COOKIES

I must admit I am a cookie monster.  I love most cookies to a fault.  I gave up eating them for Lent...sort of.

A group at our church sponsors 'cookies for convicts' at the Lebanon Prison once each year.  I thought, since I was retired, I would heed the call and do my part.  The cookies had to be homemade.  I cook breakfast once in a while but I've never baked anything in my whole life.  The closest I ever got was licking the mixer blades while my mother did her baking.  Suzanne shushes me out of the kitchen when she nukes my meals so I haven't even seen baking for many, many years.

I decided that I wanted to make oatmeal cookies so I searched the internet for a reasonable recipe.  That was easy.  The only things I needed from the store were quick oats, baking soda and some butter.  I acquired those on a Friday with the intention of baking Saturday afternoon after Andrew's lacrosse game. 

About mid afternoon, I was all ready to go when Suzanne looked at my recipe and announced my butter was too hard and would need to be softened before I could start.  Good advice.  I put the butter on a plate and set it in the front window under the sun.  This allowed my to go to the couch and watch a golf tournament.   When I awoke from watching golf, it was seven o'clock and the butter was soft enough to work.  Slick, huh?  And so I began.

The recipe was for two dozen cookies which is what I was supposed to turn in.  I thought it was only fair that I make three dozen since I was going to all this trouble.  I had no trouble increasing the ingredients by 50% - I'm good at math. 

I found the largest bowl we had and started throwing things in.  White sugar, brown sugar and butter all had to be creamed.  Then, eggs beaten in and vanilla extract added.  Now flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon stirred into the mixture. Last but not least, oats were added to the mix.  Problem! 

The original recipe was to make two dozen cookies.  I have now surmised that bowls are made for two dozen and mixers are strong enough to handle two dozen.  Mixing was a big problem.  I had to lift the mixer a little to get it going.  When I lifted it, it sprayed my dough all over the kitchen.  Yikes. 

Despite these small problems, I got a pretty good looking pile of dough and added raisins and craisins and walnuts.  The recipe called for the mix to sit in the fridge for an hour.  This gave me time to clean the dough off of the walls, coffee maker, counter top, faucet, etc. 

I got two cookie sheets greased, cooling racks ready and the oven heated up.  My own little assembly line was working to perfection.  I smashed each little glob with a big fork, and, voila, they were done. Dozen after dozen.  I finished at eleven pm.  I ended up with four and half dozen large cookies - don't ask me how I got so many.  They were delicious and I'd made enough for the whole neighborhood.  I was so proud, I had to eat a dozen myself.  Maybe I'll open a bakery.
'o.o'