peanut butter, raisin and bean snacker cookies

We all have rough days. Hunter recently had one (lots of tears throughout the day + waking up really sad from his nap). I find that there’s normally a reason for these rougher days: poor night sleep or nap, not eating well or a tooth bothering him are the usual culprits.

On that particular day, after his sad wake up from his nap, we baked cookies. The boy loves being in the kitchen helping and sampling, then having cookies at the end – well that just made it even better.

I’m calling these cookies snacker  cookies because they’re actually quite healthy and would totally work as an anytime snack. Instead of the chocolate chips in the original cookie, which are much more a dessert cookie, I subbed in raisins. Really I did this because we had no chocolate chips on hand, but it totally worked! I love how it’s such an easy way for Hunter to snack on beans too.

peanut butter, raisin and bean snacker cookies

adapted from peanut butter chocolate chip cookie dough bites

Makes about 12 cookies, depending on the size

Ingredients

• 1¼ cups canned chickpeas, well-rinsed and patted dry with a paper towel
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• ½ cup + 2 tablespoons natural peanut butter, SunButter Natural or almond butter – room temperature
• ¼ cup honey
• 1 tsp baking powder
• a pinch of sea salt if your peanut butter doesn’t have salt in it
• ½ cup raisins

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Combine all the ingredients, except for the raisins, in a food processor and process until very smooth. Make sure to scrape the sides and the top to get the little chunks of chickpeas and process again until they’re combined.
2. Put in the raisins and pulse it once or twice. The mixture will be very thick and sticky.
3. With wet hands, form into 1½” balls. Place onto a Silpat or a piece of parchment paper. If you want them to look more like normal cookies, press down slightly on the balls. They don’t do much rising.  {You can also refrigerate the dough for a little bit which will make it easier to handle.}
4. Bake for about 10 minutes for the fresh batter (closer to 14-16 straight out of the freezer). The dough balls will still be very soft when you take them out of the oven. They will not set like normal cookies.
5. Best eaten right away when still warm!

After we baked and snacked on these cookies, everything was better. Sometimes you just need a cookie to cheer up your mood a bit.

I’m linking these up to Brittany’s munchkin meals today. Click over to see what other mamas are making for their kiddos.

What’s your cure for a rough day?  Cookies?

Heather