Bush Is OUTTA Here! Cookies (a recipe)...

I made these the afternoon of President Obama’s inauguration, when I was scrounging around the kitchen, looking for the odds and ends to make something sweet. I had oatmeal but no chocolate chips or raisins, so oatmeal cookies were out. I had baking chocolate but not quite everything I needed to make brownies. I remembered a cookie I’d had some years back from a long-disappeared dog-eared cookbook, a delicious cookie one with orange juice concentrate and dried coconut.

The BIOH cookies are not baked, which would make them especially nice in the summer, and there is a lot of potential for add-ins (see below). Consider this recipe a template to modify to your tastes and available ingredients, but I rather like it as is: moist, dense and nutritious. It’s the perfect cookie for saying good riddance to something ugly and savoring the sweet reward that comes from a renewed sense of optimism.

These measurements are approximate. Adjust liquids and dry ingredients as is necessary to make a dough that binds together.

1 cup quick rolled oats, ground in the blender
1 1/2 Tablespoons baking cocoa (unsweetened)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
dash of salt

Mix together in a medium-sized bowl with clean hands or a spoon.

2 Tablespoons smooth peanut butter, room temperature, smooshed around in a measuring cup

Add orange juice a little at a time until incorporated with the peanut butter. Add enough to equal 1/2 cup. (I haven’t tried this with defrosted orange juice concentrate, but that might be better.)

1/2 cup agave nectar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Add the agave and vanilla to the peanut butter mixture. Mix until blended together.

Pour this into the oat mix and mix until incorporated.

1/2 cup or more rolled oats (unground)

Add this to the mix until it is nice and mashed together. It should be thick and one big blob (like Dick Cheney, but that’s all my lovely cookies and Dick have in common) at this point.

With a cookie scooper or a tablespoon, measure out rounded cookies onto the tray of your choice. It helps to wet your scooping devise to minimize sticking as often as you need to do so. Refrigerate until cool, an hour or more. Enjoy!

Possible add-ins: Dried cherries (reconstituted and drained or as is), chocolate chips, mashed bananas, whole hemp seeds, whole flax seeds, sesame seeds, dried coconut (balled cookies would be good rolled in this), almond butter in place of peanut butter, carob powder in place of cocoa, etc. Also, play with the shape: you can make these round and roll ‘em in slivered toasted almonds for your next quick energy booster.