almond joy cookies/cookies filled with preserves

These cookies are great, and actually decently full of protein because of the almonds.

Melt 1/2 C butter and cream with 1/2 C unpacked brown sugar and 1/2 C white sugar. Cream until smooth and beat in one egg and one tsp vanilla extract. Add 1 1/4 C white flour in several additions, then grind 1 C blanched almonds in a spice grinder until powdery and mix in.

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Get a bag of high cocoa chocolate chips and some shredded coconut. Roll a tsp ball of batter into the coconut, place on a cookie sheet and use your thumb to make a small inentation in the cookie. Put 2-3 chips in each indentation.

For preserve filled cookies, grab some good jam (we tried strawberry, raspberry and orange marmalade) and roll the dough into ball, then indent with your thumb and fill with about 1/4 tsp preserves.

Bake on ungreased cookie sheets for 8-10 minutes, until browed. Let cool before removing from the pan.

nutella peanut butter cookies

Basically like a regular peanut butter cookie, but half of the PB is replaced by nutella, and 1/2 C flour is replaced by cocoa powder.

preheat oven to 375 F.

cream 1 C smart balance with 1/2 C chunky natural peanut butter and 1/2 C nutella. Add in 1/2 C white sugar and 1 C packed brown sugar. Beat in 2 eggs, then 1/2 C cocoa powder, then 2 C all purpose flour and 1 1/2 tsp baking soda. Mix well, refrigerate for about 30 minutes, then roll into balls and flatten onto baking sheet with fork tines. Bake for about 10 minutes, then cool. THe batter also freezes well for future use!