Foodie Friday -- Oatmeal Craisin White Chocolate Chip Cookies

A couple of weeks ago, I had a craving.

Gloomy weather does it to me as I have the urge to bake, and baking is detrimental to my weight loss efforts. So the key is to have the craving on a day when hubby had to go to work the next day and he can take the extras! Which he did.

Anyway, I was thinking how good Craisins were and that they would taste good with white chocolate chips. Lo and Behold! The good folks at Ocean Spray figured it out for me! This recipe was on the back of the mongo bag I had purchased from Sam's Club.

Excellent cookie! But man, it cost so much in WW points that I ate my one and only cookie really, really slowly.

Oatmeal Craisin White Chocolate Chip Cookies

 

2/3 cup butter, softened

2/3 cup brown sugar, packed

2 large eggs

1 ½ cup old-fashioned oats

1 ½ cup flour

1 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

2/3 cup Craisin Dried Cranberries

2/3 cup white chocolate chips 

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar together in medium mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add eggs, mixing well. Combine oats, flour, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl.

Add to butter mixture in several additions, mixing well after each addition. Stir in dried cranberries and white chocolate chips.

Drop by rounded teaspoons onto an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool on wire rack.

Makes 2 ½ dozen cookies.

 

Tips & Tricks:

·         I used a medium cookie scoop and it made only 22 cookies with a diameter of 2-2 ½ inches.

·         I did put this into the WW recipe builder and came up with a whopping 5 WW points per cookie. Yeah . . . I ate one, but sent the remaining cookies to work with the hubby the next day.

·         I’m lazy and prefer to use parchment paper on my cookie sheets. It’s quick. It’s easy. And there is no clean up. Just toss the paper in the trash when you’re finished cooking.

·         My oven tends to be on the hot side, so I baked the cookies between 9-10 minutes.  

Enjoy!

Bits and Pieces

With all this rain, I had forgotten how quickly black spot spreads. *Remember the last two years have been droughty. No rain, thus no black spot.* And I didn't spray AT ALL. Some of my roses are denuded of leaves. I need to deadhead and spray this weekend. Poor babies.


Last night I made my spaghetti meat sauce and had to open a bottle of red wine.  I searched in my cabinet and found a 2005 Mount Pleasant Norton. We probably did buy this wine about 6-8 years ago, but the last time I opened the bottle it was so tannic that it was undrinkable. Now, it's finally ready. Making the spaghetti sauce was quick and easy because of another little trick--pre-cook your meat. The last time I went to Sam's Club I purchased six pounds of ground beef and about the same amount of hot Italian sausage, in casings. I spent all morning cooking the meat, dividing it and sealing it into vacuum bags. It was definitely worth the hassle when all I had to do was pull the meat out of the freezer, defrost it a little and dump it into the sauce to finish up.


The kidlet goes to Girl Scout camp next week. They are not allowed to take electronics, and the one paperback book I bought her when I met Tara Hudson--Hereafter-- has been read. Guess I'll need to stop at Barnes and Noble or Books-A-Million to find books two and three, Arise and Elegy.


Speaking of YA, Ally Carter keeps tweeting that she has finished the very last Gallagher Girls books. So sad. This was a nice series, but characters do tend to grow up. And the Gallagher Girls are finishing up at SPY high school.


I thought I'd be able to putz around the house today, do laundry, spray my roses, weed my garden, but nope, I had promised to take my hubs to have his windshield fixed. *sigh* Which means another trip around lunch to take him back to the aforementioned car. With new tires and a new windshield, its almost as if he has a brand new Corvette. Right?


With the kidlet at camp next week, maybe, just maybe, I'll actually be able to sit down and write. Man, it's been tough this summer. I did make a few corrections on DRAGON DAYS OF SUMMER as I reread the first 50 pages to get back into writing that story, but that was weeks ago! I'll have to do it all over again. Plus I want to get a rough draft down of my next picture book, PIPER AND THE EVERBERRY SOCCER GAME, tentative title.


I think temps will be going back to normal for the summer--90's and dry--so we might actually be able to swim in the pool. . . .along with starting to plan a few pool parties. YAY!

Later, Peeps!