Snacks and Desserts: Pecan Honey (Breakfast) Cookies

I've mentioned my love of breakfast foods, and I don't really know why I love it so much, but I do. I found this recipe on this blog and thought I would try it because it said breakfast and cookie in the same sentence so it had to be good. The original recipe called for maple syrup but I've found that I like maple syrup on pancakes and pancakes only. Maple syrup as a sweetener doesn't do anything for me. So I used honey instead of maple syrup. You'll notice that I put breakfast in parenthesis. They are, in fact, perfect to grab a couple for when you need to eat breakfast on the go (in which case, maple syrup would probably be good...there's just something about maple syrup, to me, that needs to stick to breakfast and not cross over into the general sweetener category) but I think the cookies are good enough to eat as a treat throughout the day. They're not sweet sweet, so don't be expecting a sweet treat. But they're still a cookie with a twinge of sweetness. Enough to satisfy you. Unless you're in the middle of a chocolate attack. Because let's be honest, sometimes there's just nothing better than this:

photo from here

Mmmmmmm. The darker the better. But I digress. If you haven't seen www.100daysofrealfood.com you should probably check it out. A girl in North Carolina, wife and mother of two, challenged herself to cut out processed foods for 100 days. Not only that, she challenged her family to the same thing. (Ok, let's be honest, her children probably ate whatever was served to them, but it was proably daunting to think about cooking for two children without any processed foods). She succeeded in completing her challenge, and as you might guess, there was no turning back. Her blog is a great resource for those of you new to the real foods diet and to those of us not so new to it.

Ingredients

1 cup whole wheat flour
¾ cup rolled oats (not instant)
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ cup applesauce
3 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1 pastured egg
½ teaspoon vanilla
½ cup chopped pecans

Optional Ingredients (neither of which I used, but both of which I think would be good)
chocolate chips
dried fruit

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 and grease a cookie sheet. Whisk together the flour, oats, baking soda, and salt.

In a separate bowl beat the applesauce, maple syrup, butter, egg, and vanilla. While beating the mixture on a low speed add the dry ingredients until well blended.