepover.  And from the empty containers I generally see in the morning, I have also observed that teenagers are at their most STARVING in the middle of the night.

Trail Mix Cookies
Author: 
Serves: makes 3 dozen cookies
 
Ingredients
  • 8 Tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • ½ cup natural cane sugar (or coconut sugar)
  • ⅔ cup brown sugar (or coconut sugar)
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 ½ cups whole wheat pastry flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt
  • ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • ⅛ teaspoon ground cloves
  • 1 cup rolled oats (either old-fashioned or quick-cooking)
  • 1 ½ cups chopped pecans (or walnuts or macadamia nuts)
  • 1 cup chocolate chips
  • ½ cup unsweetened, dried coconut flakes (or use extra pecans)
  • ½ cup dried fruit, such as cranberries (or use extra chocolate chips)
  • (Or use 3 ½ cups trail mix instead of above add-ins; chop nuts)
  • ½ teaspoon freshly grated orange zest (optional)
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat.
  2. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add the vanilla and 1 egg at a time until well incorporated.
  3. In a separate bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, salt and spices. Add half the dry mix to the butter with the mixer on low speed. After the flour has been incorporated, add the remaining flour mixture and stir together.
  4. Stir in the remaining ingredients.
  5. Drop the dough by heaping tablespoons onto the cookie sheet and bake until golden, 12-15 minutes. (If you bake the dough directly from the fridge, add 3-5 minutes.)
  6. Remove from the oven and cool cookies for 2 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

Iced Blended Mocha

If you opened this post with glee and thought I actually put a recipe on my site for a real iced blended mocha, well then, you don’t know me well at all, do you?  But if you clicked on the link anticipating a recipe for something that tastes just as delicious as an iced blended mocha, but is actually good for you, then we are probably already friends.  Iced blended mocha is a cold coffee drink mixed with chocolate, very much like a Starbucks Frappucino, and usually pureed with ice.   My husband, who has a real taste for all things toxic, used to drink sweetened iced coffee drinks much too often.  Before we were married, he used to buy the sweetened chocolate powder mix and coffee “extract” from our local coffee shop so that we could make them at home.  The mix was full of all sorts of scary ingredients, not the least of which was sugar and partially hydrogenated oil.  Needless to say, I haven’t made my husband one of these since I became enlightened.

But his sister, my healthful food soulmate, has just come to his rescue!  She made up a truly guilt-free version of an iced blended, but sweetened with dates.  My daughter and I were playing around with the recipe last weekend and tried a few different variations and they were all delish, even the batch we made with faux coffee granules.  I think we’ll surprise her dad Father’s Day morning with a blast from the past!

 

Iced Blended Mocha
Author: 
Serves: makes about 20 ounces, enough for 2 medium drinks
 
Ingredients
  • 2 big handfuls of ice
  • 2 Tablespoons carob powder or unsweetened cocoa powder (we tried both and they were equally good)
  • 2 teaspoons decaffeinated instant coffee granules or grain-based coffee substitute, such as Pero (again, we tried both and they were equally good)
  • 16 pecan halves or ¼ cup pecan pieces
  • 6 pitted dates
  • 1 - 1½ cups unsweetened almond milk
Instructions
  1. Put everything in a blender and process until smooth. Taste before serving. You may prefer more ice than I did. Also, I would use 1 cup of almond milk for a more intense mocha flavor or 1½ cups to keep it light. You can serve this over ice, if you like.

 

 

Whole wheat pumpkin muffins recipe

 

whole wheat pumpkin muffins|pamela salzman

I prefer not to encourage too many desserts and sweets on this site.  There are so many reasons that sugar and refined sweeteners are bad for your health that I will devote an entire post to the subject in the future.  That said, we do have a need to satisfy sweetness, although not as often as we think we need to.   Whenever I make a dessert or sweet recipe, I aim to use far less sugar that is typically called for, or to substitute a less refined sweetener.

whole wheat pumpkin muffins|pamela salzman

 

These muffins are nothing you need to feel guilty about.  Full of nutrient-dense pumpkin, and made with whole grain flour and pure maple syrup, you’ll be making these for breakfast, lunch boxes, and soccer snacks.  They freeze well and can go from freezer to lunchbox.  By the time lunch rolls around, the muffin is ready to eat.

whole wheat pumpkin muffins|pamela salzman

People ask me all the time about making substitutions, especially making recipes gluten-free.  I have made these muffins successfully with several different gluten-free mixes, including Bob’s Red Mill and King Arthur.  I used Pamela’s (not me) once, but didn’t add Xanthan gum which I should have.  Also, feel free to sub out something else for the currants.  I did use mini-chocolate chips once for my son’s soccer team and not a one was left!

whole wheat pumpkin muffins|pamela salzman

 

whole wheat pumpkin muffins recipe
Author: 
Serves: 12 muffins
 
Ingredients
  • 1 ½ cups whole wheat pastry or white whole wheat flour
  • ½ teaspoon sea salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • ¾ teaspoon aluminum-free baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
  • ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
  • ¾ cup pure maple syrup
  • 1 cup pumpkin puree (NOT pumpkin pie filling) or half a 15-ounce can
  • ⅓ cup melted butter or coconut oil
  • 2 large eggs
  • ¼ cup milk or water or almond milk
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • ½ cup chopped walnuts, pecans or currants
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Line a muffin pan with liners
  3. Whisk all dry ingredients except nuts in a mixing bowl.
  4. Blend all wet ingredients in a blender.
  5. Add wet to dry and mix until just combined. Do not overmix. Stir in nuts or currants.
  6. Using an ice cream scooper, scoop batter into muffin pan.
  7. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.

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