And the Winners Are... #2

George asked for oatmeal raisin cookies, but since it was the Fourth of July, I thought I would give the cookies some flair. Red, white and blue-ish flair to be specific.

This recipe is the same recipe from the May post, Trees and Cookies.

This recipe is so so good, it is my favorite oatmeal cookie. The cookbook I adapted the recipe from was a surprise gift, I don't know who sent it to me, but one day it appeared by my door. This has actually become on of my favorite cookbooks. Cooking with Friends, from the Friend's TV show. This recipe is Phoebe's Fabulous Oatmeal-Raisin Cookies. Every time I bring out the cookbook, I start a Friend's marathon

This recipe is so adaptable, I have made it with all kinds of nuts, fruit, etc. No matter what extra ingredients I add, these cookies are always delicious. You can even go as far to add flavor extracts like almond. Enjoy!

Phoebe's Oatmeal Cookies

Adapted from Cooking with Friends Cookbook

12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

2/3 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats

1 1/4 cup flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cups raisins, soak the raisins in hot water with a splash of vanilla.

1/2 cup craisins

1/2 cup white chocolate chips

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375

Cream the butter for 1 minute with an electric mixer. Cream the butter and the sugars together until light and fluffy, about 1 minute. Beat in the egg and vanilla until smooth.

Stir together oats, flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl. Stir the dry ingredients together into the batter until just combined. Stir in the raisins, craisins and white chocolate chips. It was very hard to make the balls for the cookies, their is a lot of fruit and white chocolate chip bits that make it hard to keep the cookies together. Its ok, just use a spoon to get the dough to the cookie sheet, then with the craisins, raisins, and white chocolate and batter together, cup them into a ball.

Drop the dough by heaping tablespoons onto 2 large baking sheets (no need to grease them), I use parchment paper, leaving 2 inches between each ball of dough. Bake until the cookies are golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes, I only baked them 8 1/2 minutes. Cool cookies on sheets for several minutes and then transfer them to a rack to cool. Makes about 24 large cookies.