Cookies You Need In An Emergency

These cookies have a track record, and it’s glorious.

I found a version of these cookies on the Weight Watchers site,

but the recipe didn’t have the berries in it,  so  I adjusted.

Julie was in chemo with her late stage breast cancer diagnosis.  

We needed something sweet.  We needed foods with high, high

nutritional values.  We needed a bite of joy.

So I started making these for her.  No flour.  Small amount of

sugar.  Real butter—no transfats, which people with cancers do not

need.  A gazillion pecans.  Even more cranberries.  The answer to

an antioxidant angel’s prayer. 

The cookies were so good we made them for Julie’s oncologist and her

chemo nurses, our new heroes.  Now we are closing in on Julie’s

5^th Anniversary, post-diagnosis.

Then there was Jon.  His heart valves had turned to mush

and he went to New York for a rare, more than difficult, two-day surgery

with world-class, miracle-working, fearless surgeons, tracked by

Sherry who held it all together until her man could get home.

The first day the docs cleaned out the scar tissue. They literally zipped him up. The second day they focused on the repairs to the heart. It was a tough, tough time.

But we’d sent them a package of these cookies, just before they went

to New York, and they were  there when Jon needed them.  Now he’s living

proof of the surgeon’s capabilities, Sherry’s love, and the power of true

love and collective prayer.  He got another box of cookies when he got home.

A young singer threw a clot at a Gospel music conference, wound up

in the ICU of a local hospital.  She was very ill.  Her parents came to stay with her

at the hospital, were staying in a room on another floor.  A note came round from church, the family was in need of food and comfort.  I could help with that.  So I made a batch

of these cookies, found some giant, ultra-sweet oranges to go with, and left

the box with the cookies and  oranges at their hospital door. Another family had taken them out to dinner. 

But money was tight, so they weren’t eating regular meals, only those snacks the hospital provided.  A few days later, the mom called me, asking for the recipe.  They were an Hawaiian family from another state, and they’d head down to the cafeteria for cups of tea, and they would share cookies and divvy up the oranges.  They lived on these cookies

for a week, and they’d shared them with their stricken daughter.  Everybody made

it.  Mom and Dad, the beautiful singer.  Everybody got to go home. 

I can’t tell you what that story did for me. There was something blessed going on.

And something as simple as cookies were part of it.  

Here’s the recipe.  Please make your own additions, your own course

corrections.  The recipe can stand it.  Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Line

your cookie sheet with parchment.

Cookies You Need In An Emergency

1 ¼ cup of Old Fashioned Oats  (they are thicker and don’t turn to mush)

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp sea salt (the bigger granular salts add a surprising pop of flavor)

Mix those together.

Add these and stir them up well.

½ cup brown sugar (You can substitute palm sugar if you want a lower glycemic food)

1 cup pecans (bit and pieces)

1 cup dried cranberries

1/3 cup butter, melted (I’m sorry, but nothing tastes like butter)

1 beaten egg

1 tsp really good vanilla, for reals.  Maybe 1 ½ tsp, if you wish.  Mexican vanilla rocks!

Roll the cookies into walnut shaped pieces.  Put them on the parchment/baking sheet.

Flatten and shape the cookies.  They do spread some.   Bake for about five minutes.

Switch the baking sheet side to side in the oven.  Finish baking for 3 more minutes.

More if you want them a little crunchier.

Pull them out of the oven.  Let them cool about 10 minutes before you take them

from the sheet.  Makes about 2 dozen mid-sized, thin cookies.

Share the blessings.