Never Ever Ever Ever Ever Give Up Your Favorite Foods in the Name of Weight Loss

It happened again!  I was looking for a Weight Watchers friendly chocolate chip cookie recipe and made my own twist on it to create one of the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever had!

If you are attached to any food, there is an alternative out there for something just as tasty and delicious -- if not more delicious -- than the original recipe. 

I refuse to make anything with fake butter, sugar, or anything even slightly other than whole, clean, good ingredients.  I don't want to forfeit taste, and I also want ingredients that are as close to what comes out of the earth or nature as possible.

So, I found a recipe that used real butter, real sugar, and lots of other really groovy stuff that I knew would give it good texture, like rolled oats.  I added toasted almonds and instead of chocolate chips I used the Scharffenberger Semi-Sweet Chocolate bar I got at the BlogHer Food Conference and chopped it up in varied shapes and sizes.

These cookies have the best crunch and texture of any chocolate chip cookie I've ever had.  Just the right amount of crunch with the right amount of soft, and not too sweet, and not at all heavy even with the whole wheat flour.

INGREDIENTS

DRY:
3/4 cup rolled oats
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
WET:
1/4 cup softened butter
1/4 cup canola oil
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
FLAVOR:
1 cup of chopped fine chocolate - I used Scharffenberger
1/2 cup finely chopped toasted almonds
POSSIBLY NEEDED/OPTIONAL:
2 Tablespoons to 1/4 cup coffee


DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Take the first 6 dry ingredients and put them in Cuisinart for a few seconds to make sure the oats are pretty finely ground.  It will all look roughly like the texture of brown sugar after just a few seconds.

In another bowl, beat the butter until fluffy with a mixer.  Then mix in the next three wet ingredients until smoothly blended.

Mix the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients until blended.  Add the chocolate and almonds. 

If it's too dry to form little balls, add coffee as needed (a couple tablespoons will probably do it!) to give texture you can work with to roll into balls about the diameter of a quarter.  You will end up with roughly 2 1/2 dozen cookies.

Bake for about 15 minutes.

Enjoy!!!