This is NOT a picture of my own personal cookies, btw. I tried a little food photography last week when I made my own seitan. I left the pics on the digital camera and forgot about them. A couple of days later, A. was downloading pics to his computer and I heard him say in a very strange voice: “What the hell is that?” For a second there, he thought I had gone stark raving mad and plated some dog poop to photograph.

I may be crazy, but not that crazy. I don’t think so, at least. Not yet.

For the record, A. didn’t like the seitan, either.

I think there’s more to food photography than simply pointing and shooting. Perhaps there’s more to writing than simply sitting down and pushing your fingers against the keyboard as well.

Ya think? Practice, practice, and more practice. Then stand back and have someone else look at it. If your picture — or story or poem — makes someone think of dog poop, it might suggest that more practice is in order. Unless dog poop was your initial intent, in which case I have no suggestions.

Anyway, I took these cookies somewhere last week and a bunch of people actually asked me for the recipe, so here it is. It is my go-to quasi-healthy cookie recipe, and I sometimes substitute raisins and nuts for chocolate chips and cranberries. Orange extract instead of vanilla is nice sometimes. This would be lovely with macadamia nuts and white chocolate chips, I think. You can use an egg instead of the flax seed meal/water combo, but flax seed meal adds a nice nuttiness to this kind of cookie, along with some fiber and less of whatever it is that eggs have that’s bad for you.

Bon appetit!

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Cranberry Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies – Vegan

Makes 2 to 3 dozen cookies, depending on size

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour or whole wheat flour (I use a mixture of unbleached white flour and whole wheat flour)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 cup Earth Balance or other vegan margarine
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon flax seed meal mixed with 3 tablespoons warm water (substitute for 1 egg)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 3/4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
¾ cup dried cranberries
¾ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (Ghirardelli semi-sweet is vegan)
fresh ground black pepper (about ½ teaspoon)

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Into a small bowl sift together flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg. In a large bowl with an electric mixer beat together margarine and sugars until light and fluffy. Throw a couple of good healthy twists from a pepper grinder into the mix. Beat in egg/egg substitute and vanilla and stir in flour mixture, oats, cranberries, and chocolate chips until combined well.

Arrange rounded tablespoons of dough about 3 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets and with moistened fingers flatten mounds into 3-inch rounds. Bake cookies in batches in middle of oven until golden, 10 to 12 minutes. Cool cookies on sheets 1 minute and transfer with a metal spatula to racks to cool completely. Cookies keep in an airtight container at room temperature 5 days (maybe — they’ve never lasted that long!) I usually freeze some in a zip-lock bag and they are pretty good thawed out, but not the same as fresh from the oven.

As for the Christmas goodies:  I made Chocolate Chip Chai Spice Shortbread, which were slightly better in theory than in practice.  I think I sliced them too thick, and I also think my cardamon is too old.  I also don’t think I’ll make them again, but they definitely weren’t bad.  There are just too many other things to bake!

The Chocolate-Bottom Macaroon Cookies were a HUGE hit.  Yummy, like baked Mounds bars.  Only change I would make next time would be to double the almond extract.  Kitchen Sink Chocolate Biscotti might not have a glamorous name, but they were super-delicious.  I used dried cranberries, dried mango, and walnuts as my add-ins to a very deep, rich dark chocolate batter.  Another keeper.  Finally, Roll-and-Cut Sugar Cookies. These were also wonderful, especially with some Demerrara sugar sprinkled on top of each.  I have a huge collection of cookie cutters and I tried to use most of them for these!

For years, my holiday baking involved massive amounts of butter, eggs, sugar, all that yummy stuff.  But it is possible to make completely delicious goodies without most of that.   Of course, I also made a big batch of pralines for some of my family — crammed with butter, brown sugar, white sugar, cream, pecans.

That’s it!  One thing about finding recipes on the Internet, which I usually do, is that when I revert to a cookbook, I don’t have the 300 reviews that give me some idea of whether or not the recipe is worth trying.  So if anyone reading this wonders whether this cookbook is worth buying, I say yes.  I also recommend the recipes I tried.  Let me know if you’ve tried anything else from it — I might try it on my next baking run!