Who doesn’t want a cookie for breakfast?
I occasionally hear from clients that if they could skip right over eating and just take a pill to nourish themselves, they would. Obviously I don’t feel this way because I LOVE food, I love the story of how it gets from The Earth into our bodies in delicious forms and BECOMES our every move. And I wouldn’t want to become a bland, man-made, pill….would you?
No, I would rather be a cookie, thank you very much.
In the never-ending quest to create treats, snacks and meals that surprise and delight my actually-quite picky child, breakfast cookies were something that came to mind. They were going to have to be chewy – not dry or crumbly because no one likes that, especially Leo. And they were going to have to be loaded enough that they could run coverage for Pete and I as mid-day snacks, ride food and yes, sometimes as breakfast when we’re running to or through an airport.
It took me a few tries, but these Actually-Chewy Tahini Breakfast Cookies were born and we’re so glad they were!
This is a recipe that I created in the spring – a season when I typically start to wind down the consumption of oatmeal in our house. It’s not because oats are “bad,” but because oats have the qualities of being dense, nourishing, cooling, calming and have an affinity for soothing vata and pitta doshas which make them ideal for winter months. But in the spring, as the heavy, dense energy of kapha starts to build in our bodies and in the natural world, we want to start to remove these cloudy, dense foods from our diets to support the natural “lightening” our bodies are trying to complete; shedding the weight and congestion of winter, and preparing for the brightness of spring.
“But these cookies contain oats!” you’re probably thinking.
Yes, yes they do. But oats – when baked and prepared in this way – have completely different properties than oatmeal. (Insert Ayurvedic headslap here.) Toasted oats, that aren’t cooked in milk or water, are absorbative. See the way they absorb the moisture in the overnight set of this cookie dough and you’ll understand what I mean. We want foods that are light, astringent and absorbent to help us mop up the wet, sticky, cloudyness of kapha. Which makes these cookies pretty perfect for fueling a strong body any time of year.
This is a great example of how everything in Ayurveda depends, and while it’s annoying that we can’t just slap a remedy or a solution over our health and well-being, and we MUST be paying attention to the weather inside and out in order to fuel, move and support our bodies best, it is the absolute most enjoyable, rewarding and beneficial way of empowering our health.
…are straightforward, quick and easy. They do require the dough to stand and “cure” for a bit, so this isn’t the cookie that you can make, bake and eat within the hour. But they’re worth it! Below I share some notes on how to make them yours, substitute flours, and more. The biggest keys here are to make sure that you don’t undercure or over bake your cookies and you’ll have chewy dreamy bites to enjoy the next time you’re on the go or scrambling to fuel your toddler (a mug of hot cocoa is very welcome to dunk these in!)
That's ok, just sign up or log in to see this recipe.