Green Out with Jason’s Avocado Hulk Cookies

Avocados are the Swiss Army Knife of the food world. They are the multi-tasker of all multi-taskers. They are great scooped straight out of the shell, and guacamole goes without saying. Any savory dish, from casseroles to soups, tacos to hamburgers, eggs to toast…they all are improved by the presence of this healthy fat and fiber loaded green fruit.

I always say if I were stranded on a deserted island and it had a chicken, an avocado tree, and some fresh water, do not come looking for me. I am fine.

I’m sure most of you are familiar with all those savory applications, but avocados play perfectly well on the sweet side of life. The only chocolate pudding I eat is made from avocados, and it is delicious. Avocados can make ice cream, or even icing for cakes. For those of you with dairy intolerances or need to swap saturated fats for monounsaturated fats, believe it or not, avocados can tap butter on the shoulder in baked goods and ask to cut in for that dance.

I make a fake oatmeal cookie, and I always swap the butter for avocados. It’s a one to one swap, so whatever weight in butter the original recipe calls for, just weigh out that amount of avocado, and you are good to go. Not only will it boost the healthy fats and fiber of the baked good, it might even give it a fun slightly green hue.

Hence the name Hulk Cookies.

I’ve been lifting weights a long time now, and granted, I identify much more with the smaller Wolverine than Hulk. My body heals cuts and injures almost overnight, and no matter how heavy I lift, I will never achieve The Hulk’s mass without lots of chemical help:

So I aim for the leaner anti-hero body when I lift. But hey, we can’t all be monsters made of 600 pounds of muscle. I’ll settle for being the distant cousin of Logan.

That doesn’t mean I can’t eat green cookies, though. When I walk down the cookie aisle of the mega-mart to get my dark chocolate bars, I have to admit my wandering eyes will linger for a bit on the Pepperidge Farm soft oatmeal raisin cookies. I can hear some of you saying out of reflex “I hate oatmeal raisin cookies!” and I have to ask…have you ever had an original thought enter your head?

Yes, everyone loves chocolate chip cookies, but we aren’t picking teams here, people. Fun fact, you can like both dogs and cats without declaring loudly to everyone around you what type of “person” you are, and you can also like more than one type of cookie.

Neither the dogs, cats, or cookies will hold it against you. The people around you will like you even better. Then they won’t have to listen to such mundane and stupid sayings that just bore the absolute you-know-what out of anyone unfortunate enough to have that hit their ear holes. If oatmeal raisin cookies are too much of a culinary adventure for you, you probably are reading this by mistake anyway.

For those of you that are adventurous to eat more than one flavor of cookie, and are trying to eat less processed foods, this fake out oatmeal cookie is for you. I just read the ingredients on the Pepperidge Farm cookie, and oats and raisin are way, way down on the list. That means they really should be called the Hydrogenated Palm Oil, sugar, more sugar, and the mysterious natural flavor hailing from parts unknown like a professional wrestler.

Remember Kamala The Ugandan Giant? They would say “from parts unknown” but he had the country Uganda in his name. James from Mississippi didn’t have the same ring to it, I guess. I say all that to say that natural flavor gives us less clues as to what it is or where it comes from.

What I can see is all the calories, simple carbs, and lack of anything good on the label. We will forgo the gamma ray radiation making our cookies, and use raw almonds and coconut flakes as the base. We also will throw in some dark chocolate chips and if you want to add some fruit, I use unsweetened dried cranberries instead of raisins to save on sugar amounts.

So really, we are making an almond coconut avocado cookie with chocolate and cranberries instead of oatmeal raisin cookies, so you got all in your feelings for nothing.

These cookies taste great, are loaded with healthy benefits, and if you happen to have some low sugar vanilla ice cream, you are in for a treat. These are easy to make, fast to bake, and fun to eat. Give them a try and you will be so happy, you’ll be in a good mood even if you are on the side of the road changing a flat tire in a thunderstorm.

Hulk Cookies
Ingredients:

4 oz by weight very ripe avocado

1 cup unsweetened coconut flakes

3/4 cup sliced almonds

1 cup almond flour

1 tbsp coconut flour

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp sea salt

1/2 cup stevia in the raw

1 chicken egg, room temp

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 cup dark chocolate chips and/or unsweetened dried cranberries

Directions:

In a small food processor, pulse the coconut flakes and almonds together until they are ground down to a meal texture:

Mix the rest of the dry ingredients except for the stevia in a large bowl, then dump in the coconut and almond meal and whisk together. Mash the ripe avocado and the Stevia in the raw with a fork until well mixed, then add the egg and vanilla:

Then using a hand beater, mix until smooth:

Now dump the dry team onto the wet team and beat again until well mixed. Add in the dark chocolate chips and dried cranberries with a spatula if using:

Line a baking sheet with parchment and get some gloves sprayed with non-stick. Weigh out around 1 ounce by weight and flatten into cookie shape. Bake at 325 degrees for around 15 minutes: