I had grand plans for today. I took the kids to the community center toddler “Open Gym” (a sub in for the park during these gross weather months), got home, made them lunch. Then I started working on dinner: Alex and I made a really tasty looking bread with cheese and chile peppers, I got another batch of Rancho Gordo dried beans cooking to eventually freeze and also to have on the side tonight with dinner, I got all of my prep work done for the fabulous soup I had planned, and Alex and I made these Cheerio Chocolate Chip Cookies. Then, just as the last cookie came out of the oven, after the beans had come off the stove and the onions and garlic were busy sautéing on in a dutch oven, and the bread finished its second rise and was heading into the oven… the lights went out. The power died. No real explanation—we had extremely rainy weather here today, but no wind, no thunder, no lightening. And the power did not come back. I had a 2 ½ year old frantically asking me what was wrong, where did the lights go and why couldn’t we bake our bread????!? I had onions on the stove—still sizzling but gradually fading away. I had bread with very strange lumps in it as the second rise was forced to go too long and weird air pockets started forming. *Sigh*
You can’t eat cookies for dinner, no matter how tasty and packed with whole grains.
So into the fridge went the already opened canned tomatillos and the cooked beans for dinner. Outside into the “winter bin” (a sealed container that serves as refrigerator overflow when the weather is cold enough) went the deflated bread dough and the chopped butternut squash. Bags of beans too hot to freeze were left open on the counter, the cooled cookies were quickly bagged, the onions were left on the stove, and I was one grumpy mommy.
Ah, but I do have some good news. The long awaited Indian restaurant finally opened so we had Indian food tonight. Really good Indian food, actually, considering it was only their second night and they were absolutely bombed, so much so that they switched to “Buffet Only” in a panic. After dinner we went to the library in case we still had no power (when you live in the country the absolute pitch black of a nighttime power outage is a little disconcerting with small, squirrely, active children) and then came home to lights and Cheerio Chocolate Chip Cookies.
I found the recipe for these cookies from Cookie Madness, one of my favorite blogs to get recipes from. Probably only Anna could have convinced me to try cookies made with Cheerios! These cookies are a perfect weekday throw together dessert—they are unique and yet familiar enough to be very easy. They are full of whole grains (I did sub in some white whole wheat flour where the original recipe had AP) and their texture is exceptional—crunchy and soft and chewy all at once. If you like thick cookies you will like these. Other than the whole grain flour sub-in and some method differences, I made this recipe as called for.
Cheerio Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from Cookie Madness blog
8 T (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup brown sugar, packed
¼ cup (2 3/8 oz) peanut butter
1 large egg
½ t vanilla
½ cup AP flour
½ cup white whole wheat flour
½ t EACH – baking powder, baking soda and salt
½ cup quick cooking oats
1 ½ cups Cheerios
1+ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (a little more if you like chocolate—I probably used 1 1/3 cups)
Preheat the oven to 375 F. Anna did not grease her cookie sheets for this recipe and so neither did I and it worked perfectly.
Cream the butter and peanut butter together, then add both sugars. Cream until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg and vanilla. In a separate bowl, stir together the flours, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Then add the flour mixture to the butter mixture; stir until incorporated. Add the oatmeal, cheerios and chocolate chips and fold in.
Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake for 10-12 minutes, reversing the pan halfway through the baking period.
It made 24 cookies exactly for me.
Definitely a fun one for the kiddos!