Heart Smart Cookies

Last week (before the slump and sinus issue) the PCP helped me whip up a batch of one of our very favorite cookies – Chocolate Cherry Heart Smart Cookies from Cooking Light.  Now, I am no dietitian so I cannot clearly say WHY these cookies are smart for the heart, but I will promise you that it makes you feel a whole lot better about devouring the entire thirty cookie yield in under twenty-four hours.

Chocolate Cherry Heart Smart Cookies
1/3 cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup whole wheat flour
1.5 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
6 T unsalted butter
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup dried cherries (I use cherry flavored craisins because I am so economically minded… hear that, Honey?)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg, lightly beaten
2/3 cup bittersweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Combine all ingredients through salt in large bowl and stir
3. Melt butter in microwave, add brown sugar and stir until smooth
4. Add sugar mixture to flour mixture and beat until well blended
5. Add cherries, vanilla and egg; beat until combined
6. Fold in chocolate
7. Drop dough by tablespoonfuls 2″ apart onto baking sheets coated with cooking spray
8. Bake at 350 for 12 minutes and cool until almost firm.  Move to wire rack to finish cooling

These are so easy to throw together and the dark chocolate-cherry combo is to die for.  While we were baking, the PCP was literally shoveling chocolate chips into his mouth every time he thought I wasn’t looking.  When I politely requested that he STOP eating all of the chocolate, he sweetly replied “But Mommy, I just love chocolate so so much.  I can’t help it.”  I couldn’t disagree, and so I joined in.  The rest of the bag of chocolate chips was history.  More and more these days, I must disagree with whoever it was that said “like father, like son.”

As a testament to the delishness of these cookies, this was all that was left the next morning.  I kid you not.

And before I retire to a full dose of licorice flavored NyQuil (gag) I must thank besties N and C for a yummy lunch and fun play date today, and commend them for still hanging with me when I arrived looking like death warmed over in my clothes from the night before (thank you termite man for showing up early) along with best baby in the world who insisted on wearing his monkey Christmas PJs (from 2009), knee socks fully pulled up, big bro’s crocs and his yellow and black bee rain coat.  Some people wouldn’t have let us in… much less welcomed us with hugs and kisses.
xoxo