When life hands you low quality peanut butter. ..

I like peanut Butter. Real peanut butter. The kind with peanuts in it. Nothing else. So what to do when The Ogre brings home "peanut butter?" The kind with peanuts? And sugar? And oil? And salt?

Make cookies of course. 

What is missing from my ingredient display? The nasty PB. Ooops!

I  did try to healtherize the cookies though. I found a recipe for oat based cookies, swapped the chocolate chips for some dried cranberries and swapped the brown sugar for yacon syrup.* I turned them into breakfast cookies and brought them for the parent group to snack on at ECFE.

Moo and I getting the last few drops out. (+selfie)

Moo helped me mix the batter, which adds to the prep time, and I had to get lunch on the table, plus we had an unexpected (but always welcome) visitor, so the cookie bake time overlapped with our afternoon transition (the time when The Ogre returns from work and I leave for work, and Boo returns from school AKA time when The fan is most likely to be hit). NOT the ideal time to be monitoring and switching out a double recipe of cookies. 

We have but two nice cookie pans. And but two nasty, peeling, at one time eleven years ago they were nice, cookie pans. How to lower the cookie baking stress level? Line  up the pans and lay these babies on the nasty pans like so. With the silicone baking mats from Baking Wizards clean up is a breeze, and I don't have to worry about metal/chemical flakes coming off into my food from the peeling non - stick coating. Ideally I  can stick to the two nice pans and use the liners just for the ease of cleaning - the cookies don't stick one bit (even burnt)! . They fit in my new pans better anyhow. But  this day it was all about speed and efficiency. 

The Ogre and I both got sidetracked and forgot the directions said to switch the pans halfway through cooking until the smoke detector was shrieking at our inattentive selves. We did better with the next trays and the breakfast cookies were enjoyed at least as much as their less healthy counterparts (Krave cereal marshmallow bars, did anyone say glycemic  overload? Yuck! But also, apparently, yum?!

Simmering the Barbeque Sauce. Lots of ingredients that are eventually pureed.

*I used Organic Yacon Syrup by Aveya. I had never tried out before, but found out a great, low calorie sugar substitute for both baking and a natural pancake syrup. We also used It as the sweetener in the homemade BBQ sauce for Boo's birthday (no corn syrup there!) It is diabetic (low glycemic) and vegan friendly, has no preservatives, additives, chemicals or gluten. And if you don't like it you can get your money back, but you probably will  like it. Check out my family's reaction to it Here.  

You also may enjoy this video, where The Ogre is saved by ME (the Baking Wizard).

-I received product for free in exchange for my unbiased review -

Now you tell me, How do you "healtherize" your recipes? And what are your tips to make cooking from scratch easier?