Food & Recipes: During & After Chemo

Ever since chemo I've struggled with bathroom issues.  Because of this I have on hand lots of yogurt, prunes, and other dried fruit.  I try to eat fiber cereal every morning with prunes and apricots cut up in bite size pieces on top.  I can't do straight yogurt (especially sweetened) since chemo b/c it was on of the foods that triggered a lot of nausea for me and that memory is not gone yet, but I substitute it for sour cream in chip dip, and try to include it in recipes (although the probiotic benefits are usually cancelled out by heat).  I also drink plum juice and sparkling water each day--the plum juice tastes better to me than the thick, ultra sweet, prune juice.

Here's a recipe that used a lot of ingredients laying around my house.  They are high fiber, and also don't have eggs so they are a great batch to whip up when immunities are low & you don't want to worry about having over-cooked super crisp cookies since there are no salmonella germs!  These cookies end up very soft and fluffy.

Yummy for my Tummy Cookies
Makes approximately 24 cookies.

Preheat oven to 350.  Greased baking sheet.

In a large bowl mix together:

• 1-1½ cups flour
• 1 teaspoons baking powder
• ½  teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon nutmeg (optional)
• ¾ cups brown sugar, packed
• 1 cup rolled oats
• Dried fruit to taste (I cut up prunes and apricots to bite size pieces and used dried currants and cherries-you can use whatever you have around the house)  You could even add semi-sweet chocolate chips if you are a chocolate lover.
• I added 4 tsp. Benefiber

In a small bowl mix together:

• 1 cup plain yogurt
• 1/8 cup canola oil
• 2 tsp. vanilla

Pour the wet mix into the dry to form a wet dough.  I use my 2tsp. measurer to scoop cookies onto the baking sheet for even sizes.  They are done when brown on bottom and puffed up.  No need to worry about under-baking since no eggs!

Bake about 14-18 minutes.