Colossal Zone Cookies

These delicious cookies don't have any flour in them! It's a great way to get your daily serving of oatmeal.

Ingredients

Amount	Measure	Ingredient	Grams	Carbs	Protein	Fat
3	6" long	Bananas, ripe	342	80.1	3.6	1.8
1/2	cup	Granulated Fructose(looks like sugar)	96	96	0	0
1/2	Tbsp.	Unsulphered Molasses		7	0	0
8	large	Egg whites	400	2.4	28	0
2-1/2	cups	Reduced Fat Peanut Butter	700	240	180	240
1	cup	"Milk & Egg" Protein Powder, or Soy Protein Powder	227.2	16	184	8
2	tsp	Vanilla Flavoring (try Watkin's Vanilla Nut from Karen's Kitchen Shop!)	0	0	0	0
1/2	tsp.	Cinnamon (also available from Karen's Kitchen Shop)	0	0	0	0
1/4	tsp.	Nutmeg (also a Watkins'/Karen's Kitchen Shop product)	0	0	0	0
2-1/4	cups	Rolled Oats or Scotch oats (NOT Quick Cooking)	180	121.5	22.5	13.5
		TOTAL		567	418.1	263
		TOTAL BLOCKS		63	60	87

Instructions

Cream together bananas, fructose, molasses and egg whites. Add vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and peanut butter, and mix until well blended. Add protein powder. Mix well. Fold in rolled oats.

Using 1 Tablespoon, make one tablespoon measure size cookies. For ease of scooping them up and putting them on the cookie sheet, I use a #70 disher, which is 1 tablespoon. You can purchase dishers in Karen's Kitchen Shop. Place on a greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for about 6-12 minutes until light gold and firm.

Makes 6 dozen cookies.

Eat one cookie with 3 ounces skim milk for a complete single block snack.

Eat one cookie with 1-1/4 Tbsp. Cream Cheese Delight for a complete one block snack.

Eat TWO cookies for a single block MAINTENENCE or PLATEAU BUSTING snack.

In order to have it balanced, these cookie were designed in a higher fat content and REQUIRE the addition of milk or cream cheese delight to make them balanced. (I LOVE the Cream Cheese Delight Frosting, but it's best when made with Watkins Vanilla Nut Flavoring, found in Karen's Kitchen Catalogue.)

Some notes about the recipe:

According to Barry Sears, PhD in his books regarding The ZoneTM, no more than 25% of your carbohydrates should come from an unfavorable carbohydrate source. Bananas are unfavorable. Flour is unfavorable. Sugar is unfavorable. So what about these cookies?

I have eliminated the flour (which means that you can eliminate the baking soda, as it only works in reaction to flour). Flour is a big bugaboo in ZoneTM cooking.
I have substituted granulated fructose for the sugar, because fructose is digested in the intestines and has little effect on insulin because it is already a simple sugar, not requiring the massive doses of insuline to break it down.
Bananas are unfavorable. Bananas are used to substitute the massive quantities of fat that cookies usually require to make them taste good. However, they represent less than 12% of the total carbs in the recipe, and they are the only unfavorable carb listed.
I have tried making this with applesauce. This makes it an even MORE "favorable" cookie. However, it also does not taste as good, to my way of thinking! I tried reducing the applesauce by simmering it first, so it is more of the moisture consistency of the bananas. I added some banana flavoring. I also tried a combination of applesauce and dehydrated apples. I didn't like any of these. I just like it better with bananas instead.
If you choose to use applesauce, I would reccomend the addition of more cinnamon, nutmeg and even cloves.
Old Fashioned Rolled oats that you buy in the grocery store in tall cardboard containers are processed and are not the rolled oats that you will see listed in ZoneTM liturature. You are looking for real rolled oats, like Scotch Oats. Irish Oats are chopped grain, or oat groats. They are wonderful for hot cereal, but NOT okay for this recipe!
You are not going to eat these cookies in large enough quantities to put that much banana in your system--you may try it, but I guarantee you, you'll only try to make breakfast and a snack and lunch out of these once. They have what my brother-in-law Richard delicately describes as "limiters" in them. All that roughage will limit the amount of cookies you an eat in one day, and will give you..."the trots," if you get what I mean. "Diarrhea", if you don't get what I mean.

©2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 Karen Krooskos Bowers
Karen's Kitchen
2660 Highlands Blvd.
Spring Valley, CA 91977
Ph: 619-697-7269 Fax: 619-469-8092
karen@karenskitchen.com