The second cheapest therapy session I know...

The kitchen is a place where I can quiet my mind. I can focus simply on the task at hand. I freely admit that this quieting of the mind is not something I am very good at. Which is precisely why I had to bake today. My father told my mother to tell me not to bake...but I had to do it anyway. I tried to respect his wishes by compromising a bit. I made a very small batch of cookies. I even put them in the freezer and gave some away to a neighbor, so as to hide the evidence. Said cookies are still in the tupperware I packed them up in. They have migrated however, from the freezer to the countertop...that was NOT my doing. I left them there.
These are my most recent attempt at "healthy" cookies. Healthier...but as has recently been brought to my attention by the newly health conscious Cookie Monster, cookies (whether healthy or traditional) are a "sometimes food". The Cookie Monster's lost his cookie eatin' gusto.
Here's the recipe.





Whole Grain Lower Sugar Cookies

4 T. unsalted butter, softened
1/3 c. sugar
21 splenda packets
1 egg
1 t. vanilla extract
1 t. almond extract
2 c. White whole wheat flour
1/2 t. baking soda
1/4 t. salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream together sugar, splenda, and butter until light and fluffy. Add egg and extracts. Mix well. Add dry ingredients and beat on medium until thoroughly incorporated. At this point you could either roll your dough into a log and slice it, or you can roll it out and use cookie cutters. I did the latter. I rolled my dough quite thick, and ended up getting about 2 dozen cookies.

You could leave them unfrosted. I actually thought they were quite lovely that way. A sweet wheaty biscuit. I felt like decorating, however.

Easy Frosting

2 T. butter
1/8 c. milk
2 c. powdered sugar
1 t. vanilla or almond extract
any desired food coloring

Mix ingredients together and frost away! This frosting is very forgiving...you can thin it out with more milk, you can thicken it up with more powdered sugar.

Oh yes. The most important part of this post. I didn't realize that I needed to flour my cookie cutters until late in the game. For this reason, the ghost's skinny little hands were sticking in the cutters. Rather than try to squish them back onto their arms, I decided it would be fitting to bloody their extremeties instead. Ghoulish little halloween cookies, they became.