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.

Oatmeal Cookies

Sometimes you can't improve upon an old recipe. And sometimes you can!

Recently Colorado was bombarded by 8 different forest fires, one of which was in the foothills near my town of Fort Collins. The organization Samaritan's Purse came in to help people sift through remains, clean windows, and put tarps on roofs. Hundreds of volunteers headed up into the mountains everyday with sack lunches. Some of the ladies at my church were asked to bake cookies, so I had a few girls over to share in the experience. We landed on traditional Oatmeal Cookies, and after baking one batch, we mixed it up a little by substituting white chocolate and craisins for raisins. Both were equally delicious!

In my early adolescence, I tested out many different recipes for oatmeal raisin cookies to please my daddy. Every batch was a little different; fluffy, crispy, sweeter, heartier. . . but, alas, none could satisfy him. Finally I called my grandmother in Florida and asked for the recipe she used to make when my father was a boy. She laughed and replied that it was on the Quaker Oats carton! Well, why not? Sometimes simpler is better!

1 cup (2sticks) butter
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups Quaker Oats
1 cup raisins

Heat oven to 350. Beat together butter and sugars until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla, beat well. In separate bowl, mix flour, soda, cinnamon, and salt. Then add oatmeal and raisins. Add dry mix to batter in fourths until fully incorporated. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto cookie sheet, 2 inches apart. Bake 10-12 min, or until golden brown. Cool on a rack, then store in an air-tight container to keep soft. Makes about 4 doz.