Squirrel Cookies: Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Raisin Cookies with Nuts and Seeds

Even my kids like these cookies!

Lately I have been trying to incorporate nuts and seeds to recipes for their health benefits. Not to mention that they are delicious. This is my latest experiment. I took a basic oatmeal cookie recipe to get the proportions of flour, fat, etc. right and then made my changes: white flour for whole wheat and the addition of a variety of seeds.

To begin, preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Then, get your your ingredients together. I like to get everything out that I will use because I have occasionally forgot to add an ingredient. After I add each one I put it away and then I know that everything makes it into the recipe.

Ingredients:

1 stick butter, softened

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup coconut oil or vegetable oil

1 tsp ground cinnamon (optional)

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

3 cups old-fashioned oats

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup raisins

1 cup pecans, chopped

1/4 cup dried, unsweetened coconut

1/4 cup of each of the following: raw sesame seeds, chia seeds, and flax seeds

1/2 cup sunflower seeds

Cream the butter, oil and sugar together with a mixer on medium speed, working your way up to high speed as the ingredients are combined.

When they are well blended, add the eggs, and vanilla and mix on high speed until they are combined with the sugar, butter and oil mixture.

The butter, coconut oil, and brown sugar have a creamy consistency after mixed for a minute or two at high speed.

Add the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon (make sure there are no lumps of baking soda, if there are, put it through a sieve to remove them). Reduce the speed to low and mix just until the flour is blended.

Beat in the flour until just combined.

Then, stir in all of the other ingredients. Drop rounded tablespoons onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet about 1 inch apart.

Bake on a parchment covered baking sheet for 10-12 minutes until golden brown.

Tips: I like to line my cookie sheet with parchment paper because for some reason whenever I don´t, the cookies never seem to turn out. For some reason I can never find it at the grocery store, and even less that I am now living in Mexico. However, I found it on Amazon (yep, they are in Mexico too!).