In a moment of what we now consider a poorly executed, not-thought-through act of budgeting, my husband and I got ourselves membership at a popular chain warehouse store.
"It's sooo much cheaper if we buy in bulk," we had said. It's true too. It is cheaper and hence logical to buy in bulk. Our logic however fell apart when we realized that it was just the two of us... and we didn't really need all that much.
Now the husband and I are generally healthy eaters. We're good eaters too. However, the reason I call our warehouse store shopping expedition poorly executed, is because we bought good, healthy food in portions larger than we could possibly consume; and the reason I call it not-thought-through is because we live in a fairly small apartment.
We had no place to store our thrifty haul.
This led to situations where we often went to bed with a few Bounty rolls for pillows.
I kid of course. Ha Ha.
But seriously, if you ever feel the need, try sliding a roll under each knee whilst lying on your back. Really helps with that lumbar curve. And you can even use their shampoo/ conditioner bottles for a few sets of bicep curls during a shower.
To elaborate on the too-much-of-a-good-thing grocery shopping, what I mean is we often came home with too much fruit, too many fresh vegetables and enough oatmeal to bring our cholesterol levels down to nada.
I once ate so many kiwi fruit I could swear my skin took on a greenish hue. Also, I haven't eaten kiwi fruit since.
And spinach! Gosh, one time we couldn't open the refrigerator without being mauled by a super sized spinach clamshell.
This led to the otherwise healthy food taking on less healthy forms.
Perfectly good peaches got made into perfectly decadent cobbler (Susheel reassured me that they were much better that way).
Strawberries were dipped in chocolate, or served alongside some clotted cream, or better still served up with some pound cake, drizzled with chocolate and served up with fresh homemade whipped cream.
We were suffering, you see!
This recipe too came into being at that point of time, when I couldn't open the kitchen cupboards without boxes of Old-Fashioned Oatmeal leaping out into my arms screaming - 'Cook Me! Cook Me!'
I heard 'Cookie' (what with being up to my ears in oatmeal), so I obliged.
Old Fashioned Oats (lightly toasted) - 3 cups
All purpose flour - 1 1/2 cup
Brown sugar - 1 1/2 cup
Baking powder - 1/2 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Cinnamon (ground) - 1/2 tsp
Raisins (lightly warmed in a tablespoon of cinnamon butter) - 2 cups
Eggs (large) - 2
Unsalted butter (softened) - 2 sticks or 16 tablespoons + 1 tablespoon for the raisins
Vanilla Extract - 1 tsp
Makes approximately 24 cookies delicious cookies, 2-inches in diameter.
Also makes you consider renewing your warehouse store membership.
Two steps that you might not find in standard recipes that make a subtle, yet significant change in the flavor.
1. Lightly toast the oatmeal. I like to do this in a dry pan on low heat. Stand by and stir. You don't want the oatmeal to burn.
2. In the same pan, add a tablespoon of butter, ground cinnamon, and once the butter is melted and you can smell the cinnamon, add the raisins. Again, stir. Make sure all the raisins are evenly coated with butter and cinnamon. Make sure you do this on a very low flame.
If you have sautéed raisins before you are familiar with how they swell up. This time though, we don't need them to swell up. We just want the cinnamon flavor to infuse into the raisins and begin caramelizing the sugars even before we pop them into the oven.
- Mix flour, baking soda, salt (and any additional cinnamon you may want to add)
- Cream the butter and brown sugar. I don't use any white sugar in my Oatmeal Cookies ever.
- Add the eggs one at a time, cream after each addition.
- Add vanilla.
- Mix the flour into the butter-sugar-egg mixture in a few installments. (It usually takes me three)
- Stir in the raisins and any residual cinnamon butter (there is hardly any if you use just 1 tbsp) and the toasted oats.
- Chill the mixture for around half hour.
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
Portion out the cookie dough and place on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.
There is enough to fill out two cookie sheets, possibly more. I own only one cookie sheet so I put the dough back in the fridge while the first set is baking.
Depending on your individual oven it usually takes around 30 minutes to bake.
Look for brown edges with slightly soft centers. Soft to being pushed gently with your finger that is.
