Now Is The Time

 

Yesterday I made the first batch of oatmeal cookies of the season; Susan says it doesn’t really feel like Fall until the first batch is made and one gets a chewy sample fresh out of the oven. To that end, I hauled out Mom’s old Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook (1953 Version, though it has been reprinted many times;  it was one of Mom and Pop’s wedding presents). It is, as one might imagine, a little battered and yellowed from use over the years, and now it is bulging with extra recipes, from newspaper clippings to little cards to hand-scratched scraps of paper, including instructions for ‘refrigerator cookies’ that I made in Home Economics back when I was in middle school. The cookbook was always hauled out for at least three things: making a turkey, canning (putting up jelly or pickles), and making oatmeal cookies. Here is the simple recipe, which I still always check, just to be sure I'm not forgetting anything:

Oatmeal Crispies

1 cup shortening

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup granulated (white) sugar

2 well-beaten eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 ½ cups sifted enriched flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon (baking) soda

3 cups quick-cooking oats

(nuts – chopped walnuts or pecans - or raisins optional, ½ cup)

Thoroughly cream shortening and sugars; add eggs and vanilla; mix well. Stir dry ingredients; add to creamed mixture. (Now would be the time to add nuts or raisins and mix well). The recipe says to shape it into rolls and chill thoroughly; I find it easier to take about a tablespoon of dough and shape each one. Make them about ¼ inch thick. It also says put them on an ungreased cookie sheet but these days I use a foiled sheet with a spritz of Pam. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. It says it makes five dozen, but the way I roll them it comes out to more like 30. And there you go.