Guest Post: Oatmealworm Cookies

Today’s post is by Kim C., a pesca-vegetarian who wrote in to say she’d tweaked a family recipe – with mealworms! Read on for the whole story, and recipe.

    I grew up in the Midwest where just being vegetarian was considered pretty adventurous. So you can imagine the reaction I got after 15 years of being vegetarian/pescatarian when I described the bug-eating party that I was hosting.

    The party was inspired by a TEDTalk given by Marcel Dicke a few years back called “Why Not Eat Insects?” I couldn’t think of a reason why my friends and I shouldn’t at least try it out.

    “What does that make you?” my mom asked, totally confused.

    I understand; I mean it’s not like there are a whole lot of “entomophagous pescatarians” running around out there. But sometimes you just have to shrug and go with it, especially when going with it leads to discovering a surprisingly delicious chocolate cookie recipe.

    Our party provided a variety of edible insect options, including: chocolate-covered crickets, salted queen ants, scorpion lollies, mealworm trail mix, and even a dehydrated giant water scorpion. But the favorite had to be these no-bake mealworm drop cookies. These rich and comforting cookies have a peanut butter & chocolate smoothness with a Rice Krispie-like crunch. It is a super-easy holiday recipe that my family has enjoyed for years (well, we’ve enjoyed it sans bugs). This version has been mealworm-ified a bit.

Oatmealworm Cookies

½ cup butter
2 cups sugar
½ cup milk
4 tablespoons of cocoa powder (I used
unsweetened Ghirardelli)
½ cup of creamy peanut butter
2 cups dry quick-cook oatmeal
1 cup dry roasted mealworms
1-2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. In a large saucepan, bring to a boil: butter, sugar, milk, and cocoa, and boil for         1 min

2. Remove from heat

3. Stir in peanut butter and vanilla

4. Stir in oats and mealworms

5. Drop into cookie sized heaps on wax paper and let cool until set

Enjoy!

Kim C,
Los Gatos, CA

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