Naturally Sweet! - The amazing date shake and vegan banana oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

This month's issue of Today's Dietitian featured an article titled Born to Sweeten: Whole Foods Naturally Flavor Dishes and Boost Their Nutrient Value. The article reminded us that the refined sugars in our diet provide calories and nothing else, while the sweetness of fruit brings along with it a wide variety of nutrients, vitamins, minerals, dietary fiber and antioxidants. Also using whole fruits to sweeten foods, rather than sugar or corn syrup, can help us meet the recommended number of daily fruit and vegetable servings.

Here's how to start using fruit in your cooking and baking and start cutting back on added refined sugar:
1. Applesauce - try replacing 1/2 of the required sugar with applesauce and cutting out 1/4 of the liquid
2. Skip the sugar in pies and cobblers - ripe fruit has enough flavor to stand on its own
3. Add fruit to your oatmeal - there is no need to add brown sugar when you have raisins, dates or bananas
4. Sweeten vegetables and grains naturally - use raisins or orange juice in glazes instead of sugar
5. Mashed banana add sweetness and moisture to baked goods

I was inspired to try this out in my kitchen this weekend. Since it was raining all morning yesterday, I postponed my bike ride and instead googled some recipes. My results were delish!!!!

The Amazing Date Shake

I found this recipe on jamieoliver.com. To make 2 servings he instructs to throw 20 stoned dates in a blender with about 1 cup of milk, blitz until smooth. Then throw a handful of ice and a pinch of cinnamon and blitz again. I decided to use only 10 dates and a little more milk. The result was very good. I think the amount of dates that Jamie calls for would have been too sweet. You could try using a milk alternative like almond or soy but watch out for the added sugars often in these products. Also the protein from the cow's milk was nice to balance out the sugary dates.


Mark enjoying his sweet shake!

 Vegan Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies



This recipe came from Bethenny.com. It calls for oat flour which is really easy to make in the food processor if you have some rolled oats on hand.

¼ cup of vegetable oil

1 cup raw organic sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 ¼ cup oat flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup dark chocolate chips (I used sunspire brand which are sweetened with organic whole grain malted barely)

¾ cup mashed overripe banana (≈1 large banana)

1. Preheat oven to 350°
2. Combine all ingredients in a medium sized bowl.
3. On a non-stick cookie sheet (or line a cookie sheet with parchment paper), scoop batter with a medium sized ice cream scoop.  Space cookies evenly on baking sheet.
4. Cook 35 minutes, rotating halfway through.  The cookies should have a slightly brown edge and come out clean when poked with a toothpick.

Bethenny says this makes 8 cookies. I however produced 24 big cookies from this. It also says to bake for 35 minutes. I have no idea where that came from. My cookies were done after 17 minutes. All that aside, these cookies are really very good and not to shabby from a health standpoint as you get a big dose of soluble fiber from the oats, a small amount of fruit and some antioxidants from the chocolate! Next time I will add only 1/2 cup sugar, decrease the oil and add in 1/2 cup of applesauce. Unfortunately, I did not have any applesauce on hand. I will let you know the results!