Oatmeal Raisin Cookies NomYum!

Today I was super exhausted at work for some reason, which couldn't have anything to do with the fact that I wanted to finish watching Project Runway and read a little bit before bed last night.  Since it was raining, I had to go grocery shopping, and I felt like I needed some time to relax, I decided to make dinner and do some baking.  I made chicken with mushroom sauce, as I once posted on my old cooking blog, which was a huge success since it was delicious and I now have at least two batches of leftovers.  Then it was time to make my first attempt at baking oatmeal raisin cookies.

I generally make cookies every Tuesday night to bring into work on Wednesday, but since I just have the loveliest of apartments, the water was out downstairs yesterday and I didn't know if it was going to go out upstairs too, so I decided not to risk it.  Needless to say, I was berated a bit at work today, but I'll show them ALL tomorrow by bringing in oatmeal raisin cookies and not sharing ANY of them.  Maybe a few.  NO, NONE!  Okay, all of them.  NEVER!  But then you'll have to go to the gym for hours and hours.  Yeah, you're right, that would really suck.  Might as well share.

So now that THAT'S out of the way...

Oatmeal raisin cookies have never really been my favorite since I'm such a chocolate fiend, but now that I like trying pretty much anything and everything, I've taken more a liking to them.  One of my coworkers made the request for these after two weeks of caramel-filled chocolate cookies and one week of chocolate chip.  And I believe there was a store-bought cake in there somewhere as well.  Clearly we can all see where I unload my baked goods onto unsuspecting victims.

All that talk is nice and good, but let's stop rambling, forget that we made plans to clean out the fridge, and get to baking!  I used a recipe from Smitten Kitchen because I really don't think you can go wrong there.

In a bowl, combine brown sugar, butter, an egg, and some vanilla.  I used bourbon vanilla because I'm fancy like that.  Also, it's all we had.  I like to play it by ear.  Cream all that stuff together and forget that your arm is sore because you did arm exercises two days in a row.

Normally I would tell you not to eat this and really be kidding to cover up the fact that I ate some of it but really don't eat it because there's a lot of raw egg in there, man.  Safety first.

Add in some salt...

...baking powder...

...and the cinnamon you just ran to the store to get because you forgot to get it earlier!

Also some flour please!  Mix it all up.

Does it look something like this?  Good job!  You're probably on the right track.

The recipe called for rolled oats, and then I got to the store and I was like, I have no idea what those are.  So I got regular oats.  I figured I probably couldn't go wrong...?

Add them in that there mixture, kids!  That's a lot of oats.  I hope you are not an anti-horse.

Because horses like oats so anti-horses would not like oats so... that's where that came from...

Please accept me.  Thank you.

Oh yeah, and some raisins!  Those are pretty important when you're making oatmeal raisin cookies.

So you mixed everything up without me even telling you to, right?  You're so smart.  Now your batter should look like this.  You're like a prodigy, I'll bet, aren't you??

After this the recipe says that we should chill the batter in the fridge.  But I say, why use a fridge when you can use...

...a freezer!  Go do some dishes or clean your kitchen or your fridge or something and stop being such a slob.  You're a girl.  You're supposed to be clean.  I am ashamed.

But don't worry!  Now your kitchen will be clean and I can forgive you.

Also, I have to remind you, I went grocery shopping today.  I froze seven packages of veggies, four turkey burgers, a package of cube steak, some chicken, and a serving of leftovers.  Please disregard how full my freezer is for only sharing it with one other person.  I appreciate that.

Let's try a different camera for this shot since I love my Droid 3, but the camera is always tinted blue.  Did you do all the things I told you to?  Good!  I'm proud of you.  Now you're ready to scoop out your dough.

If you're one of those kinds of people, you can make your oatmeal cookies into pretty little balls.  But if you're me, you can just scoop them into whatever lumpy shape you would like.  Mine were imperfect and a bit quirky.  JUST LIKE ME! 

The recipe says to line the baking sheets with parchment paper, but I just oiled them a tiny bit beforehand.  I wish that the batter had made more cookies just because I have many people fighting over them (it's acceptable to say if it's a fact!) but I suppose it wouldn't have been hard to double it.

Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes.  The bottom will be browning a bit, but the top will still be pretty light.  Like...

...this!  Nommm.

Better picture focus!  Double nommm.

COOKIE MONSTER SHADOW!!!

Hip edited cookie picture.  Must eat.

I'm not really sure that I'm the best person to review these cookies because I don't know what oatmeal raisin cookies typically taste like.  They were definitely oat-y and raisin-y.  I think next time I would probably increase the ratio of batter to oats and raisins just because I really love cookie batter and brown sugar, but they are very good.  I'll let you know what the reviews are tomorrow.

If you want the recipe, you can get it here at Smitten Kitchen.  But I'm going to have to warn you, you'll stay on the website forever.  Reece has already yelled at me for adding the Pioneer Woman to his Google reader when he was trying to trim it down, and this is one of those sites as well. 

Now I will go to bed an hour later than I planned to, just as happens every night.  Plus, I mean, I can't just leave this episode of Amazing Race unfinished.  They're ON THE MATTERHORN, for goodness sake!

Priorities.

Love,
Courtney