Oatmeal Crisps

Growing up, I was never interested in oatmeal cookies.  I've always had other favorites--white chocolate chip and Macadamia nut cookies, sugar cookies, my mom's cornflake cookies.  Mmm...  But these oatmeal cookies could have been added to my favorites long ago if I'd known about them.  These are delicious, and they were a hit at our Fourth of July party yesterday.

Before these, I had never rolled cookie dough into a log, refrigerated it, and sliced it up.  I've always done drop cookies, and these require a bit more time (waiting for the dough to cool), but it worked out fine.  We didn't need all the dough that the recipe makes (which is 5 dozen cookies!), so I put some in the freezer.  

I sliced the cookie dough too thick for the first dozen, though, because the twelve little dough slices all spread into huge, connected cookies on the pan.  (As I understand, they don't spread as much if you use shortening, which the original recipe called for, instead of butter, which I used, but I'm not at all interested in using shortening.)  Observe:

From this-

To this-

I got the recipe from my mom's old Better Homes and Gardens cookbook from back in the day.  I've loved reading it recently; those ladies knew what they were doing when they put it together. 



Oatmeal Crisps

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
3 cups quick-cooking rolled oats
1/2 cup chopped pecans (you could use walnuts)

Preheat oven to 350.  Cream butter and sugars in a large bowl.  Add eggs and vanilla.  Beat well.  Sift together flour, salt, and soda.; add to creamed mixture.  Stir in rolled oats and pecans, and mix.  Form dough into rolls, 1 to 1 1/2 inches in diameter.  Wrap in waxed paper, aluminum foil, or clear plastic.  Chill thoroughly in refrigerator.  With a sharp knife, slice cookies about 1/4-inch thick.  Bake on ungreased cookie sheet for 10 minutes.