The Beginning...

I have a confession to make:  I have become completely addicted to food blogs.  I don’t really care to admit just how much time I spend surfing around the interwebs looking at pretty pictures of yummy sounding recipes.  Oh the things you can do with sugar and chocolate and flour – the possibilities are endless and my baking to-do list has grown to a totally irrational size.  I figure it’s high time I did something about it.  So here goes – I’m starting my own blog.  I want to start moving on that crazy to-do list, and I want to try actually contributing something instead of just enjoying what everyone else puts out there.   

I’ll start with one of my favorites:  Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies.  These are my favorite cookies, which is seriously surprising given that there is no chocolate in them.  I had them for the first time sophomore year of college when my RA brought them around as she was meeting people.  I took one just to be polite.  I really didn’t plan to like them. I mean, they were cookies with no chocolate and who in their right mind makes cookies with no chocolate?  I really didn’t see the point.  That said, my RA stuck around to chat and politeness required me to try one.  Roughly 4 minutes later, I had emailed her to ask for the recipe.  Conveniently, it’s the recipe on the back of a bag of Nestle butterscotch bits.

Oatmeal Scotchies

1 ¼ C all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp salt

1 C (2 sticks) butter, softened

¾ C granulated sugar

¾ C packed brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

3 C oats

1 2/3 C (11-oz pkg) butterscotch chips

Preheat the oven to 375 F.  Combine flour, baking, soda, cinnamon, and salt in a small bowl.  Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract in a large bowl.  Gradually beat in flour mixture.  Stir in oats and butterscotch chips.  Drop by rounded teaspoon onto ungreased baking sheets.  Bake for 7-8 minutes for chewy cookies or 9-10 minutes for crisp cookies.  Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes, then remove to wire racks to cool completely.

It’s easiest to remove the cookies when they are warm.  They are pretty fragile to begin with, but they hold together OK when they’ve cooled.  Besides, broken cookies just give an excuse to eat a couple right out of the oven…