Ali's Applesaucers, Vegan or with Butter

#bakeuntilgolden

ALI'S APPLESAUCERS

The comforting scent of cinnamon-flecked apples wafts through your home as these plump cookies bake. But they won't cloud your thinking with added sugar in any form, or lead to a rise and fall/crash, and the whole grains help carry you through the day. Superfast to assemble. Add chopped, toasted pecans or walnuts if you have some.

Makes about 2 dozen large cookies.

4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
2/3 cup apple juice or apple juice concentrate
1/2 cup [1 stick] butter [today I used vegan cultured butter; you could also use coconut oil instead]
1 egg [today I used The Neat Egg, egg replacer powder to make vegan]
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/3 cup raisins or chopped dried apricots
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 375 F.
2. Grease two cookie sheets, or line with parchment paper.
3. Whir 1 cup oats in food processor until finely ground to make oat flour.
4. With mixer, beat apple juice and butter until blended. 
5. Beat in egg and applesauce.
6. Stir in oat flour, remaining 3 cups oats, and raisins, salt, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon until blended.
7. Drop by spoonfuls onto greased or lined cookie sheets.
8. Bake about 12 to 15 minutes or until lightly browned.

This is the vegan, no-flour version of what Dan named "Ali's Applesaucers" 26 years ago, when we were newlyweds. I had started making them in my Ocean Grove, NJ kitchen when we were dating. It is adapted from the Applesauce Cookies recipe from the canary-yellow pages of The Low Blood Sugar Cookbook by Patricia and Edward Krimmel, copyright 1986.

Here is what Dan penned on the page in blue ink when we were younger and [more newly] in love, the second year of our marriage. I baked these in our Montclair apartment, where Dan had stayed up into Easter morning to surprise me with a fresh coat of white paint on our big dish cupboard/cookbook shelf and blue hearts around the border.

Here's the ultimate perfect name:
ALI'S APPLESAUCERS

SUNDAY, OCT 18, 1992

Tonight, after watching 60 Minutes + the old
Ed Sullivan show, Alice found the perfect
all-time great version of these cookies, 
worthy of the name, "ALI BABAS."

"EL PERFECTO"

Did you know that Dan has been a type 1, insulin-dependent diabetic since age 18, his freshman year in college? He has taken such good care of himself. All my life's a circle, as the song goes, and we are coming back to this recipe.

xoxoxo

TCOY

1. Biked in and out of town for 2., below.
2. Solo appt w Punchy’s therapist; helpful insights.
3. Bought green tulip-sleeve [aka bell-sleeve] green cardigan by 525 America at Barbara Eclectic on Valley Road. That label makes cute sweaters. Visualized wearing it over my shoulders on cool Cape Cod night.
4. Went to Gus & Co. Seafood for 1/2 lb delicious day-boat scallops, which I pan-seared for dinner for Punch and me. [Dan and Figgy were out.]
5. Had healthy, fresh vegs and rice bowl, late lunch, at Marcel; Sis treated.
6. Walked Sugar and Buttercup to grassy island.
7. Sweet potato. Plain grass-fed yogurt. Banana. Iced coffee. Plump dried apricots. Rosemary almonds.
8. Nap.