Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies for the “Year of The Snake” – Gong Xi Fa Cai

I know I have been away for a while, away from my blog and away from experimenting in the kitchen trying out recipes. I was sick down with a horrible throat infection and cold and was having all kinds of warm soups, doing salt water gargles, drinking ginger teas, honey teas and what-not-teas. To tell you the truth, I hate taking medicines and hence was staying away from them as much as possible. In addition, my husband and I were going away for a mini break to Thailand and I was fretting over the fact that I will be sick during our 4 day vacation, fretting that I will not enjoy the beach and will be unable to swim (I just love swimming), fretting that I will not try out spicy, mouth-watering Thai food– Basically I wanted to get well soon but guess me fretting all the time was actually slowing down my recovery I think.

Anyhow I did manager to recover , had a lovely vacation and I am back in Singapore for Chinese New Year today – For those of you unaware the Lunar New Year begins today and 2013 is supposedly the “Year of the Snake”. It is celebrated across South East Asian countries and mostly occurs sometime between mid-Jan to mid-Feb. It is just like Xmas and New Year with everyone feasting and spending time with their families.

Most shops, super markets and stores are shut today in Singapore since it is a public holiday. So unable to do any groceries , I was looking around the internet reading food recipes and came across this lovely honey oatmeal cookie recipe. Click here . I just baked a fresh batch of these today morning and they turned out delish. These were very quick to make and I am thinking of making a batch of these to have during my coffee breaks at work when I feel the urge to indulge in a muffin from the coffee shop . The fat and sugar are minimal in these and me thinks they should be okay for my indulgences 🙂

Certain modifications to the recipe – I used 1 tablespoon clarified butter (ghee) instead of normal butter, cut the brown sugar by half and used 1.5 tablespoons of honey, added 1 tablespoon of ground flaxseed, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon powder and a handful of chopped frozen cranberries. Also the recipe says it makes about 30. I could bake only 15 with the same proportion of the size as you can see in the pics.

So heres to a very happy and financially prosperous  New Year – “gung hey fat choi” (Cantonese)  and “gong xi fa cai” (Mandarin)” everyone  🙂