A Cookie Recipe Everyone Should Have :)

Cowboy Cookies 

This recipe comes from a cookbook I received as a wedding shower gift a long time ago.  It is the St. Elizabeth and St. Helena Circles Sacred Heart Church in Oxford Junction, IA cookbook.  The cookbook is one of those cookbook that contains simple recipes for simple, wonderful dishes; there are no ingredients such as imported chocolate, fancy mushrooms, or other exotic ingredients requiring exotic equipment and procedures.  These recipes are tried and true by women who worked hard, loved much, and took great pride in serving family and friends the best these women had to offer from their gardens and simple pantries.

I am not sure where the name of the cookies originated, but it is what the kids' Grandma Brunscheen called them :)

This recipe has been prepared hundreds of times as it was a favorite of the kids and their friends.  I would often bake a batch and take the cookies to wherever they were gathered as the cookies came out of the oven.  It was years later that Stacy figured out that I brought out the cookies one pan full at a time because it allowed me to interact with them and their friends in a very positive way.  Who does not welcome someone bearing a plate full of hot chocolate chip cookies - even if it is your mom?

Here is the basic recipe with variations though beware of baking the raisin version as it may cause trust issues:

Cream together until light and fluffy:
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup butter

Beat in until light and fluffy:
2 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp soda
2 tsp vanilla

Stir in:
2 cups flour
2 cups quick-cooking oatmeal
2 cups chocolate chips (12 oz package)

Bake at 350 degrees for 12 - 13 minutes.

These are streamlined directions designed to enable you to have the dough mixed together before the oven has finished preheating :)

Variations:

Chocolate Chips cookies:
Eliminate the oatmeal and increase the flour to 3 - 3 1/4 cups flour

Sugar cookies:
Eliminate the brown sugar and increase sugar to 2 cups, add 2 tsp cream of tartar, and eliminate the oatmeal and increase the flour to 3 - 3 1/4 cups flour.  Let the dough cool for a couple of hours, so you can shape the dough into walnut-sized balls and roll those in sugar.  Bake at 350 degrees for 11 - 12 minutes or as long as it takes for them to start to brown on the edges.  They will puff up in the oven and then settle as they cool.  They are best when they have been slightly under baked.  They freeze very well--if they make it that far :)

Oatmeal Raisin cookies:
Eliminate the chocolate chips and add 2 cups raisins.  You can add 1 tsp to the flour mixture if you would like - that is how my Dad likes them.  You can also add 1 1/2 cup chocolate chips and 1 1/2 cups raisins, but my kids will tell you it will create trust issues.  They do not like raisins and do not like to be disappointed when they think they are eating a chocolate chip cookie only to discover there are raisins in the cookies :)