Baking and a recipe

I love to bake! It is such an engrained part of my life that my family pretty much always has baked goods in the cupboard, and often extra in the freezer. To many of my friends this seems to be an extraordinary acheivement, but it is just something I do at least once a week without fail. I love to have friends over for coffee and some baking, and enjoy giving baking to people to enjoy in their own homes for special occasions such as the arrival of a new baby.

With both my baking and other forms of cooking I don't really do gourmet. You wouldn't find me on one of those cooking shows making amazing looking dishes with duck or cavier. I think it is more challenging to make good healthy food that tastes delicious, doesn't cost much and acknowledges the seasons.

I think my upbringing has had a huge influence on my outlook on this. My mother always (and still does) baked for us. I have childhood memories of being about 4 and stirring icing for slices in whatever colour of the rainbow we desired. I also grew up on an orchard and we always had a vegetable garden, fruit trees and often home raised meat or eggs. As an adult I realise now that not all my friends had the luxury of an upbringing that bred into them an understanding of healthy home cooking.

At the moment I have sick kids and was watching Oprah yesterday between dealing with snot and tantrums! They were doing an article on being more aware of where your food came from. One journalist was saying that basically diabetes, heart disease etc is a problem of the last few generations and that we should only eat what our great grand parents recognised as food. If we did this and didn't eat too much of it we would be fine. This really appealed to me, and perhaps explains why none of my family is overweight but that I still eat baking each day (and good genes too thanks Mum and Dad!)

Anyway, enough about my views on nutrition! Here is the recipe I cooked this week. Ignore the butter and take notice of the rolled oats if you are concerned about the nutritional value of these! They helped my feel better while dealing with my 2 these last few days anyway!

Chocolate Chunk Oat Cookies

250g butter (softened)