Cranberry Pecan Oat Cookies

Cranberry Pecan Oatmeal Cookies

For those who can have oats, this is an oatmeal cookie which I made up long before I went gluten free.

Our local grocery stores use to have specials once a month or so, like "Spanish Week" or "Italian Week" - or "USA Week".

Nowadays, "USA Week" means muffin mixes, jelly beans, microwave popcorn, frozen burgers, pancake mix, pancake syrup ... nothing but processed food which nobody really should eat.

But ten years ago, "USA Week" meant pecan and cashew nuts on sale and dried cranberries, and of course I stacked my pantry with them.

That's when I came up with a chewy oatmeal cranberry pecan cookie which everybody loved.

Then, for several years, no oatmeal cookies for me because there were no gluten free oats available, and I wasn't sure if they would agree with me if there were any.

Now they are avaliable, and I can have them, so I tranformed the recipe to gluten free and happily make them again.

They're way too sweet for me the way I first invented the recipe, but I'll write it down as is because that's what most people seem to like. If you want them less sweet, the amount which I use for myself is 1/8 cup maple syrup and 1/4 cup erythritol.

The original version used muscovado sugar, not erythritol, but even though raw cane sugar may be healthier than refined white sugar, it still is sugar which we don't need.

Feel free to decide for yourself whether you prefer erythritol or raw brown sugar.

Also I use to make small cookies, one heaped teaspoon full per cookie. That would make 60 cookies. But you can also make them into 30 larger cookies, of course.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup brown rice flour
• 1 cup certified gluten free rolled oats
• 1 cup dried cranberries
• 3 1/2 ounces pecans, chopped
• 1/2 cup erythritol or raw brown sugar
• 1/2 cup maple syrup
• 1/2 cup non-hydrogenated margarine (or butter, if you eat it), softened
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 egg
• 1 pinch salt
• 1/2 teaspoon xanthan

Preparation:

• Preheat oven to 350° F or 180° C.
• Chop pecans and cranberries.
• Cream together margarine (or butter), egg, erythritol or sugar and syrup.
• Combine flour, oats, xanthan, salt and baking powder.
• Combine flour mixture with wet ingredients.
• Fold in pecans and cranberries.
• With a teaspoon, drop dough onto greased or baking paper lined cookie sheet, about 1 inch apart.
• Bake about 10 minutes or until they just start to brown and get fragrant.
• Let cool on a wire rack and store in a jar.

If there are enough left to store...