Healthy Eating Starts at Home: Healthy Oatmeal Choco-Raisin Cookies

A Quest for My Little Chef and Me

My daughter has shown interest on baking at the very early age of 5. Well, at least, earlier than I did. She puts into practice what she learns from school. So far, she has brought me good recipes for Sugar Cookie, Fruit Jellos, and Fruit Salad.

We have been baking for a year now and has produced quite a number of brownies, cakes and muffins from scratch. Not all made it to the blog because it needs a little bit more of a perfection.

Today we made a delicious treat that's not only yummy, but comes with a hefty amount of nutrition as well. A whole grain oat that's been treated with chocolates and raisins.

I am very grateful to a fellow bento blogger, Lise of Vegie-Bento, who directed me to the right recipe. It wasn't exactly ours. It was a Lactation Cookie that was submitted by beaner0620 over at epicurious.com.

We normally produce anything chocolate-y because we are both choco-holics. It is what makes us complete and sane. However, we need a variation at times. I came up with oatmeal because none of us are oatmeal-eaters in the family. Oatmeal is an important grain that prevents chronic illnesses. I came from a family of diabetics and hypertensives. While my husband has a familial history of colon cancer. All are life-threatening illnesses that are handed down thru genes. So this is the time to educate our children about healthy eating. And a part of it is incorporating whole grains in our diets. Healthy eating should start early in life to live healthy for a lifetime.

We did a slight modification to the recipe and it met our expectations pretty well. If you are nursing and would want the original recipe for lactating mothers, please look here. Otherwise, let's move on for the recipe.

Oatmeal Choco-Raisin Cookies

1 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

4 Tbsp water

2 Tbsp flaxseed meal

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon

3 cups oats

1 cup chocolate chips

1/4 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Mix flaxseed and water. Set aside for 3-5 minutes.
Cream butter and sugar.
Add eggs.
Stir flaxseed mix into butter mix and add vanilla.
Beat until well-blended.
Sift flour, salt, baking soda.
Pour in butter mixture onto the dry ingredients.
Stir in the oats, chocolate chips, cinnamon & raisins. One after the other. Make sure they are evenly distributed.
Line the baking sheet with parchment paper/non-stick aluminum foil.
Scoop at least a size of a Tbspn of the batter onto the baking sheet. Repeating till there's non left.
Bake 8-12 minutes.

Yield: 3 dozens

I baked mine for 12 minutes and came out chewy on the inside and crunchy on the outside. My kids had a grand time eating these cookies. And they've asked for more. I have given these as a gift for my children's Teacher's Appreciation Week event, and to some friends for Mother's Day on Sunday. I just bought containers that I decorated with stickers, ribbons and custom-made cards. I like giving out healthy home-made foods since I advocate healthy eating. And I'm just happy when they appreciate it.