“Oatmeal Crispies”—such a nice, wholesome ring to it. I swear, if you’d told me fifteen years ago, as I was traipsing all over Los Angeles and spilling tea on celebrities’ laps and sampling every delectable dessert known to mankind (green tea ice cream, anyone?), that I’d one day be living on a cattle ranch and making something called “Oatmeal Crispies” for a rugged cowboy, I’d have told you to put down the pot, once and for all.
But the fact remains, this is the best—and the simplest—oatmeal cookie there is. What I love about it is, the dough can be used to make drop cookies immediately, OR can be refrigerated or frozen in nice, neat rolls—ready to slice and bake whenever the cowboy in your life has a craving for something sweet (other than your neck, but that’s another story for another time.) This method is so convenient, I often make two or three recipes of dough at a time, freezing several rolls of dough at once. This ensures that warm cookies are always ten minutes away AND I have a steady supply of cookie dough I to eat whenever I want. Who can argue with that?
The Cast of Characters: Flour, sugar, brown sugar, baking soda, eggs, vanilla, salt, oats, pecans, shortening.
To a large mixing bowl, add 1 cup shortening…
1 cup packed brown sugar…
1 cup sugar…
Now, you can mix this by hand if you’d like, but I really don’t like exercise. So I use a mixer.
Either way, mix well until combined.
Now crack two eggs into a small bowl and beat together…
Now add 1 teaspoon vanilla…
And stir together well.
Add mixture to the bowl…
And mix together well.
Now add 1 1/2 cups flour to a large mixing bowl.
Add 1 teasoon of salt…
And 1 teaspoon baking soda.
Stir together well.
Add flour mixture to butter/sugar mixture.
Now find your quick oats. They’re in the pantry behind the instant mashed potatoes or the opened jar of jelly you forgot to put in the fridge.
Add three cups of oats to the bowl.
Now take a nice pile of pecans…or walnuts would work fine, too. But make sure Wetsy’s nowhere nearby or she’ll gag and choke and wheeze.
Now chop the nuts very finely. No big chunks. Oh, and don’t let Wetsy touch them or she’ll keel over.
Measure 1/2 cup…
And pour into the bowl. And don’t let Wetsy see them or she’ll cry.
Mix together well.
Now take a sheet of waxed paper.
And pour half the dough on the sheet.
With your hot little hand, form the dough into a log…
And wrap tightly in the waxed paper.
Now it’s ready to pop into the fridge, where it will keep for several days, or into the freezer, where it’ll keep until June 30, 2573! Of course, no one in your immediate family will be able to enjoy the cookies, but if you’re not concerned about minor details like these, don’t worry about it!
If you’d like to enjoy them sometime in your life, however, just take them out of the fridge (or freezer) and unwrap the waxed paper.
With a very sharp knife, begin slicing the cold dough…
Until you have as many cookies as you need.
In my case, it’s always the entire roll. But that’s just me.
Lay them on a cookie sheet…
And bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes, until they’re light golden brown.
Mmmm…Oatmeal Crispies.
It doesn’t get more Middle America than this.
