Super-Quick No-Bake Oatmeal Chocolate Cookies

I love me some oatmeal at least every other day. I don't usually prepare it the traditional sweet-porridge way, but as a savory sludge, with salt and every now and then, also a small green chilli. Although oatmeal is only a recent addition to the Indian diet, it's been prolific enough to find itself in everyday dishes such as upma (savory semolina porridge), idli (steamed rice cakes) and dosa (savory rice crepes).

Quick-cooking oats is definitely my favorite, and recently I picked up a HUGE box of it from Costco. Or at least, I thought it was a box of quick-cooking oats. In fact, it turned out to be a HUGE box of Old Fashioned Oats! I tried making my usual concoction, but found it a tad hard to down too much of it. So, I decided the rest would have to find itself in other dishes.

Cookies, I thought. I would start with cookies. So, I made my way to the Quaker Oats site, hoping to get some inspiration there. I found something better than inspiration - a No-Bake cookie recipe! It calls for all of 4 ingredients not counting the oats, and needs only about 5 minutes of prep! It was a no-brainer. I had to try this recipe.

And, so I give you the Super-Quick No-Bake Oatmeal Chocolate Cookie recipe. The oats worked well in this cookie, and gave it the right amount of chewiness one would expect to have in an oatmeal cookie. I have tweaked the recipe just a tad, and have mentioned in what way in my notes.

Super-Quick No-Bake Oatmeal Chocolate Cookies

Ingredients

• Light Brown Granulated Sugar                      1 1/2 cups
• Vegan Butter or Margarine                           6 tbsp or 3/4 stick
• Vegan milk                                                1/2 cup
• Cocoa Powder                                           1/3 cup
• Uncooked Quick or Old Fashioned Oats         3 cups

Procedure

1. Combine the sugar, vegan marge/butter, vegan milk, and cocoa powder in a saucepan, and bring to boil over medium heat. Stir frequently, and continue to boil for 3-4 minutes.
2. Remove the saucepan from heat, and stir in the oats. If you are using old fashioned oats, allow the mixture to stand for 5 minutes before getting to the next step. If not, proceed.
3. On waxed paper, drop tablespoons of the mixture, and allow to stand till completely cooled and set.
4. Once completely cooled, store in an airtight container in a cool dry place.

Notes:

1. The original recipe called for 2 cups of sugar. I used that amount and found it to be sickly sweet.
2. The original recipe called for 1 stick or 8 tbsp of butter or marge. The cookies were a little greasy till they set, and the taste of the fat was very prominent. Strangely, with such a high quantity of fat, the website touted this as a 'Low Fat' recipe. I guess they meant each serving is low in fat. But who's going to stop at just one cookie!
3. I had to leave the cookies to cool overnight before they were completely set.

I am sending this post in as an entry for 'The Chocolate Fest' Cook Curry Nook's First Anniversary Event!! Cook Curry Nook, authored by the charming Madhuri, is one of my favorite sites for super-simple, super-quick, and most importantly, super-yummy vegetarian/vegan recipes. If you haven't already visited her site, head over as soon as possible, and certainly try and send in your entry for this event.... there's a super-cool cook-book at stake!

Sunflower Seed and Chocolate Chip Speckled Banana Cookies

Like a lot of other people in the US, we too tend to buy a lot, if not all, of our produce from local farmers markets. You get practically EVERYTHING there, in terms of vegetables and fruits! And the prices tend not to be as inflated as they are if you are buying in bigger name stores.


So, the other day when we were shopping there, I happened to notice the aisle that housed all the varied nuts and seeds. They had the usual - cashews, pistas, peanuts, walnuts, pecans, et al. And then my eyes caught sight of something I used to love to eat when I was as a school-girl, in Dubai. Sunflower seeds. We used to get them unshelled and salted. The whole process of de-shelling and consuming the seed was theraputic in a way. I remember doing a lot of thinking while I got those little crunchy nuggets out of their casings and gobbling them up. Never thoughts of any significance, mind you. More day-dreams than anything, really. And I think thats what I liked so much about them - after opening up the first few, one tends to zone out, and your hands just move doing the work of opening, and moving the seed to your mouth, automatically. Sigh. Good times.  

The Marvellous 6-Minute Microwave Cake!!

I've gone the microwave way for baking on more than a few occasions. Let's just say it was one of those "Try, try, till you succeed" type of things. Lets also just say I figured I never would succeed.

That's probably why, when I saw this recipe on Madhuri's (a fellow food-blogger) site, I was like "HA!! She must have a magic microwave! I need to get me one of 'em!" But, 'cause the itch to try, try and see if I could succeed was still lurking under my skin, I decided to scratch it by giving her recipe a go. After all, she proclaimed it would take just 5 minutes in the microwave (at this point there were MANY more 'HA!!'s sounding in my head)! That was the kinda time I could spare to prove a recipe wrong. Besides, it was also my folks 31st wedding anniversary. I needed a quick dessert item to celebrate.

Happy New Year with Chocolate 'Cheese'cake!!

First of all, let me wish all of you who follow the Sauramana Hindu calendar, a very very happy new year!!

While my husbands side of the family celebrate the Lunar or Chandramana new year, my side celebrate the Sauramana one, and this works very well for me indeed. I say this, of course, because there is always something special prepared in terms of food on festival day, and so its a good thing to celebrate as many festivals as possible!! 

It recently hit me square between the eyes, that festivals, especially in the south, become attached to not only certain traditions and customs specific to it, but also to certain food preparations. You see or speak of these items, and your brain is already busy looking through its memory files to associate it with a festival.  And these food items I speak of, generally tend to fall in the dessert category. Laddus, pedas, payasam or kheers, holige, are all the usual suspects.

Now, I like to break the mould when it comes to practically everything, and this is no different when it comes to the food I cook. And so I set out to bake a dessert to celebrate the New Year with. The funny part is that I got my days and dates all mixed it up, and it ended up being eaten the day before Yugadi, but what the hey, eh?!