I am always looking for little things to make life easier (or at least manageable), and my latest discovery is something that might make a good addition for the weekly Works-for-me-Wednesday hosted by Shannon at Rocks in my dryer. I don’t know about you but if my boys don’t get fed regularly (like every two hours at least) they turn into little monsters. Not that I am starving them. If they tell me they are hungry I will get them a snack (unless dinner is less than two minutes away) as fast as possible (or you know what will happen). But often they don’t say anything until it is almost too late or if they do it is when we are walking home from the store and are ten minutes away from the nearest food source (and ten minutes is definitely too long to wait for them).
Lately, we have especially struggled with this because of some changes in our daily routine. The first problem arises in the morning. J. has to be at the bus stop just before seven am and he is not a morning person. Which means breakfast doesn’t go so well. The second problem happens when he gets off the bus a bit before two pm. He is so starved that walking home and waiting for the ten minutes it takes me to prepare even the easiest meal are out.
Luckily, I remembered a cookie recipe that is easy to make and yields tasty and fairly nutritious (especially considering that these are cookies) treats that can help to keep hunger at bay until a proper meal can be fixed. (In a pinch the boys have also been known to just gobble down cookies!). So if you have the same problem with your kids (or if you need an easily portable snack for yourself) you might try these.

I-am-starving-cookies

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cups butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 6 tablespoons molasses
• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 cups oats
• 1 cup nuts, chopped
• 1/2 cup raisins

Preparation:

1. Beat butter with sugar till creamy.
2. Add molasses (coat the measuring spoon with oil first to get the molasses off easier) and eggs.
3. Mix flour, salt, cinnamon, and baking soda and add to butter/sugar mixture.
4. Stir in remaining ingredients and drop onto greased cookie sheet.
5. Bake for about 10 minutes at 400°F.

I was going to add a picture of the cookies but the boys ate up the last batch and I am all out of moasses (which is fairly hard to find around here). So the next batch (and the pictures) will have to wait until I can make a trip to some fancy store in the city to get more molasses. But never mind, go ahead and bake up a batch of these cookies and you can make your very own picture (if the kids don’t get to them first)!