what to do with those leftover oatmeal packets?

Hey there!  It’s been a while, huh?  Did you ever feel like you need to unplug for a while?  It’s always good to test yourself from time to time and make sure you can still function without some form of technology in your hands 16 hours a day.  We recently had a lovely long weekend in Lake Placid, which is always a good way for me to relax.  Nothing like the mountain air to clear my head and make everything a-okay!

So, I made the mistake of food shopping while hungry last week and I ended up buying this oatmeal:

I should have known that I would hate it.  I actually couldn’t choke down more than one bite because it was so sweet.  I’m so used to either making it myself or eating McCann’s (aka – best oatmeal in the universe), that this was just too much.  Being that I knew Steve would hate it even more than I did and I hate wasting food/money, the brainstorming began.  The first thing I thought of was to try to making cookies (shocking) out of the leftover packets.  Well, that was easier said than done.  Sure, my first attempt looked edible, but they were so dense and dry that I deemed them a choking hazard.  My advice to you is to always write down everything you do while cooking.  This way, you can tweak appropriately after a massive kitchen fail.  Luckily, I had only used half of my remaining oatmeal packets so I had enough leftover to try and get it right..

Blueberry Oatmeal Packet Cookies

Yield: 2 dozen

Ingredients:

1 egg

1/2 cup butter or margarine

1 container blueberry greek yogurt (I used chobani)

3 packets oatmeal

1/2 cup turbinado sugar

1/4 tsp baking powder (I didn’t use this)

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup flour

Preheat oven to 350F.  In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the egg, butter, and yogurt.  Add dry ingredients, one at a time and mix batter until everything is incorporated.  Scoop the batter (about 1 tbsp per cookie) onto a greased cookie sheet and bake for about 15 minutes.  You will know they are done when the edges begin to brown.

This time around they came out light, moist, and cakey (even without using the baking powder that I didn’t realize I didn’t have until the batter was already made).  Perfect for breakfast or a snack.  I love the blueberry flavor a lot, but you can change the oatmeal and yogurt flavors to fit whatever you have on hand.  The best part?  No more of that scary oatmeal that gave me nightmares!