I’m sure the last words most people want to see modifying their chocolate chip cookies are “healthy” and “vegan.”  Let me reassure you– these are GOOD cookies.  No lie.

I have quite the sweet tooth, and long ago I gave up on being an absolutist about desserts.  We do have dessert after most dinners (strangely, the times we don’t have dessert are when we go out to dinner, which may be a little backward…), so I decided to start looking for healthy versions.

I found this recipe for Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies in the Real Food Daily Cookbook by Ann Gentry.  For those of you not in the LA area, Real Food Daily is a fantastic “organic, vegan” restaurant with three outposts here.  I love their restaurant so much that I bought their cookbook.  And hands down, these cookies are the number one recipe I make from it.

The reason I was looking for a vegan cookie was not because I’m a vegan (although I do approach vegetarian on most days, and was a stalwart vegetarian for many, many years).  I really just wanted a cookie that didn’t have all that butter and refined sugar.  Since I was feeding my kids a cookie almost every night, I wanted to limit that fat and sugar.

This recipe does the trick.  It’s sweetened with brown rice syrup, date paste and maple syrup, instead of white sugar.  And it has only canola oil– no butter or eggs.  And my kids love it, and I think it’s pretty fantastic, too.

I realize that some of these ingredients seem exotic– and I suppose they are.  But they are all things you can find at a Whole Foods.  The craziest thing is probably the brown rice syrup, which, as I said, I get a Whole Foods.  If you don’t want to invest in a carton of soymilk and you don’t need the cookies to be vegan, then by all means substitute regular cow’s milk.  The date puree you will have to make on your own, but it’s super easy and once you’ve made a batch, you’ve got a ton.  I get my dates at Trader Joe’s, but they have them at Whole Foods, too.

I’ve adapted the recipe slightly and made it a little simpler.  I also almost always use MnMs instead of chocolate chips (although sometimes I use both!), and I use the dark chocolate MnMs.  This change came about because my kids love MnMs, so it was a match made in chocolate heaven.  Other than those few changes, these cookies are courtesy of Ann Gentry and Real Food Daily!

Healthy MnM Cookies

• 2 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour (like King Arthur’s)
• 1/4 cup flaxseed meal
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup maple syrup
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 1/4 cup date puree (see recipe and note below)
• 3 tbsp brown rice syrup
• 2 tbsp plain soymilk
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 8 – 10 ounces dark chocolate MnMs

Preheat the oven to 375º.  In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients: flour, flaxmeal, baking powder and salt. In a medium bowl, mix all the remaining ingredients except the MnMs.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until it forms a dough.  Stir in the MnMs.  Use an ice cream scoop to scoop about a tablespoon of dough for each cookie onto a greased, silpated, or parchment paper lined cookie sheet.  Bake for 15-18 minutes, until the cookies puff a little and crack.  Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

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fully mixed dough and prepped cookies

The date paste is really simple.  Essentially, you get a bunch of dates, pit them if they aren’t already, put them in a pot and cover them with water.  Simmer for about 10 minutes or until they are soft.  Put them in a food processor and grind until you have a paste.  Add some of the cooking water as needed to thin out the mixture to “paste” consistency.

I have once or twice used applesauce instead of the date paste, but the dates add a sweetness that the applesauce doesn’t.  If you don’t mind the cookies being a little less sweet, you can use applesauce and forgo the date paste production.

When I make this recipe, I usually cook about 10 – 12 cookies to start.  I form all the other cookies to use up the dough, putting them on one baking sheet.  Then I stick this baking sheet in the freezer for a few hours.  Once the dough is frozen, I toss all the formed but uncooked cookies in a Ziplock bag.  Then I put it back in the freezer.  For the next week, any time we want fresh cookies, I pop a few in the oven.  It’s a nice way to have fresh cookies that don’t go stale.  My sister-in-law does a similar thing, but she cooks the cookies first.  Then, when she wants fresh cookies, she heats them in the microwave for 20 seconds.

And then enjoy!

When my boys were little, I used to boil carrots to make them soft enough to eat.  I know, culinary suicide, yeah?  It seemed the simplest way to get this fresh vegetable into them.  Once they got old enough to chew them raw, I never cooked them anymore. Until I realized that the 6 year old actually prefers his carrots soft, and that they are even more nutritious cooked.

To make things a little more tasty and a little more exciting, I found some recipes for glazed carrots online.  I didn’t really like the ones that used honey; honey has a very particular taste and I don’t think it matches the carrots all that well.  Brown sugar was too processed.  Considering the 6 year old’s love of maple syrup, that’s where I ended up, and lo and behold I now make Maple-Cooked Carrots pretty frequently.

Maple-Cooked Carrots

• 1 – 2 cups baby carrots
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp maple syrup

Put the water, butter, olive oil in a saute pan over medium heat just until the butter melts.  Add the maple syrup and heat for 1 minute.  Add the carrots, swirling the pan to coat them well.  Cover and cook on medium for 5 minutes.  Remove lid and turn heat up to medium high.  Cook carrots for another 5 – 7 minutes, stirring often, allowing the liquid to reduce and become syrupy.  When carrots are knife-tender, they are done.

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maple carrots ready for the table

You can play around with a lot of the elements of this recipe.  If you like your carrots even sweeter, you can increase the maple syrup, or for a more subtle glaze reduce it.  On occasion, I’ve added salt and pepper to taste when I uncover them.  You can also increase the covered cooking time if you want your carrots to be softer.  Heck, you could even puree these carrots for a younger child.  If you do, let me know how it goes!

Chili with cornbread is one of my go-to meals.  I love that you get a ton of vegetables and a ton of leftovers.  The recipe I’ve adapted is from Dean Ornish’s old cookbook, Everyday Cooking with Dean Ornish.  In case you aren’t familiar with the good doctor, he was the first person to prove that heart disease was reversible– that is, that once you’ve got plaque on your arteries, you can actually get rid of some of it by following an extremely low fat diet.  He advocated less than 10% of your calories from fat; I’m not sure if he still holds to that theory, but I do know that a lot of pretty sick people got better on his plan.  He came out with this cookbook decades ago, and for a while it was my cooking bible.  I still return to it every now and then, but the chili recipe became one of my all time faves.

Look at all those awesome veg! Yes, I'm going all Jamie Oliver on you!

This recipe is really forgiving.  It’s not like baking where you have to measure everything exactly.  You can substitute other kinds of vegetables if you want; for example, if you don’t want zucchini, you can use summer squash, or if you prefer green peppers to red, use those.  I usually use zucchini or sometimes a mix of zucchini and yellow squash, and I usually use one red pepper and one of another color– green or yellow, sometimes orange.  (The different colors sometimes help with getting the kids to eat it more heartily.)  I also tweak the chili powder in various directions.  For my base recipe, I usually use just one tablespoon of chili powder, since the kids don’t like it spicy.  One tablespoon gives you a pretty mild chili.  If I’m making it only for adults, I’ll double that.  If you really like it spicy, then go crazy.

the vegetables cooking with the chili powder

The thing that makes this chili, I believe, is the bulgur.  It gives a great texture to the chili that is closely reminiscent of ground beef.  It thickens it up and makes it heartier, and it rounds out all those veggies with a healthy grain.  I usually serve this chili with cornbread and some fruit, and you are done.

Vegetarian Chili

• 2 cups sliced mushrooms
• 1 onion, diced
• 3 – 4 zucchini, roughly diced
• 2 bell peppers, any color, diced
• 1 – 2 tablespoons chili powder, adjusted to taste
• 1 15 oz. can kidney beans, with liquid
• 1 15 oz. can black beans (or other beans of your choice), with liquid
• 1 jar marinara sauce
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1/2 cup bulgur wheat

In a large pot, combine the mushrooms, onion, zucchini, bell peppers, chili powder, and 1/2 cup water.  Bring to a simmer over moderate heat, cooking until the vegetables are slightly softened, about 5 minutes.  Add the beans with their liquid, the marinara sauce, and the tomato paste.  Bring to a simmer and cook approximately 8 minutes, to blend the flavors, stirring occasionally.  Add the bulgur and cook, stirring often, until the grains are tender, about 10 minutes.  If the chili gets too thick, thin with water.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.

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are you getting younger looking at this?