Oatmeal Coconut choc. chip cookies

I had a craving for cookies. A big one.

I have recently fallen in love with coconut oil. Mmmm.

So today I wanted to take my craving for cookies and my love for coconut oil and combine them together.

brief history:
I follow recipes when cooking. Always. I am not adventurous in baking because I like things to taste the way they should.

As I have been cooking more and learning more about why certain things are put into our foods (ie baking powder and soda) and learning about substitutes for products (ie cornstarch, oil, baking powder, sour cream), I am feeling a bit more confident wither creating my own recipes.

For this recipe, I started with the oatmeal recipe on the back of our Coach's Oats package.

1 c packed brown sugar
1/2 c sugar
3/4 c butter
2 eggs
2 t vanilla
1 t baking powder
1/4 t baking soda
1 3/4 c all purpose flour
1/4 t salt
2 t ground cinnamon
2 c coach's oats
1 c raisins

I changed this recipe (mostly out of need...our butter was frozen!) to this:

1 1/2 c raw sugar
3/8 c coconut oil
3/8 c natural peanut butter
2 eggs
2 t vanilla
1 t baking powder (had to make my own...we were all out)
1/4 t baking soda
1 3/4 c whole wheat flour
1/4 t salt
2 c coach's oats
1 c choc. chips

Notice how I left out the cinnamon?! I don't know if it would affect anything, but I didn't want to chance my coconut flavor being over-ridden by the cinnamon flavor. (No chance of that though! The coconut completely over took the peanut butter!)

directions:
cream sugars and butter (oils). Mix in eggs, one at a time. Mis in vanilla. Add combined baking powder, soda, flour, salt and cinnamon. Mix well. Stir in oats and raisins. Drop by rounded teaspoons onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes (I preferred mine to be cooked for 10) at 375. Cool on a wire rack.

The smell of these cookies is absolutely amazing!!! Vanilla and coconut is one of my new favorite smells!! YUM.

I will be tweaking these cookies slightly in the future. I'm not sure how, but I'm going to. (I've never had much luck with cookies cooked with natural peanut butter. Maybe I'll leave out the peanut butter and do a full 3/4 c of coconut oil next time? Hmmm )

*We did end up needing to add 1/4 c milk. The dough was just too dry to form into cookie balls.

Basic muffin recipe with a health twist :)

This recipe was modified one night when we needed a little bread something to go with dinner, but I didn't have time to actually make fresh bread. I will give you the recipe I based ours on (from dh's mother), and then give you what I now use as my basic muffin recipe.

original recipe:

1 egg

1/2 c milk

1/4 c oil

1 1/2 c flour

1/2 c sugar

2 t baking powder

1/2 t salt

new recipe:

1 egg

1/2 c milk (or milk substitute; soy milk, coconut milk, almond milk...)

1/4 c coconut oil

1 1/2 c whole wheat flour

1/2 c sucanut (raw sugar)

2 t baking powder

1/2 t salt (sea salt or hymalayan crystal salt)

directions for both versions:

grease muffin pans (or use foil papers)

mix ingredients- moist first- stir in the rest.

bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes

We have had the original recipe many, many times and I can tell you, they were good. However, the first time I used the new recipe, I thought I had died and gone to muffin heaven!! The kids were in heaven right along with me! Sorry original recipe, but we will never being going back!

*I usually double this recipe. For some reason, whenever I make a single batch, I only end up with 8-9 muffins. Doubling this recipe gives me 21 ish muffins.