I love to bake. I love to eat what I bake. I love to share what I bake too. Cookies are a staple of our kitchen pantry cupboard, and over
the years I have tested hundreds of chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin cookies. In fact, I bake so much that sometimes we run out of baking supplies. One day I was short of chocolate chips, so decided to whip up some chewy oatmeal raisin cookies instead. Sadly I was short of raisins as well, but I was determined to bake up some cookies anyways. Also found that we were out of white sugar….. so my white-sugarless chewy chocolate chip raisin oatmeal cookie recipe was born! Now, this recipe for oatmeal cookies is also made without salt, not because I didn’t have any, simply because I forgot to put it in, then found that my family liked the cookies without salt just fine – so I leave it out of the cookie recipe.
Cookie recipes usually call for butter or margarine (and sometimes shortening) but this recipe uses a bit of both. You can use the cinnamon if your family likes a little spice in their cookies, but leave it out if you prefer – the cookies still taste great. If you are wondering how to make chewy oatmeal cookies, it is important to have the correct ratio of butter, margarine and/or shortening to flour, and also to not bake the cookies too long. That is why I suggest checking these after eight minutes.
This recipe makes a large batch of about 72 cookies – I bake 3 dozen at a time and freeze the rest in one large tube. I always plan to bake the raw chocolate chip oatmeal raisin cookie dough later on in the month, but if one of the kids finds it in the freezer they sometimes start eating it as-is……
Ingredients:
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup margarine
1 1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon organic vanilla extract
1 egg
1/3 cup of 1% milk OR powdered milk, previously made and chilled
3 cups organic quick-cooking oats (NOT 1 minute instant oats though- they will just get really mushy)
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cups dark chocolate chips
3/4 cups raisins
Method:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a large cookie sheet. Use a large bowl to cream together the butter, margarine, brown sugar and organic vanilla. Beat in 1 egg, then gradually stir in the milk. In a separate large bowl combine the oats, all-purpose and whole wheat flour and baking soda. Fold in the chocolate chips and raisins. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto a cookie sheet. I usually press the back of the spoon lightly into each cookie too. Bake for 10 minutes, checking after eight. Let the cookies cool for two to three minutes on the cookie sheet before removing them to a cooling rack. Remember, you can freeze the cookie dough in long tube-shapes and wrap them in saran wrap to freeze them. This also makes a thoughtful and inexpensive gift to share with a neighbour, an elderly friend or a new mom who can’t find time to bake!
from larger knitting projects; the afghans and sweaters I knitted seemed always seemed to use less wool or yarn than the instructions called for. I just can’t bring myself to throw out leftover yarn or wool, and am always looking for ways to repurpose yarn into unique crafts and projects. As my collection of single skeins and balls of yarn grew, I began to look for creative ways to use up my wool ends and leftover yarn bits. Here is a list of 30 ways to use up your leftover yarn for knitting projects. Check back often as I will be adding links to patterns for these projects, and adding to the list as well!