Healthy White Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookies with Dried Fruit

Yes, I know, I know. I'm officially obsessed with oats. I absolutely adore the combination of oats and chocolate. If only I could find Dark Chocolate Cherry Kashi bars at my local Costco! I swear I would live off them.
But in the meantime, here's a recipe for oatmeal cookies I found on the back of a bag of Craisins. I figured if people are getting paid to come up with these recipes for these food companies, they probably don't taste horrible, right?
The cookies came out really good. Like I-can't-believe-this-is-healthy good. They're almost like little snack-cakes and were super moist, but with the oaty flavor still there. Definitely going to be a hit with my family, even with my processed-sugary-food addicted little bro!

I subbed half the butter for yogurt, ditched the craisins since they were expired, and chopped up some dried mangoes and dates instead.
These dried dates are packed with anti-oxidants, free from any preservatives or added sugar, and are a great way to satisfy your sweet tooth, plus they're gluten and nut allergen free!

I chopped up some white chocolate since we didn't have any chips, and had a bit left over. Wonder where that's gonna go... ;p





TIP: When buying white chocolate, look for cocoa butter in the ingredient label. Really good quality white chocolate should have cocoa butter listed as the very first or second ingredient.

White Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookies


RECIPE:
*1/3 cup butter
*1/3 cup low-fat plain yogurt
*1/3 cup brown sugar (my family isn't into really sweet things so I halved the amount of sugar because the original recipe called for 2/3 cup. Even with half the sugar they came out just sweet enough thanks to the dried fruit and chocolate.)
*2 eggs
*1-1/2 cups old fashioned oats
*1/2 cup regular All Purpose flour
*1 cup whole wheat flour
*1 teaspoon baking soda
*1/2 teaspoon salt
*2/3 cup white chocolate chunks or chips (regular chocolate works fine too)

*1/3 cup chopped dried dates and mangoes, or any other dried fruit works fine too

PREPERATION:

1.) Preheat oven to 375 degrees F

2.)Mix together the oats, flour, baking soda, and salt

3.) In a seperate bowl, cream together the butter, yogurt, and sugar, beating in the eggs

4.) Stir wet and dry ingredients together, adding in the chocolate and dried fruit

5.) Drop onto cookie sheet by rounded teaspoonfuls and bake for about 6 minutes.

The original recipe with all the butter called for 10-12 minutes, but I think because I used yogurt it only took 6 minutes for them to bake.

6.) Let cool on a wire rack and enjoy!


I enjoyed the (six, lol) cookies with a mug of green tea after my workout.

Say hello to my mug, Steve! I picked him up at Goodwill for 99 cents. Too cute!

I came back around 1:30 today from my group tennis lesson and was itching for a run, so I went for a quick 2 mile run with my dog. Though the tennis lesson was one and half hours, it was a group lesson so only got me sweating a little bit and not very exerted, so the run burned off my remaining energy.