When I was just a little teen, I had a love affair with my sister’s Sassy magazines (image source). And because of my truly creep-tacular memory, I can now picture the photo that was next to the story that had the quote I’m about to paraphrase for you. Whew. Following? Good.

So, obviously, the article left an impression. The quote was something like “having a relationship is like eating a frozen banana. You see other people doing it and you want to do it, too! It’s only when you try that you realise how hard it really is.”

Well, the article was about relationships, but all I got out of it was, “I want to eat a frozen banana.”

And Sassy was right: if you don’t cut the banana up into bite-sized pieces before freezing, yeah, a frozen banana is almost impenetrable for mere incisors.

I guess I have the attention span of a cranky gnat, because no matter what important business I might be conducting, one solid suggestion could have me fixating for hours. Productivity? Who cares when there are frozen bananas to contemplate!

On the short list of recent things I’ve needed—really NEEEEEEEEEEEEEDED, truly, madly, and deeply—and their inspiration:

• From watching my favourite NZ TV show, Outrageous Fortune (no, OF fans, it’s not fish pie because allergic me is not that self-loathing)… during Season 1, Loretta asks Pascalle how she can be a model if she eats crap all the time, as Pascalle eats potato chips. ME, TOO!

• I’m typically not tempted by chips. They never call to me in the grocery store because if I’m going to have a diet blight, it’s about sugar, not salt. So I knew that something else was afoot when I found myself wandering down the chips aisle at the grocery (!?), where I discovered the miracle that is Old Dutch baked salt and vin chips. Hm… new fave! Uh oh.

• A bunch of healthy food bloggers have iced coffee for breakfast religiously (well, maybe mostly Tina at Carrots ‘n’ Cake!). ME, TOO!
  

• So then I started having iced coffee in the mornings, even on cold March mornings when everything inside me would say “no!!” I picked up a Starbucks insulated cold cup (because I like it when the straw stands straight up—also awesome for my iced tea), and was given this pound of coffee, which I’m not loving, but far be it from me to look the gift horse in the mouth. I’m curbing this habit now, however, because I find I put more milk in iced coffee than my usual espresso macchiato, and don’t need extra calories.
  

• Then, with the whole “USA Dry Pea and Lentil” recipe competition featuring some of the bloggers I read regularly, Sabrina at RhodeyGirl Tests made lentil burgers. ME, TOO!

• So then I could think of nothing else, come dinnertime… although that one actually turned out to be AWESOME.

One thing I’ve yet to get enthused about, however, is oatmeal. Virtually all the healthy bloggers (see Lisa at Bake Bike Blog having oatmeal WITH an iced coffee!!), Oxygen mag crowd, and healthy eaters everywhere seem to be doing it. Since I usually surf the bloggers during brekkie, it’s truly amazing that I’m nowhere near the bandwagon. NOT ME, TOO!

Not the slightest twitch, the vaguest hint, the merest urge. Well, not for a bowl of oatmeal, anyway! It’s 100% a texture thing for me: it’s not quite solid, not quite smooth… but fully bleh. So while I’m absolutely convinced of oatmeal’s superiority as a breakfast food (fibre! phytochemicals! low GI! low fat and calories!)… yeah, just no.

Well, maybe.  I’ve picked up some steel-cut oatmeal that I’ll give one roaring, college try, but if it’s an epic fail, then I’ll always have the divine protein pancake or my very fave lower-sugar, lower-fat cookies to get my recommended daily allowance of oats.

And now, I dare you not to go forth into the day imagining how good a nice, chewy oatmeal cookie with bits of dried pear and pieces of dark chocolate would be…

Healthier Oatmeal Cookies

As a quick aside, I LOVE scrap paper. I find it really inspirational—a full blank sheet somehow intimidates me, but the backs of receipts, envelopes, or castoffs from anyone and everyone else really kicks my brain into hyperdrive. And so the following recipe came together as I searched 101 different websites and cookbooks to come up with a healthier version of the old favourite, and looked a bit like this as I cobbled it together (disclaimer! Vietnam War PowerPoint slide not included in final product):

• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp psyllium husks
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tbsp butter
• 3 tbsp white sugar
• 5 tbsp sucanat (or brown sugar)
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup + 2 tbsp unsweetened apple sauce
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 cups oats
• 3/4 cup dark chocolate pieces + dried fruit mix

Preheat the oven to 375° F.

Dry: Whisk together the first six ingredients in a medium bowl; set aside.

Wet: Mix the next 6 ingredients (from “butter” to “vanilla” above) well, and set aside.

Stir together the dry and wet ingredients until well combined. Add the oats and stir till integrated; stir in the chocolate / fruit combo.

I make these generously sized, so about 3 heaping tbsp of batter in each cookie (because I’m too lazy to have to do multiple batches!). Drop on a silpat-lined baking sheet with about 5cm separating each cookie (they don’t spread much, but no one wants a cookie union).

Bake for 10 minutes; remove from the oven and let stand on the baking sheet at least 5 minutes. The longer you leave them, the less likely they are to fall apart. Yum!

***I should say up front that I still find these a bit too sweet (and also that I always make half batches, so yes, this is a good number of cookies). Sugar has a caramelising function in baking, so I’ll work at it to see how much sugar I can take out while maintaining the integrity of the cookie, and update the recipe as I do.

Also: help a girl out: How should I prepare steel-cut oats for the best texture?