I had a wonderful time in August - traveling - visiting old friends - making new friends - and seeing new places. Now I am back and ready and eager to tell you about making Holistic cookies and healthy comfort food.

During my vacation, my book editors have been hard at work challenging my thinking and my writing. I am so lucky to have such intelligent and creative people helping me make the best book for you to use.

Here is the first big mistake I want to clear up — really — it is kind of funny, but actually a serious subject.

It was thought that I was going to tell people that they could substitute one Holistic cookie for a serving of vegetables. And then 2 cookies would be 2 servings of vegetables.

No, that won’t work. You still need to eat your vegetables. And why wouldn’t you want to? They are delicious in and of themselves.

The Holistic cookie recipes just add vegetables to the recipe to add fiber and slow down the sugar reactivity — thus making you feel more satisfied with only one cookie instead of needing 6 cookies and still not feeling satisfied.

There will not be enough vegetables in one cookie to make it be a complete serving. But it is truly amazing how much hidden vegetables can change how a cookie is digested.