Luxury Oatmeal Cookies

I love oatmeal cookies.  For many years, oatmeal cookies and sugar cookies were the only ones I'd eat.  I was skinny then.  You don't think that branching out into all of cookiedom and no longer being skinny are somehow connected, do you?

This being a Rose recipe, it begins with making granola.  At first I was disappointed that the granola didn't have dried fruit or other add-ins, but then I tasted it with yogurt (and this was before I'd even made the cookies) and realized that it was perfect with plain Greek yogurt.  The maple syrup and the Muscovado sugar add intense highlights and just the right amount of sweetness.

I used a combination of dark Muscovado and light brown sugars.  And thanks to you who told me different ways of keeping brown sugar in good shape.  I ended up getting some plastic jars that have a little terra cotta disk in.  The disk just needs to be moistened periodically.  So far it's working like a charm.  I put two rock-solid plastic bags of Muscovado sugar into one of the jars, and within 2 days, the sugar was back to its original condition.

You just press down the granola a bit to make it an even layer, and then you let it cool.  After the granola is finished, it's very easy to put together the cookies.  Just get the raisins and chocolate ready to add.  I used golden raisins.

And a combination of Ghiradelli chocolate chips and, to make of the difference, a chopped Green & Black's hazelnut and currant chocolate bar.  This was a good addition to the cookies, and I might just chop up a whole candy bar next time I make the cookies.

The sugar and butter mixture (I used the electric mixer method):

And mixed some more, chilled, and measured into 42-gram blobs.

Weighing blobs of cookies is, to my surprise, one of the most relaxing parts of baking.  I'm always happy when I get a chance to do it.  Well, unless I'm in a hurry, and then I just don't do it.

Into the oven they go.

And out they come, completely cookified.  One thing I like about cookies is that you don't have to wait for some event to serve a cookie.  There they are--take one while they're still warm.  Have two or three, I don't care.  There are plenty more.  On the other hand, a pie, for example, has to cool for hours, and then you don't just tuck into it in the middle of the afternoon.  We don't anyway, although that's probably a good thing to do.

Also, eating one cookie seems like a harmless thing to do, even if you're dieting.  One cookie probably barely has any more calories than an apple (if this is not true, don't bother to tell me; I don't want to know it) and does not lead to bouts of self-recrimination.  And they're practically a health food:  oats, walnuts, raisins--fruit, fiber, protein, antioxidants.

I will have to admit, though, that JJ, given the choice between this cookie and a dark chocolate Milano cookie, took the Milano.  A packaged cookie.  Well, he's only two years old and at least he likes dark chocolate.