Apple Oatmeal Cookies

This weekend my husband and I are going camping for the first time since getting married! Some of my favorite memories growing up are with my family on camping trips in the Tennessee hills. My mother would not pack hot dogs or pre-cooked meals. Oh, no. We'd take food to make every meal from scratch, so setting up our campsite was quite the process! We had every tool you could ever need in our cooking box; we had it down to a science. While I appreciate those memories, I've found that paper plates and meals you only have to reheat are much more my style of camping.

So, here I am, preparing all the food ahead of time. My husband's favorite cookie is oatmeal raisin, but I wanted something a little heartier to sustain us on hikes and fishing excursions. We just bought a bag of apples so that sparked an idea! It then evolved to include craisins and walnuts as well. If I'd had them, I would have thrown in white chocolate chips to finish it off!

My little experiment went well, and we are all set for our trip!

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
Mix together in a large bowl

3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp cinamon
1 1/2 cup quick oats
Mix together in a medium bowl.
Add dry ingredients to the first bowl, mixing well.
Then add:
1 apple, cored and chopped
1/2 cup craisins, soaked in warm water for 15 min, then drained
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Put your craisins on to soak, then mix the ingredients as directed above.
Scoop out into whatever size you prefer, they don't spread much.
Bake 10-20 min, depending on your pan, oven, and size of the cookie. It'll be easy to tell when they are done, they start to look dry and brown on top. When baking cookies, be sure to baby sit them. Check every 5 min on how the top vs bottoms are cooking, and raise or lower your rack to compensate.

Here's how I did it, then you can use your own judgement. Using Pampered Chef's Large Scoop, I scooped out 15 large cookies onto two pans, a metal and a stoneware pan. The metal pan cooked quickly on the bottom, so I moved to the top rack and it took them 18 min. The stoneware cooked evenly on the middle rack, and took 17 min.

Makes 15 giant cookies, 30 normal sized.

Coconut Cherry Pie

Unexplained cravings are again responsible for spontaneous semi-homemade desserts. This time, it was cherries and coconut. But how to combine these two random, yet delicious ingredients? A pie, of course! Take a traditional crumble topping, add coconut flakes, and put on top of your own cherry filling, or, like me, a canned filling. Wha-la! You've got a pie. 

The delightful surprise of the toasted coconut gives the cherries an added dimension, without overpowering the dish or taking away from the comfort a cherry pie offers. 

1 regular size can cherry pie filling. (I used the one without HF Corn Syrup.)

1/3 c. coconut flakes

1/4 c. brown sugar

1 tbl cinnamon 

3 tbl flour

1/3 c. oats 

3 tbl butter, chilled

1 pie crust (my favorite pre-made is Marie Callender in the freezer)

Heat oven to 375. Pour can into pie crust. Cut butter into 1/4 in pieces. Mix dry ingredients together. Cut butter into crumble mix with a pastry blender or two knives until the size of peas. Spread evenly on top of the pie. Make a pie shield out of aluminum foil. (see previous posts) Bake for 30 min. Remove foil and bake for 15 min longer. Let stand before serving to gel and avoid tongue burning. 

Verdict: it was delicious.