Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Cookies and milk. It’s the snack we got when we came home from school. My mother, who started to work when I entered the 4th grade, somehow found the time to bake cookies three or four times a week.

There were no other snacks during the day. It’s not as if my parents were depriving us or trying to get us to eat less junk. It’s just the way it was for us, and as far as I knew, for everyone else. When I went to a friend’s house I also got cookies and milk, maybe not homemade cookies but Oreos or sugar wafers, sometimes Vienna Fingers (all three with a goodly amount of white icing).

Today is National Junk Food Day, which a lot of people use as an excuse to eat … a lot of junk. But do we really need to set aside a day to do what so many of us already do?

Btw, it’s not really a national holiday. That takes an act of Congress and, no matter what you think about our government, no one in his or her right mind would propose a national day on which we should eat (and have our children eat) junk.

First Lady Michelle Obama is actually trying to take a critical look at childhood obesity (the Let’s Move campaign). Maybe there’s a way to keep the kids, and ourselves, from getting fatter and fatter.

I say, let’s start by having only one snack a day. I say cookies and milk. How about Oatmeal-Chocolate Chip Cookies? Here’s an easy recipe:

Oatmeal-Chocolate Chip Cookies

3 cups quick cooking oats

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

12 tablespoons (1-1/2 sticks) butter

3/4 cup white sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 large egg

1/4 cup apple juice, orange juice or water

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1-1/2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a cookie sheet (or two). Combine the oats, flour, salt and baking soda. Set aside. Place the butter, white sugar and brown sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer (or a large bowl) and beat on medium speed for 2-3 minutes or until creamy and well blended (or use a hand mixer). Add the egg, juice and vanilla extract and blend them in thoroughly. Add the oat-flour mixture and blend it in thoroughly. Mix in the chocolate chips. Drop the dough (a mounded tablespoon worth)  onto the cookie sheet, leaving room for the cookies to spread. Bake for about 10 minutes or until set and lightly browned. Let cool slightly, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with remaining dough. Makes about 4 dozen

For more about National Junk Food Day see: http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/food/article/Healthy-ways-to-celebrate-Junk-Food-Day-577270.php

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Chocolate Chip Cookies

Your post brought back some terrific memories for me too. I remember baking cookies with my mother. But it wasn’t chocolate chip cookies because she didn’t like them (can you imagine that!!).

My mother made butter cookies and she would give me and my brothers raw dough to play with and I must say, she must not have had a rule to wash our hands first because I remember that after we played with the yellowish dough it was completely gray and disgusting. We made it into nondescript lumps and she would bake the lumps for us and we would each eat our own. We’re all still around so I guess the dirt didn’t hurt us.

Unlike my mom, I love chocolate chip cookies. I also like oatmeal raisin cookies. In my book, Hip Kosher, there’s a recipe for a chocolate-chip-oatmeal-raisin cookie I called The Grand Finale. I always have some in my freezer because my kids would hate it if I didn’t. Here’s the recipe:

Grand Finale Cookies

1 cup all-purpose flour

1-1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1-1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup unsalted butter or margarine, softened

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

3/4 cup sugar

1 large egg

1/4 cup orange juice

1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1-1/2 cups quick cooking or rolled oats

1-1/4 cups chocolate chips

1 cup dried flaked coconut

1 cup chopped almonds

3/4 cup raisins

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in a bowl. Combine the butter, brown sugar, and sugar in a large bowl and beat them with an electric mixer set at medium speed for about 2 minutes or until creamy and well blended. Add the egg, orange juice, and vanilla extract and beat them in thoroughly. Stir in the flour mixture until just combined. Stir in the oats, chocolate chips, coconut, almonds, and raisins. Scoop blobs of dough about 2 inches in diameter and place on lightly greased cookie sheets. Bake for 15–18 minutes or until browned. Makes 3 dozen