Cookies for my family, not made of my family. Just to be clear. Cookies every member of my family can eat, and Mama won’t get mad. Even the dogs! Back when I was nursing Camille (hold me, the memories are still so vivid), I made batch after batch of oatmeal cookies. I didn’t call them lactation cookies, but because they contain oatmeal, coconut oil, flax, chia and almonds, I used them as such. They were an easy cookie to stir together because the coconut oil was melted. I frequently substituted raw grass-fed butter, and sometimes, stirring the golden yellow butter was the best part of my day. Breastfeeding was so very hard and emotional for me; I know we’ve talked about this before. While I am so joyous to be passed that phase (but serious props to Mamas who nurse in toddlerhood!), I never quite forgot about those cookies. They had something so right about them—salty, sweet (but only naturally sweetened—hooray!), and so much texture. Chocolate chips at 2am are a godsend, as well. These days, Camille is too young to be heading off to school, but she is heading back to daycare soon. I couldn’t be more excited! This summer, I had a nanny come to my house a few days a week in the mornings so I could get some work done. I’m working on cookbook #3 right now, and I needed help. LOTSA HALP. Part of me loved the individual attention Camille got from her nanny, but my Mama instinct knew she missed her friends at daycare. So, back to packing lunches and snacks, I am! And you know I’m that annoying hippie Mama that won’t let her kid eat the junk food they offer at school. I’m 100% against food marketed to kids, and I don’t even care how controversial that statement is. Come at me, I dare you. If the other kids are going to be offered sweet snacks, I want Camille’s snack to have the same appeal. She loves my recipe for homemade graham crackers, but she also really loves these cookies. They’re packed with quinoa, oats, and flax seed, and they’re only sweetened with honey. What more could a Mama want in a cookie for baby?
I pack them in these reusable snack bags. If you love honey-sweetened cookies, you would also love my peanut butter banana oatmeal cookies–they’re very similar!
I use my snack bags to pack up these naturally sweetened oatmeal cookies, but I’ve also been baking up lots of treats from my good friend Michele’s new cookbook, Little Bento. I’ve talked about Michele before, and I just want to reiterate how great it is to find another Mama who is as passionate about the food that goes into her kids’ mouths as I am. Michele gets it. She invented baby food with pizzazz (she gave her babies curry!), and I’m so grateful I stumbled on her site before Camille started solids. Camille was raised on her inventive baby purees, and I swear that’s why she has such good taste now. She has two cookbooks (Little Foodie) and now Little Bento, since her babies are grown up now. I make these spinach muffins from Little Bento a lot, and Michele is the sweetest because she’s letting me share her recipe here. Check out her cookbooks and her website (BabyFoodE.com) and please go tell her how amazing she is for leading the movement of giving kids real food to eat with real flavors. Whew, that was a long one, wasn’t it? Let’s recap:
*I use rolled oats that I processed in a blender for about 10 seconds to make quick oats. **Leftover quinoa is fine, but it must have been cooked in water, not chicken broth. SaveSave SaveSave SaveSave
