Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies

I recently went to the doctor and had my blood work done again.  Once again my LDL levels were borderline high and I was told to start using fish oil twice a day and have it recheck in 3 months.  Fish Oil?  Yuck, I hate fish and seafood.  I do know there is a good flavored fish oil out there but it is expensive. 

So once again I am revisiting the oatmeal options.  I like oatmeal, but detest eating it as a cereal.  I know they have oatmeal cookies in the store, but I have tried them and they are as hard as can be and not very tasty.  So I decided yesterday to look on-line and see if I could come up with something that would be a little more desireable.  I found the perfect match!  It is ALL good for you.  Every ingredient!  I decided that since I had all the ingredients that it was worth a shot to find a new breakfast item for me.  When they came out of the oven, I was really eager to try one.  I didn't wait long before I took my first bite.  Do you want to know if they are good?  Why yes they are!  So I am very excited to share with you a very HEALTHY oatmeal breakfast cookie that is soft and moist.  If you don't like the craisins, leave them out.  I find they add a nice touch to them! 

I was also a little nervous about using flax seed, but I did it anyway and found that it is great in foods.

Enjoy!

Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies
Ingredients
1/2 mashed banana (I used 1 large)
1/2 cup natural peanut butter (or non peanut)
1/2 cup honey
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup ground flax seed (or an add’l 1/4c flour)
1/4 cup nonfat milk or vanilla protein powder (+2TB of water if dough is too thick)
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup dried cranberries or raisins
Directions
Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly coat two cookie sheets with cooking spray; set aside.
In a large bowl, stir together banana, peanut butter, honey, and vanilla.
In a small bowl, combine oats, flour, ground flax, milk powder, cinnamon, and baking soda.
Stir the oat mixture into the banana mixture until combined. Stir in dried cranberries.
Using a ¼-cup measuring cup, drop mounds of dough 3 inches apart on prepared cookie sheets. With a thin metal or small plastic spatula dipped in water, flatten and spread each mound of dough to a 2¾-inch round, about ½ inch thick.
Bake, one sheet at a time, for 14 to 16 minutes or until browned. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely.
Store in an airtight container or resealable plastic bag for up to 3 days or freeze for up to 2 months; thaw before serving.

Oatmeal Muffin Remake

This last month, a good friend of mine has been encouraging to get back into shape.  She passed her Personal Trainer's Test and now is licensed to help other people.  To get her started she asked for some friends to help her get some practice in and I volunteered.

I have really been encourage by her.  She gave me some tools to get started. 
1)  Drink a lot of water-96 oz was recommend.
2)  Increase your fiber
3) Work out 3 times a week and a couple times a week do some strength training exercises.
4)  Use Loseit.com to start having an awareness of how many calories I was actually taking in.  It's not really calorie counting, but building an awareness or calorie consumption and portion control.  Two things I was horrible at.
5)  She has also educated me about using more natural ingredients, not processed sugars etc....  So I have started sloooowwwwly changing ingredients out in my home and experimenting with healthier ways to make things.  She also mentioned that natural sugars and ingredients will burn off quicker then the processed sugars.  I thought that was pretty interesting.

So I hit a low point this week with just being busy the last two weeks, Thanksgiving food etc.  I was at the doctor's office in the middle of the week and they weighed me.  I expected some good things, but was disappointed.  Mainly because I didn't weigh myself to begin with and I have no idea of where I started.  I did notice a change in me but I was still frustrated.  Until today.  I had another session with my friend today and she measured me.  I have actually lost a couple inches around the waist and some more elsewhere.  I guess I did make progress!  Since she brought her scale with her, I decided to weigh myself and was pleased that it was less then it was a few days ago.

So as I continue my journey to get into better physical shape.....  I will leave you will a remake of my Oatmeal Muffin Recipe.  It was a decent recipe before, but now I LOVE IT!!!  I couldn't believe how substituting ingredients would make a difference.

Oatmeal Muffins {BEFORE Makeover}
1 Egg
1 Cup buttermilk {1 tablespoon vinegar + 1 Cup Milk}
1/2 Cup Brown Sugar Packed
1/3 Cup Shortening {Crisco}
1 Cup Cooking Oats
1 Cup Flour
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
1 teaspoon Salt
1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/4 teaspoon Cinnamon
Heat oven to 400 degrees.  Spray with cooking spray and bake 20 minutes.

Oatmeal Muffins {AFTER Makeover}
1 Egg
1 Cup buttermilk {1 tablespoon vinegar + 1 Cup Milk}
Instead of 1/2 Cup Brown Sugar Packed Used: 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1/4 Cup Molasses + 2 teaspoons
Instead of 1/3 Cup Shortening {Crisco}= USE:  2 1/2 Tablespoons Crisco and 2 1/2 Tablespoons All Natural Applesauce
1 Cup Cooking Oats
1 Cup Flour
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
1 teaspoon Salt
1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/4 teaspoon Cinnamon

Heat oven to 400 degrees.  Spray with cooking spray and bake 20 minutes.  Makes 1 dozen.  Approximate calorie per muffin is 140 Calories.

Notes: 
1)  Changes of ingredients were made in Red. 
2)  I didn't try to change the flour to some wheat as I wanted to see how the other changes turned out. 
3)  The batter may appear a little runny, just make sure and scrape your bowl good before scooping out.  These turned out more moist then they used to.
4)  Since molasses is used they will bake darker in color so don't worry.  They have a great flavor!!
5)  When substituting applesauce for the shortening, they recommend that you only replace half of the ingredient with applesauce and using shortening for the rest.
6)  You can substitute up to 3/4 the sugar content amount with molasses, but they don't recommend any more past that.  I just did half to start out with.