Happy Birthday, you old man!

It’s a very special day today. Not because it’s the real first day of Green week, as celebrated by a new recipe for a green food (spoiler alert: COOKIES!!), but also because it is the big man’s birthday!

My dad turned 56 years young today! He’s looking pretty good for being so old, isn’t he?

Dad – Only one more year until you hit 57! You’ve always said you wanted to buy yourself a ’57 Chevy, since you were born in ’57. Next year you turn 57, and I say you OWE yourself that car! Only one more year….

I was going to make some lemon poppy seed cookies in honor of my dad’s love of lemon poppy seed, but those aren’t green. At first I thought I would be a rebel and make Lime Poppy Seed, but that doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

Plus? I am out of lime juice.

While thinking about what to make, I spied several packets of Crystal Light Mojito mixes in my pantry.

Yeah, I know. Chemicals and all that, blahblahblah. Listen, I get it. But here’s the thing. I don’t like plain water. I need to drink plain water. Crystal Light helps me drink my 64 ounces a day.

I figure ingesting a few chemicals with lots of water is better than no water at all.

Because I was already thinking about Citrus, this only made sense to put some mojito in some cookies. Not to mention, it’s a birthday, and in this family we celebrate birthdays with alcohol.

We celebrate lots of things with alcohol, truth be told. When your grandparents owned and operated a bar for all the years you can remember, that is only natural. Right?

When I was in grad school there was a bar downtown that had $5 Mojito Mondays. I went there once or twice, tried their funky flavors, but in the end, like most of my taste preferences (drinks and food alike), I prefer simple and standard.

So sure, I could have tricked these cookies out with all kinds of add-ins (white chocolate?) or covered them in a sugary frosting, but I wanted the Mojito flavor to stand out.

The Bacardi didn’t get lost in the sugary sweetness either. Thank god for that.

Mojito Meltaways

• 1/4 cup coconut oil, slightly melted
• 1 large egg
• 1-2 T Bacardi rum (or you know….more….I don’t judge)
• 1/4 tsp rum extract
• 1 cup sugar (I used my standard mix, which I’m sure you’re sick of hearing about – 1/4 Stevia Baking Blend, 3/4 erythritol)
• 2/3 cup oat flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/8 ish Crystal Light Mojito mix (this is really concentrated, but to be honest, I didn’t measure it. If you use a lot, you’ll want to hold back with the sugar. But if you don’t use enough, you won’t get that mojito taste.)

Make the cookie dough like you do all cookie dough – combine dry stuff (flour, salt, baking soda, etc.), set aside,combine wet (eggs, sugar, oil, real rum, rum extract) and do the cookie mixing thing. You’re smart people; you know how to do this.

After everything is mixed, sprinkle the mojito mix on top and mix to combine. I have no problem eating raw eggs, so I tasted the dough, and added more as I saw fit. If you are squeamish, just add 1/8 tsp and hope for the best. (And then get over it because you are seriously missing out on the raw cookie dough thing.)

Bake at 350 for 8 minutes.

The key to making these with a meltaway texture is the coconut oil and slightly under baking. They stay moist and chewy, but don’t fall apart, for at least 3 days. Longer maybe, but mine were gone before they got stale. I recommend doubling this recipe. You won’t be sad to have extras lying around.

I suppose the rum is optional, and you could replace it with rum extract, but….why would you do that? Virgin Mojito Meltaway cookies just don’t sound as good. To me.

But again, I don’t judge. (Lies.)

Do you like mojitos? What’s your favorite drink – alcoholic or otherwise?

Happy Birthday to the best dad in the world!!

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