Vegan Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Submitted by Chris Mitchell, GroupX Instructor, O2 Fitness Brennan and Falls/540

Hi guys!  For all of you who had the cookies this morning in my classes (yes, I am not past bribery to get you to come workout with me...you come to my classes, you get occasional healthy treats...Woohoo), here is the recipe I promised to put on the blog.

Vegan Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies:

• 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 1 cup quick-cooking rolled oats (not instant)
• 1 cup unbleached cane sugar or turbinado sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon non-aluminum baking powder (such as Rumford)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup protein powder (I use vanilla rice protein powder by Nutribiotic)
• Just over 1/3 cup water
• 1/4 cup canola or walnut oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips (watch the ingredients if you want it vegan) or carob chips
• 1/3 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Coat one or two baking sheets with cooking spray, and set them aside.

2. Place the flour, oats, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a medium mixing bowl, and stir together.

3. Place the water, oil, and vanilla extract in a separate small mixing bowl, and stir together.  Pour this liquid into the flour-oat mixture, and mix well to make a stiff dough.  Stir in the chocolate chips and walnuts, and mix until they are evenly distributed.

4. Drop the dough by small, rounded spoonfuls onto the prepared baking sheet(s), spacing the cookies a bit.

5. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes, or until cookies are lightly browned.

6. Let the cookies rest on the baking sheet for 5 minutes.  Then carefully loosen them and transfer them to a cooling rack using a spatula.  Cool the cookies completely before storing them.

They freeze well!