a chocolate chip cookie, paint a picture day

I'm not a baker, but you've caught me on a good week.  The one thing I do make often are chocolate chip cookies.  I prefer not to buy them (that whole hydrogenated oil thing), and, really, these are so easy.  They are a favorite of the men in the house, great to pack in lunchboxes, make the house smell great, and are easy to freeze- I often make a double batch and hide freeze them.   I will admit to you that I put Quaker oats in them, and my kids aren't happy about that.  But if you run the oatmeal through a food processor till its finely ground you can fool them into thinking its not in there.  Well...ok, Emma knows its in there, mainly because she does most of the mixing when I bake these.  But she'll do anything for cookie dough, so keeping it a secret from Ian is no problem.  Emma controls the KitchenAid, scrapes down the sides of the bowl as expertly as Martha herself, and "drops" them on the baking sheet using two spoons.  She's become a very capable baker.

This recipe is my adaptation of the oatmeal raisin cookie recipe on the Quaker Oats box.  In case you're interested, here it is:

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
makes about 4 dozen

1 cup/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose, unbleached flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups rolled oats (ground up in the food processor if you need to be sneaky)
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Beat together butter and sugars until creamy.
Add eggs, one at a time, and vanilla, beat well.
In a separate bowl, combine flour, salt, and baking soda and mix to combine.  Add this in two batches to the mixer, mix well.
Stir in oats and chocolate chips.
Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet, lined with parchment.
Bake 10-12 minutes until golden brown.
Cool 1 minute on cookie sheet, remove to wire rack to cool completely.

These cookies really seem to bring out a person's inner artist, at least in Emma's case.  I pulled out some craft store pre-stretched canvases and let her have a go.  I love the horse's eye.  Considering its always a challenge for me to create any type of face on a stuffy or otherwise that I'm happy with, I really like the way she just jumps in without overthinking it.  Or maybe she was just trying to finish so she could grab another cookie...

I am pulling Emma into the kitchen more and more when I cook (Ian has zero interest at present).  A goal of mine this summer is for the two of us to make dinner for the family once a week.  I always looked at cooking with kids as one of those projects where I needed to literally sit on my hands to be able to let them actually do and participate, but I'm finding it surprisingly fun and easy to let her jump in.  Maybe I'm not the control freak I thought I was.

Scratch that...I probably still am...