Coconut & Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

I can't wait, one more week and me and the hubby will be off to the east coast for a much needed vacation.  I think its been about 2 years since we've been on a vacation.  Our last one was in 2011 after we came back from a 8 month deployment in Iraq.

In the military we earn 30 days of leave a year and when you dont use that leave up they just roll over to the next year. Basically we earn about 2.5 days of leave every month.  

Some people dont normally have issues with taking leave from their work centers. But then if you are one of those unlucky people who have jobs where its very hard to coordinate leave, you can end up not taking leave for several years and have about 70-80 in the books to use. But it doesn't help to save that much leave because you are only authorized to use 30 days at anyone given time, you can never go over 30 days without commander approval.  When I was a mechanic it was extremely hard to take leave beause of low manning and workload so I only took a vacation about every other year.  My new job as a paralegal is pretty much the same, only because we dont have many people in the office and we can get pretty busy with court-martials.  Im fortunate enough that I was able to coordinate some leave for about 3 weeks and now we are off to a family reunion in New York plus a Dave Matthews concert in Hersey PA! Plus I'm pretty excited to go back to the states and shop.

These cookies were a big hit at work the combination of chocolate and coconut combined within a oatmeal cookie seemed like the perfect match. Plus it helps when you just overload the batter with chocolate chips so every cookie and every bite took you got come chocolate chips and coconut. 

Coconut & Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
Adapted from the Messy Baker

Yields: 25-30 cookies depending on size

Ingredients

1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temp
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups old fashinoned rolled oats
3/4 cup chocolate chips (your favorited kind)
3/4 cup sweetened coconut flakes

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

2. In a medium sized bowl, whisk togehter the flour, baking soda, salt and oats, set aside.

3. In a electric mixer on medium speed, beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy about 3 minutes, add in the eggs and vanilla extract until completely combined.

4. Switch the mixer to low speed and gradually add in the flour mixture until combined, making sure the scrape down the sides of the bowl to incorportate everything together.

5. Fold in the chocolate chips and coconut into the batter and depending on how big you want to make your cookies roll a 1 to 2 inch ball together slightly flatting it and place it on the parchment paper 2 inch apart from each other  Bake for 12-15 minutes or until lightly golden brown. Remove cookies from oven and cool on a wire rack. Enjoy with a giant glass of milk!

*This cookie dough can be made ahead and kept in the fridge up to 5 days in an air tight container.

Old Fashioned Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Military Life:  Okay, so I'm swimming in oatmeal right now, I have about 3 giant containers of oatmeal currently in my pantry and there is no possible way me and my husband can finish it all before their expiration date.  Now I didn't go to the store and purposely buy an over abundance of oatmeal on my own, I acquired most of it from friends PCSing (Permanent change of Station).  We like our acronyms in the military.

In the military we normally move about every 3 to 4 years. You'll stay at one base for a period of time until you receive orders for another base somewhere around the world.  So usually your neighbors and friends around you are constantly moving in or moving out and that means people have to get rid of persihbles they cannot pack with them, because honestly you wont see your house hold goods for about 2 months while moving to another base. 

One of my neighbors just packed her goods for Germany (I'm jealous!) and had a ton of left over baking goods and donated them to me.  So now its up to me to put all this oatmeal to good use and why not make something that is nostalgic to childhood and bake some delicious chewy oatmeal raisin cookies. I love my cookies with tons of oatmeal and raisins in every bite, some people are raisin haters, but not I, please give me a cookie loaded with sweet raisins. 

 I made these cookies with a limited amount of sugar (no white sugar either) tons of raisins and added some cinnamon and ginger. These cookies baked up nice and plump with the raisins giving the cookie some added sweetness, these go perfect with a giant glass of milk. More oatmeal goodies to come, can't wait to share another oatmeal cookie version with you soon, a little hint theres going to be coconut : )

Old Fashioned Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Recipe from Oishii Treats

Yields: 30-34 cookies

Ingredients

2 cups old fashioned oatmeal
1 1/4 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 cup butter (12 tablespoons), at room temp
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup rasins


Directions

- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper
- In a large mixing bowl whisk together the oatmeal, flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and ginger and set aside.
- In a electric mixer beat your butter and brown sugar together until fluffy, scraping the side of the bowl when needed, about 3 minutes. Add in your eggs one at a time until fully incorporated and then your vanilla extract.
- On low speed slowly add in your dry ingredients, scrapping down the side of the bowl to get all the flour combined, once done switch to medium/high speed and mix the dough until all ingredients are combined.  Add in the raisins and mix for 30 seconds.
- Using a spoon roll about a 1inch ball of dough and slightly flatten with the palm of your hand, place the on the cookie sheet about 2 inches apart from one another, I could fit about 9 on my cookie sheet.

- Bake for 13-14 minutes, remove from oven and let sit on the cookie sheet for 4 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an air tight container for up to 3 days.

Oatmeal Whoopie Pies

I had A LOT of frosting left over from the birthday cupcakes post.  I couldn't let all that delicious cream cheese frosting go to waste.  So I thought to myself hmm besides cupcakes what should I use the frosting for.  Whoppie Pies!!! I've noticed they have become quite popular lately.  Funny thing though, only half of my friends knows what a whoppie pie is, the other half had no idea what I was talking about.  They thought I meant something "dirty" if you know what I mean ;)

Oatmeal Whoppie Pies with Cream Cheese Frosting
Adapted from Mother Thyme

Yields: 18 Whoppie Pies

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup butter (1 stick at room temp)
1 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs

Directions

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper
- In a large bowl combine the flour, oats, salt, cinnamon and baking soda and set aside
- In a medium bowl cream together the butter and brown sugar, add the eggs one at a time until combine.
- Add the butter mixture to the flour and mix until completely combined
- using a spoon make rounded tablespoon sized balls and place on the cookie sheet about 1 inch apart.
- Bake for 9-11 minutes until sides of cookie start to brown, cool completely on a wire rack before applying cream cheese between two cookies.

Cream Cheese Frosting


Ingredients

1 8 ounce package of cream cheese
1/2 cup butter
2 teaspoons vanilla
5 1/2 Cups powdered sugar

Directions

Let the cream cheese and butter sit at room temp for at least 45 minutes. In a large mixing bowl beat the butter, cream cheese, and vanilla with an electric mixer on medium to high speed until fluffy. Gradually add your powdered sugar until full combined. place in the fridge until ready to pipe or frost cupcakes.