26 January 2015

Making Cookies ...

It's been an age, it seems , since I made a good batch of oatmeal cookies for Silent Bob. He's not a complainer, but I'm pretty sure I heard a sigh when he came in from loading the woodboxes yesterday and rattled the top of the cookie jar. He must have been expecting the elves to have stocked it overnight, but alas. Hence, the sigh.




So, this evening, while he is off at a planning meeting for a series of bike tours he'll work on come Spring, I am baking him oatmeal cookies with pecans and butterscotch chips. The fire is humming along in both stoves, the cats are chasing each other through the house and stirring up the smart Corgis, and I am blissfully baking cookies, taking photos, and ...





... and every once in a while, I'm nipping into the cookie dough. Do you eat raw cookie dough? I do.
My friend, Jenna won't ever be tempted by me when I'm baking cookies and she's visiting. She tells me her Mom thinks the eggs will make her sick, so I leave off and let her watch me flip a fingerful of dough in my mouth. Yum!

So far, I've lived to tell the tale. Salmonella, be damned! I honestly think my immune system must be in pretty good shape to withstand so much salmonella ... or maybe it's in good shape because it's fought off all those collywobbles over the years of baking and cookie dough pilfering!




Yup! The house smells pretty cozy once those cookies come out of the oven! I can just imagine SB coming home from his meeting to rattle the top of the cookie jar. Won't he love that?




These really are the best oatmeal cookies that one can make. This is my Mom's recipe; one of the first cookie recipes that she allowed me to make when I was a kid. The recipe is an indulgence in this day and age, as it uses a whole cup of Crisco vegetable shortening. I've tried this recipe with butter and it doesn't work as well. I don't know why. Let the food chemists struggle with that one. All I DO know is that some things should not be tampered with, so I make these cookies with a whole cup of Crisco.
I also use old-fashioned oats. No quick cook oats will do. They disintegrate and leave you with inferior chew to the cookie. Over the years, I have made the core cookie recipe with different additions - apples, walnuts, and raisins is my favorite. Chocolate chips and walnuts is another. Dates, and coconut is another variation. Butterscotch chips and pecans is a treat, as I never had butterscotch anything as a kid. Oh, except this cloying instant pudding that my mother would sometimes throw together and divvy out in the lunch box lunches. These cookies are far superior to THAT stuff, for sure!

Anyway, here's the link to a previous version of Mom's Oatmeal Cookies ... enjoy!





Go fill up your cookie jar!




3 comments:

  1. Now these will be on my mind until i can make some.

    ReplyDelete
  2. now these are cookies!... love this little story and love how knobbly and moreish they looks... I'll take a plate full please x

    ReplyDelete
  3. Delicious cookies!
    xox

    ReplyDelete

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