LARGETONY Blog

Saturday is coming and there’s no football game this weekend (the Vols are not playing this weekend so there may as well be no football) so you need something to keep you busy. Who wouldn’t want to spend a few days with something tasty on their lips? Ever since my post about the attempted break-in a couple of weeks ago, I’ve gotten several e-mails asking about the oatmeal cookies I make. Never thought I’d be going all Emirel in my blog, but why the hell not. The recipe is no big secret. It’s really a combination of two or three recipes from cookbooks that have been adjusted to make the cookie like I like it. And when you have something good to pop in someone’s mouth, and they want a taste…well….

So run to the store tonight, get the stuff you need, mix up (cause it needs to sit in the refrigerator a while) and tomorrow morning you can open your own little Keebler factory. Is that redundant? “Little” Keebler?

Here’s what you need on your shopping list:

• Oatmeal (duh! And be sure to get the “Old Fashioned Oatmeal” not “Quick Oatmeal” or else it won’t turn out right.)
• Butter (real butter, not margerine. And unsalted)
• Sugar
• Brown Sugar
• Milk
• Eggs
• Vanilla Extract
• Flour (all purpose)
• Baking Powder
• Baking Soda
• Cinnamon
• Salt
• Golden Raisins
• Dried Cranberries
• Pecans (you want the chopped up ones, not whole ones. And not the really finely chopped ones)

Here’s what you do:

1. Take two sticks of butter and let them sit out and get soft. Just set them aside. Just like you dick, leave it alone long enough and it’ll go soft eventually. Be sure to set them on a little plate or in a little bowl. You know sometimes they are leakers. Butter too. You really can’t do much until the butter is soft, so go surf the net for porn while you wait. You’ll need it later.
2. After the butter is soft (it should feel like a semi-chub, soft but firm enough to hold it’s shape) toss it into a big bowl with 1/2 a cup of sugar and a whole cup of brown sugar. Get yourself a big wooden spoon and mix ‘em up. Make sure they are all blended together good with no pockets of sugar or chunks of butter. If you try to use an electric mixer here, it’s just gonna get all gummed up. It’s a good arm workout, so be sure to switch hands or you might end up looking like a tennis player or pro bowler.
3. Now take that little bowl that you softened the butter in and crack three eggs into it, add three tablespoons of milk, and a tablespoon of of vanilla extract. Mix that together then pour it into the big bowl with the butter and sugar. You can do that with an electric mixer if you’re feeling wimpy.
4. Now in a totally different bowl you need to put two cups of flour, a teaspoon each of baking powder and baking soda, about half a teaspoon of salt, and not quite that much of cinnamon. Mix all that up together so its a big bowl of powdery stuff.
5. Now comes the time to really pump those guns. You make these cookies enough times and you wil have forearms like MacGwire. Dump about a fourth of the flour mixture into the the butter, milk, sugar mixture. Get your wooden spoon again and start combining it all. Make sure you blend it up good, scrapiing that part that rides up the spoon back into the mix. Once is mixed good, add another quarter of the flour stuff. Keep doing it untill it’s all mixed together.
6. Next add three cups of oats (about a cup at a time). Once again, mix it up good so the oats are evenly throughout.
7. I like to taste a spoonful of it at this point. No reason other than I like it. Even oatmeal cookie dough is pretty damned good.
8. Now, for the best part. The stuff that really makes the cookies good. I guess you could just stop here and put them in the oven, but they’d be plain. They’d be enjoyable, but nothing special. (Like why just settle for a handjob, if a throat is is in the offering?) So, take a half a cup of the pecans and stir them into the batter. Then do the same with a half a cup of the golden raisins (don’t kill this cookie with black raisins! the golden ones have a nicer flavor). And last, mix in a half a cup of dried cranberries. Keep stirring to make sure you have a some of all three in all parts of the batter.
9. Put some Saran wrap or somethin like that over the bowl and put in the refigerator for at least two hours. I like to do it over night cause the batter stays colder longer when you start to bake them.
10. If you’re the impatient type (read: cookie whore) and that two hour wait is all you will be able to stand, then kill some of that time cleaning up your mess. You got ingredients to put away and a couple of bowls and spoons to wash. Not to mention cleaning up the spilled sugar and flour on the counter (and floor). And be sure you get any stray egg drippings. You don’t want to contaminate something else and poison someone. (Have I ever mentioned I’m a bit of a germaphobe?)
11. After clean up you will probably still have some time to kill. Remember that porn I said you’d need later? Well, go whip of a batch or two of homegrown batter while you wait. If nothing else, you be hungry for the cookies are done.
12. Once the batter has chilled, it’s going to be pretty firm. And I’m talking ready to get down to business firm. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and very lightly grease a cookie sheet. Very lightly. Take a tablespoon and roll a decent sized ball of the dough into it and place it on the sheet (about the diameter of a fillling date..and I don’t mean fruit…well, not the kind on trees). Then mash it down a little with the spoon. I put about six or eight on a sheet.
13. Once the oven is ready, baked them for about 15-18 minutes until the center is soft, but the edges are just a little bit crisp. While they are baking, you can start another sheet so it can go in while the first one cools. Don’t try to take them off the sheet too soon after baking or they will break (although, I gotta sa, when they are still warm they’re fucking awesome.)

Well, that’s pretty much it. Just remember a couple of things. If your kitchen starts getting warm and the batter starts getting a little gooey, put it back in the fridge a while. If it’s too soft it will spread too much on the sheet when it bakes. And I warn you to resist the urge to eat a lot of these at one. You’re gonna want to. They are like crack cookies. But think about it: oatmeal, raisins, dried fruit…..that’s a lot of fiber too many and them babies are gonna clean your insides out…at an inopportune time. But then again, has a colonic ever tasted so good?

This entry was posted on Friday, September 9th, 2005 at 5:33 pm and is filed under being tony, general. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.