Delicious Baked Goods: oatmeal cookies

I made cookies for my mother’s birthday (which was yesterday) today, because I am only mostly a horrible person. I changed the recipe a lot, though, so I felt it worthwhile to post it here for your consumption.

Spiced Oatmeal Cookies
3/4 cup sifted all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 pinch ground nutmeg (yes, a pinch. ignore your mother, stick your fingers into the bottle, and get out a pinch)
1 egg, well beaten
1/2 cup sugar (less is fine)
1/2 cup melted butter or margarine (less is fine. takes about 50 seconds in a microwave to get from refrigerator temperature to totally melted)
2 teaspoons molasses
2 tablespoons milk
1 cup rolled oats (the book says quick cooking but I used those rolled oats we had in the box and they worked fine)
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup coarsely chopped nuts
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup chocolate chips
(any of the previous four ingredients can be increased a tad with no harm whatsoever to the outcome)

Instructions
Heat oven to 325 Degrees F. Yes, now, it’ll be late later… Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg in a smaller bowl. Combine remaining ingredients in the larger bowl. Stir vigorously to blend. Add the dry ingredients and mix. Drop by tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart (they do spread out a bit so spacing is nice) on a greased/nonstick cookie sheet. Bake 10 to 12 minutes (BUT NO MORE) or until edges are slightly brown. Cool on wire racks. The book says it makes about 30 cookies, but I only got about 20.

They’re absolutely delicious and may have health benefits because of the fruits and nuts and oatmeals in them. :D

The ones on the lower right are the ones that got a tad burned because I left them in a little too long. The ones on the left, marked with the chocolate chips on the top, were left in exactly 12 minutes and are exactly perfect.

recipe shamelessly stolen from The Redbook Cookbook, copyright 1971.

Happy New Year

Page 143, Happy New Year (This text brought to you by You Have No Privacy Publications)

Welcome to 2010, one and all. There are cookies, have one, I insist. My window is open because it smells nice outside.  I’m not wearing flip flops, I’m wearing socks. My beetle is broken, my desk is a mess, I’m eating the cookies, my hair isn’t clean, and my petticoats are starting to fray (I don’t have petticoats (yet)).

Welcome to 2010, bitches. It’s twenty-ten not two thousand ten fucking get it right.

I wish to welcome you all, ladles and jellyspoons, to 2010. This is the year in which everything changes (again). Y’know, someone said we’d be in space in 2010. We are not in space. We clutch feebly at the void with weakening fingers and withdraw our hands burned and scarred from the vacuum. Suck Vacuum hasn’t caught on as an insult yet. This is the year we all dread with the implosions happening all around us. This is the year we all hope for with the sunrise in the snow and black market jobs making double minimum wage. This is the year they tell we’re big people now, time to get responsible (they did that last year). This is my last year of freedom, then I go on exactly like I have been.

In fact, I will welcome you to 2010!

Welcome to 2010! The cake is still a lie (but the cookies aren’t). Only the date has changed, why do we attach such significance to a decade? to a year? We’re just a year in the future of where we were a year ago at this time last year. (Why did Dad give me these cookies? tsk penguini tsk). I insist that you have one of these absolutely delicious cookies. You are not allowed to refuse. C’mon, relax, you’ll be a senior in the fall and you’ll be wanting a cookie in English to save you from the insanity and you’ll ask yourself why you turned this one down.

[This has been roughly excerpted from my private journal, modified for grammar, content and spelling, though none are guaranteed. -penguini]