Kitchen bonding

I have always been in the look out for good and fool-proof recipes that I can try and most of the time tweak to suit my taste. After checking our pantry, I noticed the unopened bag of quick cooking oats so I decided to look online for an oatmeal cookie recipe. I was also thinking of allowing Leia to try her pudgy little hands at  baking instead of being just a spectator and eater.

I came across this recipe from food.com that said Best Oatmeal Cookies. Not one to immediately believe anything that has the word "best" in it, I read the comments and 90% of them raved about it. So I gathered the ingredients and spent an afternoon with my apprentice. It was good to see her practice her motor skills by mixing and I'm slowly teaching her to appreciate the effort that goes into making something. As an added treat, I told her to put chocolate candies on top of her cookies. The oatmeal cookies came out really good - I liked the variety of textures since it has chopped nuts and raisins aside from a good amount of oatmeal. Leia was obviously very proud of her effort and Mama was even prouder to finish all her work and spend quality time together. :)

My apprentice in action

Our cookies ready for baking

After a good 15 minutes of waiting

Leia and her colorful oatmeal cookie

Our labor of love

The Aquarian in me tweaked it just a tiny bit and the result was still very yummy! Try this Oatmeal Cookies recipe this weekend with your kids and indulge - with lesser guilt. 

Ingredients:

3 eggs, well beaten

1 cup raisins

1 teaspoon vanilla 

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup white sugar (I didn't have white sugar so I doubled the amount of brown sugar)

2  1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 cups quick cooking oatmeal

3/4 cup chopped nuts

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

2. Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs until well incorporated.

3. Add flour, salt and baking soda. Mix well.

4. Add oatmeal, nuts and raisins. Dough will be stiff (don't worry, cookie dough is really this consistency).

5. Drop by heaping teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheet, flatten slightly (we made ours 1 tablespoon).

6. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned.