Taste Treat Cookie Recipe

Hi
Here are a couple variations I made yesterday to my family's favorite "Cowboy Cookie' recipe. Cowboy cookies are what we take on trail rides - like we convince ourselves that these wonderful cookies are kinda like a trailbar? Ahem...probably not quite that super healthy :)

Start with Elfie's Oatmeal Cookies

3/4 cup of butter
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tsp real vanilla
1/4 cup water
1 large egg
1 cup sifted flour
1tsp salt
1/2 tsp soda
3 cups of real rolled oats (NOT INSTANT)

What I do is
Beat together the butter (you can use margarine or shortening if you must) and both kinds of sugar till sort of fluffy. Then add egg, vanilla, water and beat some more.

Sift together flour, soda, and salt and add that to the first mixture. Now stir in the 3 cups of oats. Let it stand at least 15 minutes for the nicest textured cookies.

For the new variation do this

After you finish the wet mixture, add 3/4 cup of finely chopped sugared ginger and half a bag of flaked coconut - just a minute I will go see how much that is..... Ok comes out to about 1 1/2 cups and it is Angel Flake sweetened, ohh and it is so good. guess I'll just eat the rest.......

Alrighty - in case you are wondering about the ginger - I buy mine here

http://www.reedsgingerbrew.com/ReedsCart_v2/show_item.asp?MainCat=1&Category=5&Item=7&page=1

This is the BEST ginger I have ever found and I am a Hawaiian kid totally into GINGER! This has no white sugar - just pure cane syrup. It is fantastic. I buy the 11 pound box, but there are smaller quantities available too.

So now you have the basic mixture butter-sugar-egg-flavoring-water plus the ginger and coconut. Now you mix in the dry stuff.

Drop onto a greased cookie sheet by rounded tsp for small cookies tbsp for big ones. Bake at 350 watching carefully for burning as they are pretty sugary and melty.

My trusted buddy @Mailahug was over yesterday making wreaths with me and she went nuts for these which is a huge endorsement as Lizzy is an awesome baker :)

Oh - and I tried one other variation which is very good - just not in the same TOTALLY OUTRAGEOUS class as the ginger-coconut.

In this variation I used cherries that I dried last summer. I chopped up the dried fruit and put about 1 1/2 cups in the batter then added a cup of chopped walnuts. Those are yummy, but I did add an extra 1/4 cup of water and let it all sit for a bit to make everything tender.

I hope you like these :

Merry Christmas
Elfie

And no - I do not usually cook from a recipe - I just mostly make stuff up so that is why they don't look like a cookbook directions. But they work - I **Promise**