Maple Oatmeal Cookies

I have a bad habit.

I am the type of person to go into my fridge, take out an item and think and obsess over one simple question: "What else can I do with you?"

It all starts because I like to utilize everything that I have, I like them to have more then one purpose.



This just happened with my fake maple syrup that I have in the fridge since the last time I made pancakes, which might have been March or April.

Then I decided it should go into a cookie, a nice Thankgiving style cookie.



I started this recipe with 1/2 cup sugar and 5 overflowing tablespoons of my fake maple syrup. I'm sure you can use real maple syrup too, but I don't have any, so this is what you get. While I measure that out I melted down 1/2 cup of butter. When that was ready I poured it in and incorporated it.



Then I added 1 cup of flour and mixed that in along with 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, 1/4 teaspoon salt.



I also had some oatmeal (which I use for everything BUT oatmeal and normally in baking) and mixed in a cup of that. I only use the quick oats, I don't know how it would work with the normal ones, so let me know if you try and what happens....



I added in 1/2 cup of chopped nuts, I had almonds so that's what I put in, but I may try walnuts when I get some maybe next week. Then I took my favorite dried fruit next to figs: CRANBERRIES! and added them in too. I'm sure you can put raisins in with this too and bake them up but Danny doesn't really care for them and I like the tang that cranberries puts in so that's why I use them, plus I get the huge bags at BJ's.



I then dropped it onto a cookie sheet and baked them up. It seems I forgot to take a picture of the finished product. Mostly likely this happened because I was to busy eating the cookie. I can say hands down this has became my favorite cookie without any chocolate (with the exception of the ginger snap) and that is hard to do. Just so you know they do spread but they don't end up super crunchy.



Just try them, I think they are a winner.

Maple Oatmeal Cookies

1/2 cup of melted butter
1/2 cup of sugar
5 overflowing tablespoons of syrup
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup quick oats
1/2 cup chopped nuts (I used almonds)
1/2 cup cranberries

preheat oven at 350 and bake for 10 minutes.

Chocolate Chunkers

One of my favorite things to cook are cookies. I like how I can mix up a dough and just bake them while I run around the apartment and do other things, hang up the laundry, dust bust (because I don't know how to turn on the vacuum) and other little things here and there. There are a few cookies that I make that I've made up on my own, this happens to be one of them.



And once again Gracie was there to watch the whole preceding. She likes cranberries which are in these cookies, she was really looking out for those, don't let the serious face fool you.

Today I felt a little to lazy to whip up the cookies so I pulled out my favorite kitchen tool:



My KitchenAide mixer was the first Christmas gift my husband bought for me when we were dating. Most women would have been angry, but I have always wanted one of these, and I love using it, but since my kitchen is so small it tends to be tucked away, but since I had made mashed potatoes the night before it was out and ready to be used!

Now to the cookies!

You start this recipe with a cup of melted margarine - that is two sticks.

I like to use Imperial Margarine.



It's really cheap at Aldi (you saw that coming) it's 77 cents for each pack of four, so I can bake more. I only use butter if the recipe really needs it, otherwise it's Imperial.

While your butter is melting in the pan (because if you're poor like me you don't have a microwave) mix together a cup of sugar and 3/4 of a cup of brown sugar firmly packed.



Then you'll start to smell the butter, hopefully you've melted it on low heat with the top on, if you did, it'll look like this:



I love melted butter. I wish I could bathe in it I love it so much, but I won't.

Anyway....

Now add the melted butter along with some vanilla 2 eggs and mix it up, or just turn it up to setting 3 on your mixer if you're lucky like me.

Once that is nicely incorporated sift 2 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon of baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 cup of chocolate powder into the bowl.



And mix it up and like magic you have a chocolate batter for your cookies.



The batter should look like this. Now if you just want a straight chocolate cookie, you can use this batter and bake it for 8-10 minutes at 375, just let the batter sit for about 5 minutes so it thickens, but if your like me, I like to put lots of crap in my cookies and this way if I eat one I get full, so I like to add things to these chocolate chunkers.

I like chocolate chips in chocolate cookies because I enjoy a good healthy chocolate overload. However here in the Tiny Ass Kitchen all ingredients have to go rigorous quality control to make sure they are up to our standards. Gracie is my quality control kitty.



I first add in about 1 cup of chocolate chips.



Then I put in a New Jersey export....



And if you didn't know, New Jersey is the nations leader in exporting cranberries next to Massachusetts. I also like dried fruit and this is one that I can get cheap at BJ's.

Anyway, add in two handfuls of cranberries into your mixture.



And then fold everything in together. Once that is one, let your dough sit for about 5 minutes so it can solidify just a little, and line two baking sheets with parchment paper, this way you can be lazy and not have to scrub your baking sheets and it makes a nicer cookie. Trust me.

Now take a table spoon and spoon out the mixture onto your baking sheets.



I like big cookies so I use a table spoon, if you want baby cookies do what you want, I'm rolling with the big kids.



Then you stick them in the oven for 10 minutes at 375 and enjoy the smell it'll put through your house and kitchen. When they are all done they'll look like this:



The recipe only makes about 18 cookies because of how big I make them so you can always double the recipe. If your interested in making them yourself, here is the directions:

2 sticks melted butter
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
vanilla
2 eggs
2 cups sifted flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chocolate powder
1 cup chocolate chipd
2 handfulls of dried cranberries

Bake at 375 for 10 minutes.

Enjoy!