Sucess stories from my kitchen: Almond cookie galore

Its cyclone Nilam today. Incessant rain, cold wind , dark clouds...consequently a chilly weather.One of those days when am thankful for not having a full time job so I can spend the day in the way that it ought to be spent. Curled up in the comforter with my favourite book, stare the garden outside and soak in nature, sip on a cup of steaming filter coffee and munch on cookies..Without any guilt , without any worry, without any work left incomplete..This is life...and this is how a rainy day ought to be celebrated..How many times in your life do you get to listen to your heart and do things the way the heart desires..not often I believe.That's why I feel thankful today to the Lord...To be able to do things the way the heart desires..surrender myself to the soul and let life take its own course...God thank you for this wonderful time, for this happiness in heart, for this beauty around.
The music of raindrops prancing on my rooftop stirs my soul and I am left mesmerised by the sights of newly bathed greens outside..for once its difficult to focus on my favourite book too.I decide to warm my hands from the oven and spread some joy from my heart to the world. Its cookie time again.

I have to remind myself not to overindulge in this happy state and stick to healthy stuff. (Yes worries of gestational diabetes still haunt me no matter how happy I am, especially with another blood test coming up next week). So I decide on some healthy ingredients that should satiate and delight and yet, not cause any stress.

Ingredients

Oats-1/2 cup (I used regular Quaker)
wholewheat flour- 1/2 cup
All purpose flour-1/2 cup
Sugar Powdered-3/4 cup
Almonds-3/4 cup
Baking powder-1 tsp
Salt-one generous pinch
Butter softened-1/4 cup
Oil-1/4 cup
Milk-1/4 cup

Powder the oats in the grinder and mix with wholewheat flour and AP flour.Also add the salt and baking powder to this mix and keep aside.
Whisk the sugar,butter and oil until creamy.
Toast the almonds lightly (for a wonderful aroma) and grind them.You can powder the almonds fine or if you like it chunky,keep the almonds to small bits or a coarse powder.
Sieve the flour mix into the butter and sugar mix.
Add the almond meal to this and mix gently.
Now use milk to bind this altogether to get a soft dough.

Now this where the fun begins. I have made three varieties of almond cookies from this dough and all of them have turned out a winner.

1.Standard almond cookie-Take small balls from the prepared dough, flatten it on the greased cookie tray and bake for 15-20 min in a preheated oven at 180 centigrade. You can also decorate them with slivers of almonds if you want. These remained mostly white in colour with little specks of red brown which should be the clue that they are done and ready to be removed from the oven. Cool them on the wire rack for ten minutes to make them crunchy.

2.Choco chip Almond cookies- Press some chocolate chips on the cookies before baking-rest same as above.

3.Nutella stuffed melt in mouth almond cookies- .
Admittedly am new to Nutella. I picked it from the grocer for the first time last week and after I saw the appreciation for these heavenly gooey centred cookies, I feel I have missed a lot in life not using Nutella before.This turned out to be best and am surely going to try more with Nutella.Although it did take a little effort making these cookies but in the end it was worth it.

Make a walnut sized ball with the dough and flatten it. Scooping Nutella from the spoon was messy and difficult , so I piped some Nutella in my icing gun and from there it was a cakewalk.
For those who do not have a icing gun, make a plastic sheet cone like the ones they use for making henna decorations on the hand and fill it up with Nutella.
Put approximately 1/4 spoon Nutella in the flattened ball and enclose it. Reshape the ball and flatten it. Ensure that the filling does not ooze out.Bake for 15-20 minutes in a preheated oven at 180 centigrade.