Healthy Oatmeal Cookies

my healthy version of the oatmeal cookie - see the cinnamon?

Oats used to be my least favourite grain. I avoided eating the oatmeal porridge my mum would sometimes make for breakfast. On some days, I'd relent and eat it with butter and cheese. There's nothing like salty melted butter and soft gooey cheese. With those, even mushy oats would taste great.

Now, I can't get enough of oats and I love all grains. That includes wheat and bran. I do like muesli and I prefer the non-sugared ones. Sometimes those with too much sugar can be too overpowering.

It so happened that I had plenty of leftover rolled oats from before and I decided to make some oatmeal cookies. Without chocolate, without raisins. Of course they'll taste better with those, but I had no raisins and I wanted this to be a healthy treat for starters.

I got the recipe from Epicurious and liked that they asked for cinnamon to be added in. Spiced oatmeal cookies sounds good. But I didn't follow the recipe word for word. I halved the sugar (only added the 1/3 brown sugar it called for) and used margarine instead of unsalted butter. But do note that you have to omit the salt from the recipe then. And also, margarine makes for a more softer cookie. I also used more oats (2 cups) than what they asked for, and of course, I added more cinnamon.

The result was spectacular, in a simple warm fuzzy sorta way. You'll understand when you make them and get them warm from the oven. These cookies are cake-like and soft in the centre. You could add black pepper or five-spiced powder if you like and maybe some grated nutmeg.

I would have to say, this is a very basic oatmeal cookie recipe. Which is good, I suppose, as it allows you to play around with the ingredients and adapt flavours as you see fit. You could add maple syrup or even irish cream if you like. I think this is a keeper. Will definitely use it again and customise my own special creation! I'm thinking of chocolate coated oatmeal bars with mashmallows. heh. but that's for another time when i'm having a serious craving for something sweet and decadent.