Sweetener-free Peanut-butter Cookies

Sweetener-free Peanut Butter Cookies

Every January I convince myself that it is a good idea to give up all sweeteners for the month, including Agave.  This is typically a direct result of having eaten enough sugar between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve to stock a soda factory for a month.  It is probably not a good thing that I make a killer chocolate frosting from 3 simple ingredients, none of them being sugar.  The hard truth is that chocolate frosting, no matter if sweetened by sugar, maple syrup, or agave, is still addictive and should not be eaten as a main course...every day of the week for an entire holiday season.
After three weeks of no sweeteners, I am back to enjoying my morning steel cut oats with nothing but berries or raisins and nuts.  The fruit is plenty sweet (I am also down a quick 8 pounds).  Other foods are also tasting might sweet, like raw, unsalted cashews or hazelnuts.  Eating raw snap peas feels like a guilty pleasure.
This weekend, we made peanut butter cookies for a potluck.  In doling out the leftovers to the kids yesterday, I had a very strong craving to eat them.  How annoying is that?  Three weeks of abstinence and the craving hasn't subsided?  Ahhh.... but, upon further reflection, I realized that what I really wanted was the peanutty goodness.  I wasn't all that interested in the sugar.  That, combined with the fact that  I am in need of several containers of easy, bite-sized sweetener-free snacks with which to stock a cooler for an upcoming road trip, sent me spinning into action late yesterday afternoon.  A half an hour later, the kitchen was filled with the exact same olfactory pleasantries that had filled the house a few days before when we made the original potluck batch.
My kids, who had been eating the sugar-filled versions, even liked these.  This surprised me because I thought only those of us who were slowly forgetting how sugar tastes would enjoy them.   Either my kids are little freaks of nature (not altogether unlikely) or I was wrong.  They did comment that the cookies were more like scones in terms of level of sweetness.  To me, they tasted decadent.  Now, if I can just keep myself from making the aforementioned frosting and using it as a dip for these babies...
Sweetener-free Peanut-butter Cookies
Makes about 2 dozen cookies
Ingredients:
5 oz. pitted dates
1 c. natural peanut butter, creamy or chunky
a scant 1/3 c. millet or corn flour (we grind millet in a coffee grinder to make the flour)
1 flax egg (1 T. flax seeds plus 3 T. water, blended to a gel in the blender)
1 t. baking soda
1/2 c. raisins
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Line cookie sheet with parchment paper, grease with vegan margarine, or use a silpat liner.  Combine all ingredients in a blender, adding baking soda and millet last.  Drop by tablespoon-fulls onto cookie sheet.  Press with a fork or your good old fashioned fingers.  Bake about 10-12 minutes.  Do not, I repeat -- DO NOT -- make chocolate frosting!
Enjoy.