Sugar Bowl Mix: Breakfast cookies: Best school day breakfast

School day breakfasts are tough. As a child I used to mix my own glass of chocolate milk with Nestle Quick and off I'd go. I've never liked cereal. That made sleepovers difficult because my friends' parents always wanted me to eat cereal. Or worse, hot cereal. There's nothing worse than porridge for breakfast. So I'm somewhat sympathetic to my girls who suffer from the same school day breakfast aversion I do.

I like to play it straight when it comes to food. Sneaking spinach into brownies isn't going to make your kids spinach lovers. But, a few years ago Tim discovered this recipe for breakfast cookies in Missy Chase Lapine's The Sneaky Chef. (Some people argue Jessica Seinfeld stole the idea for Deceptively Delicious from this book.)

These cookies are chock full of morning goodness: protein; whole grain; fiber; and because I'm me, a few chocolate chips. There's nothing sneaky about these cookies. Sometimes the girls help make them. They know what's in them.

Cereal never looked this good, people.

Ingredients
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup wheat germ
1 cup oatmeal
1 cup multi grain cereal
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon unsweetened, natural cocoa
1 egg
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup olive oil
2 teaspoons vanilla
3/4 cup ricotta cheese
1/2 cup chocolate chips (dried cherries or raisins also work)

Directions:
Pulse the oatmeal and the multi grain cereal in the blender until it resembles flour.

Mix the refined oatmeal and cereal with the wheat germ, the two flours, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.

At this point, I must confess, I made a mistake. I added cocoa instead of cinnamon. Can you see why?

It turned out to be a fortuitous mistake. The cocoa added to the flavor.

Mix the egg, sugar, oil, vanilla, and ricotta cheese together.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until just moistened. Stir in the chocolate chips.