I love cookies! So, today I decided to look for a recipe that I could adapt to eat for lunch and not feel guilty about.  The MIND diet has made me feel less guilty about eating carbs, as long as they are whole grain.

Of course, the recipe had to use oil instead of stick margarine or butter.  I decided to look for oatmeal cookies, so I googled oatmeal cookies and oil.  I found an almost perfect recipe at http://amyshealthybaking.com/blog/2014/11/30/the-ultimate-healthy-soft-chewy-oatmeal-raisin-cookies/  and headed to the kitchen.

I used olive oil in place of the coconut oil. I have olive oil that doesn’t have much taste. Since I am watching my calories, I used Sugar-free syrup for the agave. Another minor substitution was old-fashioned oats for the instant oats, since that is what I had.

The cookies turned out pretty good. They are chewy and soft, like the recipe promised.  I thought about putting walnuts in them and then they would have had some crunch, but that would have added a lot more calories.  The way it was, I had 2 for lunch along with some fat-free cottage cheese and blueberries. That satisfied my need for cookies for a while.

My husband’s appraisal was that they needed frosting.  They actually could use a little more sugar or sweetener.

Oatmeal Cookies made with olive oil for the MIND diet               PDF version

• 1 cup oatmeal (I used old-fashioned, but instant should be fine, too)
• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 2 TBSP olive oil
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup sugar-free syrup (see options below)
• 1/4 cup raisins

Mix the dry ingredients and liquid ingredients separately. Then, fold the liquids into the dry ingredients until barely mixed and fold in the raisins.  Chill for about 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper. Scoop the cookies onto the sheet so that you have 15 cookies. I used the medium Pampered Chef scoop that holds just over 1 TBSP and it came out just right.  Flatten the cookies a bit.

Bake for about 11 minutes and let them cool on the pan a few minutes.

Nutrition Facts calculated on MyFitnessPal.com.
Calories per cookie, if other sweeteners used:

• ½ cup brown sugar and 5 TBSP milk -103 calories
• ½ cup agave – 103 calories
• ½ cup regular syrup -99 calories

Calories per cookie if ½ cup chopped walnuts added to recipe using sugar free syrup:  92
Calories per cookie if ½ cup chopped walnuts added to recipe using sugar free syrup + ¼ cup brown sugar:  102

When I finish this batch, I am going to try some with the walnuts and brown sugar.