Who says one cannot enjoy an occasional cookie without leaving home to purchase ingredients? Last week after only experimenting twice, I concoted a rather tasty cookie recipe made from nearly 100% local ingredients, local meaning deriving from our homestead or within a one-mile radius.

The cookies which could be described as moist and chewy, were exceptional in taste, attested by their disappearance within about 10 minutes of being served to a party of five.

The ingredients are as follows (amounts were not measured)
100% organic chestnut flour
100% organic Ecuadorian purple peanuts, roasted and ground
100% organic wild persimmons, sun-dried and diced
100% organic maple syrup
100% organic maple sugar
organic egg (two)
dash of organic lemon juice
dash salt (optional)
Bake at 350 degrees F. for about 20 minutes, depending on your oven.

The two Organic Valley eggs, Santa Cruz lemon juice and salt were the only store-bought ingredients, and the eggs will soon derive from this homestead after a new flock of chickens is established this spring. Further testing will determine if Staghorn Sumac berry juice can substitute for lemon juice--after all the Native Americans ingested the berries as do wildcrafters, in preparing a fairly decent lemonade substitute. As for salt, it could probably be eliminated without changing the cookie flavor much at all.

Hopefully this will encourage all you locavores out there in locavoreland to experiment, experiment, experiment. Two pictures are attached for your vicarious thrills.