Autumn Perfection: Triple Ginger Cookies

I feel like my brain wants to start every post lately with some comment about how much I love the Fall. I'm sounding less than creative, but it's so true. I LOVE the Fall. And one of the main reasons I love the fall is for all the amazing foods that just taste so much better when the weather is cool. The smell of soup simmering on the stove all day, warm apple cider, sweet squash, root vegetables....sigh. LOVE LOVE LOVE!

One Fall Food that graces my kitchen counters on a verrry regular basis are these incredible Triple Ginger Cookies.

In my husband's world, a cookie is not a cookie without chocolate, so I confess that I bake these quite selfishly for myself. I've never been a big gingersnaps person; they're tasty, but I could never get into that extreme crispiness in a cookie. This, however, is the perfect blend of the gingersnap flavor with a very chewy cookie. They are delicious, and healthy--whole wheat flour, honey-sweetened, loaded with ginger to help you fight off all those nasty cold germs floating around this time of year...I literally can't get enough of them.

The "triple" ginger comes from three different forms of ginger baked into these beauties, so be sure to serve these to kiddos with a big cup of water or milk. Lainey enjoys them, but I do get an earful of "my tongue is tingling, mama!" every time she eats one.

TRIPLE GINGER COOKIES

2 1/2 c whole wheat flour

3 tsp powdered ginger**

1 tsp cinnamon**

1/2 tsp ground cloves**

dash of nutmeg**

2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

tiny pinch cayenne pepper (yes, trust me!)

2/3 c honey

1/2 c oil

1 egg

1/2 c molasses

1/2 c chopped crystallized ginger

2 tbsp fresh grated ginger

---display-worthy crystallized ginger---

**I buy my powdered ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves from Wild Thyme, in Ballston Spa...they sell bulk organic herbs and spices for a FRACTION of what you'd pay in the grocery store, and the quality is incredible.

Heat oven to 350°. Mix all dry ingredients in one bowl, set aside. Mix all wet ingredients in another bowl. Mix wet and dry together.

Gently stir in crystallized ginger and fresh grated ginger.

Drop by the tablespoon onto cookiesheet (I have nonstick, so I don't grease mine) and bake 8-10 minutes. They WILL be soft, DO NOT OVERBAKE! Let sit on cookie sheet for 1-2 minutes, then move to cooling rack to cool completely.

---oops...still working on cracking eggs...---

Rhubarb Cookies

In my house, with the cool weather come lots of warm soups, and lots of baking. I've really gotten in gear this week with both, and today's baking experiment REALLY paid off. I cut and brought in the little bit of rhubarb that I managed to grow in my garden this year--what an amazing plant. The leaves on these stalks were incredible...I'm not a very good photographer, so it isn't the best photo (the apple is for a size reference!), but look at the size of this leaf!! (They actually grow much bigger than this, but my plants were transplanted this Spring and took a while to recover.)

I've realized recently that baking a healthy sweet treat makes a huge difference in my snacking and sweet-cravings all week. When I don't have something baked at home, I still get a sweets craving, and end up getting cookies at the McDonald's drive-thru...mmm, but ick. :) If you're trying to cut back on sweets, try some healthier baked goods at home and see if it helps you, too! (try baking one big batch of something Saturday or Sunday, then you're set for the week...or at least a few days :) )

Back to today's treat: I didn't want to deal with a rhubarb pie, so I hunted for a rhubarb cookie recipe and found this, from thefoodspot.com. I made a few modifications, as always, and these cookies came out waaaay better than I expected. I got nervous once they were in the oven that substituting honey would not give enough sweet to counter my rhubarb's tart, but the sweet level is perfect (unless you ask my husband, who believes a cookie isn't complete without chocolate chips...if you are a fellow chocolate lover, it would definitely work in these cookies).

Rhubarb Cookies

from The Food Spot

2 cups flour (I used half whole wheat, half all purpose)

1 1/4 cups brown sugar (I used honey)

8 tbsp butter (I used half butter, half chia gel)

1 egg

2 tsp milk

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking soda

1 cup dried cranberries (had none, used raisins)

1 cup rhubarb, finely chopped

1 cup chopped walnuts (only had 1/2 cup)

Preheat oven to 350°. Beat wet ingredients in bowl until smooth. Mix in dry ingredients, then stir in rhubarb, raisins, and nuts. Spoon out about 2 tbsp. cookies onto a greased cookie sheet, and bake for 12-14 minutes. Cool one minute on cookie sheet, then move to cooling rack.

Delicious, healthy, and even pretty with those flecks of red rhubarb!

Chia Tollhouse Cookies

Remember my chia seeds post? As promised, I experimented with the incredible ch-ch-ch-chia seeds. My research said that I could use chia gel to replace HALF the butter in my baked goods, so I went all out and made a modified batch of Toll House Chocolate Chip cookies.

First step was to make some chia gel...mix 1 tbsp. of chia seeds (they look almost like poppy seeds) with 8 tbsp. of water. Let it sit for just a minute, and you have GEL. I took a photo but it really didn't look like the real-life stuff in my bowl. In real-life, it looked like caviar. Every tiny seed surrounded with a transparent jelly coating. Definitely not something that I felt I wanted to eat. But I pressed on.

Next step, I followed the Toll House recipe, exactly, except for the butter. This is a good cut-down-the-butter recipe, as the original recipe calls for TWO STICKS of butter. Yup. Hello clogged arteries. One stick of butter equals 8 tablespoons, so into my mixing bowl went ONE stick of butter and 8 tbsp. of my slimy chia gel. Once it was all mixed up, my batter looked pretty normal...the seeds were visibly scattered throughout, and it seemed a little moister than usual, but it looked like cookie dough.

They came out of the oven and looked pretty darn good:

I was still a little wary, though. It was hard to imagine how the slippery, slimy chia gel could cook up into a delicious cookie...

My final verdict after the taste test...WOAH! These cookies were so good. They didn't taste like an original Toll House cookie. They just tasted like a really good chocolate chip cookie. They were lacking the usual crispy edges that the butter provides, but they were incredibly moist and chewy. Turns out that slimy texture turns into chewy perfection once it's baked (couldn't even taste any seeds)!

They cut the fat in HALF, and added healthy omega 3's...these seeds will be stocked in my cupboard from now on. Try 'em!! :)