Rosemary-Chocolate Chip Cookies

I had only made it through the first few chapters of Isa Does It: Amazingly Easy, Wildly Delicious Vegan Recipes for Every Day of the Week, soups and salads, and had flipped to the back for some reason - only to discover there were dessert recipes too! Now Isa has co-authored cookbooks on vegan cupcakes, pies and cookies so it's not really a surprise. I was excited to try the first one listed - Rosemary-Chocolate Chip Cookies (p. 272). I had never made vegan cookies before, because usually margarine doesn't hold up to butter in cookie recipes. But my local grocery store just happened to have currently trendy coconut oil on sale and this is what she uses. Also - rosemary? What?

Seems there are two kinds of coconut oil. There's virgin, which is what I have - it smells quite strongly of coconut and is very soft and shiny. There's also refined, which I hear has less of a coconut smell. Oh well, I like coconut so it's all good. In a large bowl, using a fork, mix 1/2 cup coconut oil (room temp) with 2 Tbsp fresh rosemary, chopped finely. Rosemary in sweet cookies? Yes. Add in 1/3 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup white sugar and mix for 1 minute. Add 1/4 cup milk (soy, almond, cow, whatever you have... I had cow) and 2 Tbsp ground flax seed (commonly used as an egg replacer in vegan baking) and mix again for about 30 seconds.

Mix in 2 tsp vanilla. Add in 1/4 or 1/2 tsp salt (my husband preferred it saltier, I preferred a little less), 1/2 tsp baking soda, and 2/3 cup flour. Mix well with the fork, then add another 2/3 cup flour. Mix and when it's almost combined, throw in 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips. And yes, without raw eggs you can definitely sneak a spoonful or two. Spoon onto trays covered with parchment paper and bake @350 for about 11 minutes. It made about 18 cookies for me.

Let them cool on trays and try not to stuff them all in your face at once. These were lovely - the coconut oil did a fine job of making a soft, chewy cookie. With a faint taste of coconut, lots of sweetness and some citrusy pine flavour from the rosemary, these were quite unique and quite the crowd pleasers. Fabulous warm but still good the next day. I've already made them twice and will definitely make them again soon.