No Bake Oatmeal Cocoa Cookies

The other night we all wanted needed cookies after dinner and I was browsing the internet for a simple and quick cookie recipe when I found these delicious sounding Oatmeal Cookies from Quaker Oats. Simple ingredients. No baking and done in under 3 min. Yes! Yes! and Yes!
3 min later these were cooling by the window:

And they were delicious but too sweet for my taste. How could they not with 2 cups of sugar in the recipe. However, I did not want to give up on them since they were so simple, so good and had ingredients that I always have on hand. So I decided to make a healthier version and try and see how they would come out.

I cut the sugar in half and replaced the white sugar with light brown sugar and swapped out the butter with margarine. Well, and added a few things.

Look at these cookies. They were even better! My family - yes, including the kids - liked the new version better since it tasted more like cocoa and we all agreed the first cookies were just too sweet.

So here is the new and improved recipe:

No Bake Oatmeal Cocoa Cookies:

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of light brown sugar
• 1 stick of margarine
• 1/2 cup of 1% milk
• 1/3 cup of cocoa
• 3 cups of quick oats
• 1/2 cup of mini dark chocolate chips, divided
• 1/2 cup of slivered almonds

Lay out parchment or wax paper for cookies to cool on.

Add brown sugar, margarine, milk, and cocoa to a medium sized pot and bring to a boil. Continue to boil for 3 min under constant stirring. Remove pot from heat and add quick oats, slivered almonds and 1/4 cup of mini chocolate chips to the pot and vigorously stir until all ingredients are well combined.

Immediately, using a teaspoon, spoon mixture onto parchment paper - just like cookie dough. Top cookies with a few mini chocolate chips each and enjoy.