A Recipe Fit for a Queen

Today I'm being honoured over at Naomi's blog as the Cool Whip Queen. I've opened a war on Jello and you ought to pick your sides cause the battle lines are being drawn. This will be bigger than Vegemite vs. Marmite!

In honour of this momentous occasion and in acknowledgment of Naomi's titillating dichotomy of Organic Motherhood with Cool Whip, I decided to invent a recipe. I tried it last night and it still needs some tweaking - there could be more chocolatyness and less texture to the organic cookie part. But the Cool Whip part came out grand, which makes me believe even more that Cool Whip is evil like Jello - rubbing my face in my flopped cookies.

Anyway. Here it is with suggestions for improvement in brackets.

Naomi's Honourary Organic Motherhood With Cool Whip "Ice-Cream" Sandwiches

Preheat oven to 350

Line cookie sheet with parchment paper

Take the following:

• 1/2 cup - approx 8 whole - frozen strawberries, let thaw
• 1/2 cup frozen spinach, let thaw and squeeze out extra moisture
• 2 Tbsp vegetable oil

And puree in blender

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, mix together

• 1/2 cup oats, ground in food processor
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup white flour (perhaps increase white flour to 3/4 cup and cut out whole wheat entirely)
• 1/3 cup organic cocoa
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt

With handheld mixer, beat

• 2 eggs

Slowly add

• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar

Whip vigourously

Add

• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1/3 cup soy milk

(idea to make more chocolately, instead of mixing cocoa with dry ingredients, dissolve it in 1/3 cup of coffee and add to egg mixture, cutting out the milk)

• Strawberry/Spinach puree from above

Beat till well blended

Make a well in the flour mixture and pour in egg mixutre. Fold and stir. It should resemble a dough slightly thicker than cake dough.

Drop by tablespoonful onto parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake approx 10-12 minutes. Let cool slightly on sheets before removing to wire rack.
Yeilds approximately 20 cookies

While cookies are baking, prepare the "ice-cream"
Take

• 1 cup of cool whip

Fold in

• 1/2 cup thick organic yogurt, flavoured or unflavoured

Once cookies have cooled completely, match them together in pairs by general shape/size. Place one cookie flat side up, dollop on the cool whip mix, put other cookie flat side down on top. Wrap securely and place in freezer overnight.

Make sure to tuck some at the back of the freezer so you get to try one.

I think the bracketed suggestions would make the cookies better. They're not bad as it is, but they're not amazing. You could also add chocolate chips. That would up the Cool Whip factor, though, and downplay the Organic Motherhood side a bit. But really, once there's spinach in your cookies you can add as much Cool Whip fun as you want! If  Strawberry allergy is an issue, you can substitute blueberries or any fruit really. I use the fruit as a sugar substitute and the vegetable as a fat substitute. In a traditional recipe this would have called for 1 1/2 cups white sugar and 1/2 cup butter.

NoteFor those of you new to my blog, I don't really advise hiding vegetables from your children. I do put vegetables into everything from burgers to banana bread because my eldest son has an issue with the textures of vegetables eaten in their unadulterated form. But I always tell them what's "hidden" in their food. I personally don't think they'll learn much if you just trick them into eating healthy. It's imperative to explain to them what's healthy and why. (Of course, after saying all that, I do admit to occasionally telling him the flecks of vegetable in his soup or pasta is "herbs." It depends on his mood at supper-time, really. And I'm pretty sure he knows "herbs" is my code word for "you're not going to like the thought of it, so don't ask")

**Confession**
Truthfully, neither my husband nor I could remember exactly what Cool Whip looked like and/or where to find it in the grocery store. Not that we're Cool Whip virgins; it's just been a long time. Long enough that the cherry on top could have grown back! So I directed my hubby towards that powdered Dream Whip stuff whilst calling it Cool Whip and he ended up bringing home Nutri-whip. So my recipe used Nutri-whip which I believe is more chemical-laden than Cool Whip. But I do know Cool Whip will work as back in my university days I made an "ice-cream" pie using this method.

*Update: While the rest of us slept this morning, my 5 yo son snuck out of bed and ate three of the six cookies left on the counter. So despite my thinking they were maybe a little off in the texture, if he thinks they're sneak-worthy that's a good thing. It was great fun to tell him he had snuck spinach for breakfast!