Stress Relieving Cookies

Sigh.  Another day without getting our cable letter email.  I need to bake.  Lucky for me, Harrison's track team is having a bake sale tomorrow so I can bake without gaining the customary 5 lbs.  Gaining weight is not stress-relieving.  Although, I'm not sure it matters.  These days all I have to do is smell sugar and I gain a pound.  Did I say these were "stress relieving" cookies?  I don't sound like I have been relieved yet.  I need to stop whining.

These are my favorite cookies in the world!  They are one of  my Grandma Denman's recipes.  I'm not sure if the reason I love them so much is that I remember baking cookies at her house on Wednesday afternoons, or how she ALWAYS had homemade cookies in the cookie jar at her house (yes, she actually had a real cookie jar), or if I just love these cookies.  You guys can be the judge.  If you love them, it must be the taste and not just the memories.

Here is the recipe...decide for yourselves :-)

Oatmeal Coconut Cookies

Preheat oven to 350 

3/4 cup sugar

   1 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup shortening (OR yummy butter but it makes the cookies thinner and crispier...also delicious)

   2 eggs

   1 tsp vanilla (I like to overflow the tsp)

   2 cups flour

   1 tsp baking soda   

1/2 tsp salt

   2 cups oatmeal

   1 cup unsweetened coconut

A little milk to make the right consistency.  (This is literally what my Grandma's recipe said.)  But, to be a little more clear, I think the "right" consistency uses about 2-3 Tbsp of milk.  I actually forgot to check, I usually just slosh a little in there from the carton.  You want the consistency to be like chocolate chip cookies.

Cream the sugars and shortening or butter together in your mixer bowl then add the eggs and vanilla and blend.  In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, and salt.  Add a little flour mixture at a time to the sugar/shortening mixture and blend until it is all combined.  Add the oatmeal and coconut and mix it in.  Now add your milk.

I like to use my smallish scooper to drop my cookies.  It makes the perfect size cookie.

Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes.  

Leave cookies on the cookie stone for a few minutes and let them START to cool before you move them to a wire rack to finish cooling.

If you know what's good for you, bag most of them up and give them away or something.  If you are anything like me, you have already eaten more than you should between the dough and sampling every batch to make sure they are fit to eat ;-)

Maybe I will be back on here next week with good news about adoption progress.  This last little bit is excruciating to wait!  We still expect to travel sometime in Sept/Oct.  As soon as we get updated pics and info, I will blog again.  OR, I will send pics from China in a few weeks ;-)