Oatmeal Cake Cookies

A couple years ago my friend Melissa introduced me to Peas and Thank You, the food and life blog of Sarah Matheny, and I have loved it ever since. Sarah was an attorney (and is married to one) but once she had kids she decided to stay home with them.  Her blog is filled with healthy and flavorful vegan and vegetarian recipes.  Last summer, when I was working for The Soyfoods Council writing recipes for them I took a lot of inspiration from Sarah, especially in her unique uses of tofu.  In addition to being an incredible cook Sarah is also a woman of faith who doesn't shy away from sharing stories on her blog about what God is teaching her.  She often talks about She Reads Truth; a movement to get women reading the Bible daily.

I have always struggled to have a daily devotional.  I'm in the Word on Sunday mornings at worship and in preparations for the Bible Study I lead; but other than that I have been less than faithful in regularly reading the Bible and meditating on its wisdom.  So after months of seeing Sarah post on her blog about She Reads Truth I finally got signed up.  Everyday I get a devotion sent to my email including a scripture reading.  Each day I'm reading through the devo and journaling about the topics it includes.  I'm only 11 days in, but I am loving it...and keeping up with it. Hooray!

Today I was flipping through Peas and Thank You: Simple Meat-less Meals the Whole Family Will Love and found the recipe for Anytime Cookies (if you have the cookbook, it is on p. 201, last Christmas Melissa and I gave this cookbook to each other, it was pretty funny).  It is a fairly standard oatmeal cookie recipe just veganized, no butter or eggs, and healthified, lower sugar and some whole wheat flour (spell check says "veganized" and "healthified" are not a real words: whatever).  It sounded great, so I modified it slightly with different mix-ins and used chicken eggs rather than "flax-eggs."

This recipe is super simple to mix up just with a spatula or spoon, there is no need for a hand or stand mixer because the recipe uses oil instead of solid fat so you can skip creaming the fat with the sugar: just stir them together.  The dough is softer than normal cookie dough and spreads some while baking, once baked the cookies come out of the oven rounded and cakey.  Yum.

Oatmeal Cake Cookies

adapted from Anytime Cookies by Sarah Matheny

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup canola or vegetable oil

1/4 cup milk

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup old-fashioned oats

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup Craisens

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

1/2 cup pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and lightly coat 2 baking sheets with cooking spray.  In a medium bowl stir together sugars, oil, milk, eggs, and vanilla.  In a large mixing bowl stir together flours, oats, soda, cinnamon, and salt.  Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir until incorporated.  Add Craisens, chocolate chips, and pecans: stir until evenly distributed.  Scoop cookies onto prepared baking sheets and bake cookies for 12-14 minutes or until golden brown on the edges.

Makes 24 large cookies.