Nora's Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Nora's Chocolate Chip Cookies with Dried Montmorency Cherries

So, I am long overdue for a blog post and I soooo appreciate that you are hanging in there with me!    It has been a very hectic summer and early fall and now we find ourselves in October already.  Whew!  With this fall weather brings a longing for cooking stews, soups and baking.  

For this post, I am giving you a recipe for my mom's Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies.  They are some of the best tasting cookies I have ever had and are famous in our family.  She packs a tin whenever she travels to see other family members and I am now calling it "love in a box." She has packed and shipped just about all of us at one time or another these delicious cookies.  The magic ingredient?  Oatmeal.  Once you have tasted oatmeal in your chocolate chip cookies, you will always have to put it in or they will always be lacking.  It creates that nice chewy-ness that everyone loves in a cookie in the first place.  This batch makes 100, but don't be daunted, because they freeze well in a roll and can be cut off when you feel like having one or 30.

If you are like me then you are holding back from making dessert because you don't want to eat too many sweets.  It is one of the reason's that I don't blog about dessert.  I don't eat it very often and when I do it is usually some dried or fresh fruit or a little piece of chocolate.  You have to be the taste tester for your own product, but then, what happens....munch munch...hmmm?   I have discovered the joy of baking is not about mixing and stirring and smelling and tasting, but rather in the giving away of the goodies when they are done. I guarantee that you will feel better giving them away rather than eating them!   Happy Fall and Happy Cooking!

Grandma Nora’s Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

My mom’s cookies are such a hit that when she travels to visit other family, especially grandchildren, she takes a tin with her to share.  As I said, love in a box.  These are the real deal and you will quickly gain many followers…look out.   I have changed the amount of butter and sugar to be a little less sweet and fat.  I also like to add either nuts or dried fruit to add a tart-sweet combination of flavors.  

3 1/2 cups of flour

1 1/4 TBS baking powder

3 sticks of butter,

5 cups of oats

24 oz. chocolate chips

2 cups brown sugar

1 cup white sugar

2 tsp salt

4 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

1 tsp cinnamon

optional: handful of dried Montmorency cherries or chopped walnuts

Measure oatmeal and blend in a blender or cuisinart to a fine powder.  Set aside.  Cream the butter and both sugars, and vanilla, then add the eggs and mix.  In a separate bowl mix the flour, oatmeal, salt, and baking powder.  Add chocolate chips and mix in dried fruit or nuts if using.  Mix thoroughly until all the flour is incorporated.  Scoop out a teaspoon of cookie dough at a time and bake a sheet pan full for about 12 minutes at 350 degrees. 

If not baking right away,  roll into a log for freezing and wrap with saran wrap, then cover again with foil.  When ready to bake, slice individual cookies one by one until you have a sheet pan full or bake them individually in a toaster oven.  Watch carefully.

Makes about 100 cookies 

Recipe adjusted by Tricia O’Brien