Back from my travels / vacation and somehow it has dramatically become autumn here in New England. Not complaining as fall is my favorite season. And with that, it’s time for autumn flavors. And it’s Canadian Thanksgiving on Monday, so even more of an excuse to have these flavors. Maple. Cranberry. Pecan. These cookies *might* actually be healthy for you, though lots of sugar and butter. Not too sweet, very soft. Quite lovely. And perfect for fall.
So here we are on the day before I leave on vacation and I have half a dozen bananas that need eating. Or using. Or something. I suppose that I could just stick ’em in a ziplock bag and make banana bread later, but even though it is a wildly busy day, making banana bread was a bit of a creative outlet, so I stopped everything that I was doing and made this. Threw in some frozen cranberries too. Somewhat ironic that I am making something very autumn-ish on the last official day of summer, but whatever.
If you like peanuts, these are the cookies for you. Actually, if you *love* peanuts, that would be even better because these are loaded with peanut butter, raosted peanuts and peanut butter chips … in addition to chocolate chips and an actually good for you ingredient of oatmeal. Well, I guess peanuts are good for you too. I’m not sure how I could have added more peanuts to this really. Any ideas for my next try?
Last week, I was given a whole bunch of zucchini (aka courgette for all you other-English speakers out there). And I mean a whole lot… like 10 meals for a single girl. Thankfully, I have ideas on what to do with zucchini that doesn’t involve just stir-frying it or adding it to ratatouille. This is a cake, for example. A very lovely harvest, autumn like cake with loads of zucchini, ginger, orange and hazelnuts. It can be made into a bundt shape or loaves like banana bread. Very yummy and will now be my breakfast for the remainder of the week.
What makes you think of Middle Eastern food? For some reason (maybe not even close to being based in reality), plums, cardamom and pistachios all make me think of Middle Eastern cuisine. And I’ve been doing so much reading on Syria and Turkey and such that apparently I have those flavors on the mind. Clearly shortbread isn’t Middle Eastern though! These came out well though; a great combination.