Oatmeal Butternut Squash Cookies*

Because "Gardener" had an abundant crop

of Butternut Squash, I looked for extra

ways to incorporate them into our diet...

What better way than to eat 

the squash in COOKIES*!?!?!

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 and 1/3 cup old-fashioned oats
• 1 and 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon salt (I used Himalyan salt)

......

• 2 sticks butter (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 cup white granulated sugar

.......

• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

......

• 1 and 1/2 cup baked and pureed (and cooled!) butternut squash 

DIRECTIONS:

1. Mix the first SIX ingredients (all of the dry ingredients) until well blended.  Set aside.
2. In a mixer bowl, beat the softened butter, brown sugar, and white sugar for about 5 minutes, or until light and fluffy.   Then, add the one egg, and the vanilla.  Continue beating just until well incorporated.  
3. Add the "set aside" dry mixture to this and beat at low/med. just until blended.  (Dough will be STIFF!)
4. Add the baked/pureed and cooled butternut squash and continue beating ONLY until well mixed.
5. Preheat oven to 350-degrees.  Line your baking sheets with parchment paper.   With dough "drops" not quite the size of a golf ball (I used my cookie dough scopper/dumper for this), bake on parchment paper as follows:
6. Put one oven rack in the upper third of the oven.  Put the other rack in the lower third of the oven. Slide one pan of cookie dough balls on the top shelf, and one on the lower rack.  Bake for 10 minutes.  THEN, ...change the pans around:  Move the top pan to lower shelf, bottom pan to higher shelf--  and bake for ANOTHER 10 minutes. At the end, I had just a single "extra pan"--  so, to bake that, I moved a shelf to the middle-of-the-oven position and baked the last pan for 20 minutes.    DONE!!!   (Because ovens are different, check on the progress of the cookies you bake in your oven.)
7. Cool on pan for about 10 minutes, then finish the cooling on a rack.   When totally cool, you can eat them "as is", or put your favorite kind of glaze frosting on them.  (I used my favorite "browned butter frosting" on some of them, and also sprinkled chopped walnuts on "some".)   Except that I don't add any vanilla, this is a link to how the browned butter icing is made:    http://www.marthastewart.com/314840/brown-butter-icing  

*  I found this cookie recipe on the blog of Life Tastes Good at:  http://ourlifetastesgood.blogspot.com/

Chocolate Chip Cookie w/Oats and Coconut

A chewy cookie with "yummy stuff" inside...



INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 and 1/4 cups brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons 2% milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 and 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (can omit if you use salted butter)
• 3 cups rolled oats (I used old-fashioned oats)
• 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
• 1 cup shredded coconut

DIRECTIONS:

1.  Preheat oven to 350-375 degrees (depend on your own oven).  I used 350-degrees.
2. With an electric mixer, cream together the butter, brown sugar and white sugar until smooth.
3.  Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the milk and vanilla.
4.  Combine the flour, baking soda and salt; add to the creamed sugar mixture and blend well.
5.  Stir in the oats, chocolate chips, walnuts and coconut until evenly distributed.  
6.  Drop by rounded tablespoons onto cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
7.  For the first batch, bake for about 13 minutes and then check; you may have to add another minute (depending on your own oven).
8.  Cool on cookie sheet for a few minutes before removing to a wire rack.  Cool completely and then store in a Zip-Lock bag, etc.  These freeze well.