My sister-in-law Mary is from
Ennis, Ireland, and mixing into a predominately Italian-American family has been... well let's say amusing, from time to time. Being Irish-American myself, and having gone through the
assimilation process more than 20 years ago, is probably why I have found her addition to our extended family...
amusing. If she didn't have an amazing sense of humor she would never survived.
For Saint Patrick's Day Mary decided she wanted to make green oatmeal cookies. She called me in mid-February and asked:
"If I wanted to make green oatmeal cookies for Saint Patrick's day, and didn't want to use dye, how'd I go about that?"
My response was: "What?" Note, not why... I'd still be on the phone with her if I asked why.
In any event, we talked it through for a while and I came up with the idea of using zucchini. She took off with this idea and adapted one of my existing recipes for oatmeal cookies.
They weren't terrible.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup of butter
3/4 cup of sugar
1 egg
1 and 1/2 cups of finely grated zucchini
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract - use the good stuff
1 and 1/2 cups of flour
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
2 cups of oatmeal, such as Quaker Oats
2 cups of raisins
Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees (175 C)
You'll need baking trays, one medium and one large mixing bowl, and one sifter.
Line the baking trays with silpats if you have them. If you don't have silpats, I'd suggest spraying a non-stick cooking spray on the trays to keep the cookies from sticking; you'll only have to do this once.
In the large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until the mixture is smooth. Then add in the egg, vanilla and zucchini and mix well. In medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda and cinnamon. Once that is done, slowly add it to the first bowl with the zucchini mixture. Then add in the oatmeal and raisins and mix well.
Measure out teaspoon-sized dough balls and place 12 on each sheet. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. This recipe makes, roughly, 48 cookies.
I did a little research on this recipe and found another one like it, with a variation of 1 cup of oatmeal and one cup of granola, instead of two cups of oatmeal; 2 cups of chocolate chips instead of raisins.
The Debutante msg'd me with a very good question: do you have to squeeze the zucchini after grating. I haven't made the recipe, only eaten the results, but I think you would have to get as much excess moisture out of the zucchini you can before mixing.