Mouthwatering & Easy Oatmeal-Chocolate Raisin Cookies

When I first moved to Edmonton from Toronto, I was always craving baked cookies. Oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies ended up being my go-to cookie to make Not only was it easy to make (at that time I didn't even have a Kitchen Aid), it was a breeze to throw together even while studying. This oatmeal-chocolate raisin cookie recipe has gone through some iterations along the way, but it is one of the chewiest and tastiest cookies that I have ever made. It also goes very well with milk.

Food Bloggers of Canada in conjunction with Manitoba Canola Growers has put out a call for a cookie recipe for the holidays using Canola oil as the only fat within the recipe. For this recipe I modified my own go-to recipe and made my own brown sugar (recipe below).

Enjoy with a nice glass or milk or as a snack before bed!

Oatmeal-Chocolate Raisin Cookies

• 3/4 cup of canola oil 
• 1 cup of brown sugar (or 1 cup white sugar with 1 Tbsp molasses mixed- see below)
• 1 tbsp pure vanilla extra
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups All purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda (can use more if you want)
• 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
• 3 cups of quick oats
• 1/2 cup of raisins
• 1/2 cup of Valrhona Araguani dark (72%) chocolate pieces (processed into smaller bits)

1. Preheat your oven to 350F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or use silicon mats

2. In the bowl of a stand mixer (I use a Kitchen Aid) place the paddle attachment on. Then, blend the canola oil, brown sugar, vanilla extract and salt on low speed. It should combine after 2 minutes.

3. Add the eggs one at a time. After they have been mixed into the mixture, scrape down the sides of the bowl after each egg.

4. Sift the flour, baking soda, and cinnamon together. Add the entire dry mixture into the wet mixture. Mix on low speed until just combined.

5. Add the oats and mix until just combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed or the bottom of the bowl.

6. By this time, your mixture will get quite stiff and it will be hard to mix with the paddle attachment. I prefer to blend the raisins in by hand. You can also use a rubber spatula.

7. Once the raisins are folded/hand mixed into the dough, add the chocolate.

8. Roll the doll into balls, then flatten onto the prepared baking sheets. Leave a space approximately 1 inch apart in order for the cookies to rise when baking.

9. Bake until golden brown. This will be 10-12 minutes. In my oven it took about 10 minutes for the edge of the cookies to turn golden brown.

10. Take the cookies out of the oven. Set each cookie on a cooling rack and allow to cool completely before eating. 

Tips:

• I often store the cookies in airtight containers to preserve their freshness. When I am ready to enjoy them again, I toast them in the toaster oven. 
• You can also use butter instead of canola oil. 3/4 cup of canola is about 250g (1 cup butter). 
• Canola oil gives the cookies a more chewy consistency

Home-made Brown Sugar 

Making your own brown sugar is surprisingly easy. The added benefit is that you can make brown sugar whenever you want and never have to worry about your brown sugar solidifying into  a rock hard substance that you can only chip away at!

Ingredients

• 1 cup of granulated sugar
• less than 1 Tbsp molasses

Directions

1. Place granulated sugar into the bowl of a stand mixer.

2. Pour in the molasses

3. Fit the paddle attachment on the mixer and gently blend molasses and sugar together on low speed. 

4. After 5 minutes you will have made your own brown sugar! 

Porking it Out at Sabor Divino

Two weeks ago on a Friday night, my husband and I had an event to celebrate. As we were trying to decide where to go, I recalled seeing this picture (below) on my twitter feed. Now, if you saw this suckling pig on your twitter feed, you too would make plans to eat at Sabor Divino immediately! 

Suckling Pig from Sabor Divino Edmonton's tweet

Sabor Divino is located in the Boardwalk area of downtown Edmonton. Upon arriving for our reservation at 8:30 pm the restaurant was fairly busy. I was also pleasantly surprised to hear a live pianist entertaining guests. It just so happened that on the night that we visited, Sabor Divino was a few days into their first annual Porkfest (Oct. 15 - Nov. 17)! With the suckling pig in mind, of course we had to try their Porkfest menu. In the end, with the exception of our appetizer and desserts both of our mains came from the Porkfest menu.

Duck carpaccio topped with arugula and drizzled with truffle oil

The duck carpaccio was a great start to our meal. Then again, you can never go wrong with truffle oil balancing the flavour of the duck and the nutty flavour of arugula. While waiting for our mains, we realized that we could request some bread. This is something that is a little different from other restaurants as bread service is provided on request. Their bread was made fresh and was a good in-between before our main course.

Check out the crispy skin on this chunk of pork that I had for my main!
This is the oven roasted suckling pig, home fries, salad and accompanied with dipping sauce ($32)

A beautiful creation of braised pork belly surrounded by bacon, potato, butternut squash,

kale and chanterelle mushrooms. Poached duck egg yolk delicately balanced on top ($28). 

We were both completely satisfied with our mains. The meat from my suckling pig was juicy and full of flavour. It also helped that there were greens available to balance out the huge chunk of pork that I had for my main dish! Dan's pork belly was equally flavourful. He noted that there was a thick crispy skin on the pork - one that he had never seen before and it was a good sized portion. Actually, both of our portions were so adequate that we decided to pack some to go in order to have enough room for dessert! 

Ah desserts! I love desserts and was more than excited to find out that they had a variety of different desserts and that everything is made in-house. The beauty of Sabor Divino's dessert menu is that if you can't decide on just one dessert or uncertain if you have the room to eat, you can choose temptation sizes for $4 each. Not all of their desserts have this option but there are at least five with this option. 

In the end we decided on the Chocolate Cayenne Mousse (full size at $7) and a temptation portion of their Tiramisu ($4). 

Temptation size of Tiramisu and made in house. I would say that this would be the deluxe
version of tiramisus as it had espresso coffee, coffee liqueur, Bailey's and Frangelico. 

Sabor Divino's Chocolate Cayenne Mousse with some heat!
As the mousse rolled over your tongue you experienced a rich chocolate sensation,
and then suddenly a hit of cayenne catches you right at the back of your throat!
Despite the initial surprise of cayenne, this dessert was my kind of perfect.
Dark chocolate, smooth and a little spicy!

There is also a semi-private dining area near one side of the restaurant.
For most of the night there was a private party there with about 10-12 people.
 They ordered an entire suckling pig to share between them! 

So, there you have it! Our fulfilling first meal at Sabor Divino filled with pork goodness and divine desserts. If you want to partake in some of the amazing local food (& pork!) that we ate that night, their PorkFest runs until November 17, 2012!  

On our next visit to Sabor Divino we would certainly want to try their regular menu as I've heard that they do some amazing seafood! Too bad we missed out on their Seafood Fest back in August/September! Christian Mena, co-owns the restaurant with his long time friend Chef Lino. Christian also talked so highly of their Chilean Carica Fruit dessert that I will have to try it on my next visit. 

Sabor Divino

10220-103 St. 

Edmonton, AB

Hours: 

Monday-Friday (11:30-2pm)

Monday-Saturday (after 5pm)

closed Sundays

(780)757-1114

http://www.sabordivino.ca/