Food fun is all about using your garden harvest to prepare delicious meals.

We love to grow carrots and we love to eat cookies, but cookies aren’t always so easy to make. After a few failed attempts, my daughter and I created a new recipe and boy, is it yummy! This one’s called Oatmeal-Carrot cookies and is really tasty.

A couple of notes regarding the recipe: dark brown sugar lends a more intense flavor, though light brown sugar will work perfectly fine. In fact, you can use dark brown or light brown sugar for the whole recipe. Up to you. Creaming the sugar and butter is key to success. Use real butter that’s been allowed to soften at room temperature, too. No substitutes here.

Next, the carrots should be shredded very fine, or blended to a grated consistency. I have a mini-Cuisinart blender and it works wonders for producing tiny chunks of carrot. Missed a few, as you can see the larger chunks in the dough photo. We also noted a difference between using an ungreased cookie sheet and a greased cookie sheet. The spread factor was greater on the latter, so watch the baking time and the spread. Enjoy!

Oatmeal Carrot Cookies

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/4 cup rolled oats, not instant

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 cup finely shredded/grated carrots

1 TBSP orange zest

6 TBSP butter, softened

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup dark brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 egg

Preheat 350° F. In small bowl, combine oats, raisins, carrots and orange zest. Set aside. In small bowl, combine flour, salt and baking soda. Set aside. In a medium-sized bowl (or standing mixer bowl) combine sugar and butter and beat until creamy smooth. Add extract and egg and beat until well-blended. Add in flour mixture and stir until well-combined. Add oat mixture and stir until all ingredients are thoroughly combined.

Using teaspoon or a small ice cream scoop, drop balls of dough onto ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake 10 – 12 minutes or until cookies turn golden brown. For more even baking, rotate trays in oven halfway through cooking process. Cool completely (if you can!) or go ahead and eat warm and gooey from the tray.

Recipe makes two dozen cookies.

Talk about food fun, do you love carrots? Try my recipe for The Fluffiest Carrot Cake ever!

Or maybe some Healthy French Fries? Yes, that’s a piece of yummy homemade SWEET Potato Pie on the plate with those fries. We love sweet potatoes! Grow some this summer–you’ll be glad you did!

With the weather warming, perhaps a sip of Rosemary Lemonade would refresh you. It’s an interesting mix of flavors that kids adore. Try it–you’ll like it!

And if you MUST eat your zucchini? There’s no better way than Zucchini and Cheese Supreme.

Ahhhhh… I love them all!