Friday, January 27, 2012 at 07:13 AM
Welcome to Cooking With Catherine Katz! If you haven’t tried one of Catherine’s recipes yet, today is the day! Every recipe she gives me is simply amazing. These Almond Chocolate Chip Cookies are to die for. And they are so easy.
Catherine (second from right in this photo of Gorgeous Katz’s) is married to NuVal visionary, Dr. David Katz. Together they have 5 (count ‘em!) children.
It’s hard to believe that Catherine and I have been collaborating on this blog/recipe project for almost 2 years now. Where does the time go? Anyway, she always seems to send me the perfect recipe. This time was no exception.
This cookie recipe has only 4 ingredients! Actually, Catherine informed me that the original recipe called for baking soda and salt, but that she eliminated them to make it more nutritious. She’s absolutely right. You don’t need those ingredients.
Ingredients
3 cups Almond Meal/Flour (NuVal score of 77)
6 Tablespoons canola oil (NuVal score of 24)
6 Tablespoons agave nectar (NuVal score of 1)
3/4 cup bittersweet chocolate chips (NuVal score of 8).
This was my first time buying almond meal/flour. To keep the product fresher longer, it is suggested that you store it in the refrigerator.
I’ve had this agave nectar for a while. I was glad to put it to some use!
Directions
Measure the 4 ingredients into a bowl and mix them together.
So easy!
Bake on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. 350 degrees for 8 – 10 minutes.
I found that 9 minutes was the magic number for my oven.
These were ooey, goeey and perfect! And they keep fresh for days. We made these on a Sunday and they still tasted just as good by Thursday. (It was kind of amazing that we still had some left!) They are soooooo good. You have to try this recipe!
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Cookies, Cooking with Catherine Katz
Tags: Almond Flour, Bob's Red Mill, Cookies
Friday, September 30, 2011 at 07:05 AM
Several months ago, my family agreed to take on the New Food Challenge with me. We would try a brand new food each and every week to see if we liked it and then report on it here at A Better Bag of Groceries. We did that for about four or five months, but we’ve tapered off a bit. We’re still trying new foods, just not every single week.
This week, we tried Annie’s Bunny Graham Friends. They are a cookie that scores a 27 on the NuVal scale. Now, cookie scores range from 1 to 40 on the NuVal scale, but the average score for a cookie is only a 7. So, a 27 is a really good score for a cookie.
I thought I would pay attention to serving size. It’s 28 cookies. So, I counted them out for each of my children.
My daughter found that the bunnies float in milk!
What I love about the bunnies is that they encourage my kids to drink a glass of skim milk, NuVal score of 91.
My son could hardly tear himself away from his latest Magic Treehouse book on the Titanic to participate in this taste-test, but he did.
And he ate all the chocolate bunnies first.
These cookies will definitely go on our shopping list from now on!
After snack-time, my daughter loved the word-search on the back of the box.
Finding new products is fun! Kudos to Annie’s for making a high-scoring cookie.
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Cookies, New Food Challenge
Tags: Annie's
Thursday, June 23, 2011 at 07:19 AM
So, here’s the deal. My family has graciously accepted my New Food Challenge. Every week, we try a new food – something we’ve never tried before. Typically, it’s a food that has a higher-than-average NuVal score and it is something that fits into our weekly meal planning and lifestyle.
I spied these Annie’s Chocolate Bunnies during my recent Blog Shopping Trip out at Price Chopper in Shrewsbury, MA.
I was pleasantly surprised by the NuVal score of 27, because the average score for a cookie is only a 7. So, a 27 is a fantastic score for a cookie.
Both my son and I love Nabisco’s Chocolate Teddy Grahams. They score a 26 and they are always in our cupboard. So, I thought it would be fun to try a “competitor”.
Now, my daughter is NOT a fan of chocolate. At all. And I HAVE TO eat something chocolate (preferably dark) every single day. Seriously, if I had not been witness to the birth event itself, I would think that my daughter was adopted, because she definitely did not inherit my affinity for chocolate! So, this taste test was going to be interesting. She did not look too pleased at first.
But soon, she was game. Maybe because these bunnies were so cute.
And the back of the box had some fun ideas too.
We tried to make the bunnies swim in milk. Bunnies doing the backstroke!
The Verdict
My Taste Test Team, weighed in on Annie’s Bunnies and the verdict was overwhelmingly positive! Even my non-chocolate-eating daughter liked them (amazing!) We even enjoyed them more than Teddie Grahams. They were crunchier and I think we just liked the different conistency for a change. Maybe the swimming factor helped too. When we can find them on sale, we are going to put these in our cart from now on. They only score one point higher on the NuVal scale, but hey, every little bit of nutrition helps, right?
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Cookies, New Food Challenge
Tags: Annie's
Friday, January 14, 2011 at 07:24 AM
Happy Friday Blog Fans! My friend Tina, who is running her first-ever marathon in Phoenix, Arizona this weekend (go Tina!) has a tradition of Cookie Friday. Every Friday, she treats herself to a big cookie. In keeping with her tradition, I thought today would be a great day to show you the adventure I had this week with my kids in the kitchen making Whole-Grain Chocolate Chunk Cookies.
I found this recipe in last Sunday’s Boston Globe Magazine.
I was attracted by this headline:
and this picture
As Tina would say, Holy Yum!
Turns out, this recipe is from a new book coming out on January 15th. It’s called The Cleaner Plate Club.
And from the looks of the recipes featured in this magazine spread, the authors of The Cleaner Plate Club and I are preaching similar messages, such as:
I want to meet the two Moms who wrote The Cleaner Plate Club (Beth Bader and Ali Benjamin). I think they would be fans of NuVal and ABBG, don’t you?
So, Wednesday – just before dinnertime – as 15 inches of snow was barreling down on us in eastern Massachusetts, I gathered my children, for some cookie-baking.
We rounded up the ingredients. Amazingly, we had everything in house – except we did not have chocolate chunks. But our dark chocolate chips worked just fine!
For the exact ingredients and directions, click on the recipe here.
This recipe has some great trade ups from traditional chocolate chip cookie recipes. For example:
- Instead of Unbleached All Purpose Flour (NuVal Score of 67), this recipe calls for Whole-Wheat Pastry Flour (NuVal score of 91 for Bob’s Red Mill – my favorite!)
- The Quick-Cooking Oats (not typically found in a chocolate chip cookie recipe) score a 57on the NuVal scale
- Typically you would see about 1 stick of butter in a chocoalte chip cookie recipe. This only called for 2 Tablespoons! (Land O’Lakes unsalted sweet butter scores a 2 on the NuVal scale)
- Typically, you wold not see peanut butter in a basic chocolate chip cookie recipe, so adding Teddie Smooth Unsalted, with a NuVal score of 49, packs in some nutrition
- For the most part, dark chocolate scores higher than milk chocolate on the NuVal scale. These Ghiradelli chips that we used score an 8, while the Ghiradelli milk chocolate chips only score a 3.
I always say that it doesn’t matter what you make – what’s important is that you get your kids into the kitchen to teach them some basic cooking skills.
Like measuring dry ingredients:
and sticky ingredients
Thank goodness for my old friend, the Pampered Chef All Measure Cup for measuring out the Teddie Smooth!
And stirring is good exercise when you’re all cooped up inside during a Blizzard!
The recipe does warn you – the batter is very thick!
And we used our Pampered Chef Large Scoop to form 30 cookies. I love it when recipes are right on! This really makes exactly 30 cookies!
We used placed them on parchment-lined cookie sheets and baked them at 375 degrees for exactly 12 minutes. Perfect! In fact, 11 minutes may have been even better. I’m still learning how to use my new oven.
The smelled so good. But we had dinner to eat (Slow Cooker Chicken Cacciatore) before we could dig in. Let’s just say, my kids ate their dinner very quickly that night!
The Verdict?
I highly, highly recommend this recipe! If you are tired of some of the same-old, same-ole chocolate chip cookie recipes, why not trade up for some more nutritious ingredients and see what your kids think? My kids loved them and I think they took pride in them because they made them. I brought some in to my colleage Rob at work (and he would tell me if they stunk – he is all about taste) and he gave them the two-thumbs up. Bring them to your next school function, and you can be known as a Hip Healthy Mom. I am really looking forward to this new cookbook!
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Cookies, Cooking with Kids
Tags: Cookies, Cooking with Kids
Monday, August 16, 2010 at 07:18 AM
Welcome to Cart Confessions, a frequent feature here at A Better Bag of Groceries, when I ‘fess up that, hey, I’m no Super-Mom and sometimes often some less-than-nutritious products end up in my shopping cart. I have to tell you that I don’t make this stuff up. Many people in my hometown know that I write ABBG and know me as the teacher of Boot Camp and Pilates classes, so there are times when I’m covering certain products up in my shopping cart lest I bump into someone while grocery shopping! When I found out the NuVal score on these Late July cookies, I found that these were one of those products.
I blame my 7-year-old son for this one. He first spied these at Stop & Shop about a year ago – in a snack pack. He is born on the 4th of July and he just loves his July birthday and anything at all to do with the month of July, so he asked if he could get these cookies as a special treat. I looked at the label. Lots of great health claims:
- 2 g whole grain per serving
- anti-oxidants
- processed without dangerous pesticides
- no trans-fat or high fructose corn syrup
- no artificial flavors, colors or preservatives
I figured they must be at least a little bit more nutritious than a regular cookie, right? No. They score an 8 on the NuVal scale. They get the same score as a Double Stuff Oreo. A Keebler Chips Deluxe Soft and Chewy Cookie with a score of 12 would be a better choice.
Can I just add here that I paid over $4 for this box at Shaw’s? Crazy.
Bottom line. A cookie that you buy in the “Healthy” section of your grocery store is still a cookie.
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Cart Confessions, Cookies, Uncategorized
Tags: Cookies, Uncategorized
