Chocolate Chip Cookies

     Chocolate chip cookies are a favorite of everyone.  You can make them soft and chewy or crisp and crunchy.  You can have lots of chips or just a few, you can have nuts or leave them out.  You can add chocolate to the batter to make them double chocolate or substitute peanut butter, butterscotch, toffee, or white chocolate or a combination to make another kind of cookie all together.  You are limited only by your imagination.
     This is a recipe I was given years ago and have made multiple changes so it makes a good cookie and no one suspects it doesn't have butter or the regular chocolate chips.  I buy nondairy chocolate chips at a health food store.  If one is not available to you, look for them online.

                                                            Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 1/4 cups oatmeal
1 1/2 cup nuts
1 1/2 bags nondairy semi-sweet chocolate chips (16 oz. total)
1 cup stick margarine-2 sticks-softened
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda

      Preheat oven to 380 degrees.  Blend oatmeal, nuts, and 1/2 bag chocolate chips in food processor until chopped.  Set aside.  Cream margarine and both sugars with a mixer.  Add eggs and vanilla.  Mix the salt, baking powder, and baking soda with the flour in a separate bowl.  Add to the mixture in the mixing bowl slowly.  When it is all mixed together, add the mixture from the food processor.
     You may bake these cookies on a baking sheet sprayed with cooking spray or lined with a reusable liner or parchment paper.  The last two will keep you from having to wash the baking sheet.
     Roll about two teaspoons of dough in your hand or with a scoop into a ball.  If you want soft and chewy cookies, you can get fifteen cookies on a baking sheet.  If you want crispy cookies, flatten the ball and only put twelve cookies on the baking sheet.  Bake for 12 minutes.  Check that your cookies are golden brown, but not too light or not burned.  Remember every oven is different.
     If you want to make chocolate dough, instead of putting the half bag of chocolate chips in the food processor, melt them.  Let them cool as much as possible without hardening before mixing with the dough.
     This recipe makes about five dozen cookies, but if you wanted to make extra dough to freeze, it keeps well in the freezer for a month.


     Next time I'll share a remake of a recipe that was originally buttermilk cinnamon bread and is now nutmeg banana bread.  If you are lactose intollerant you can't have buttermilk and if you have GERD you can't have cinnamon.  I'm sure you're wondering how I made the changes to get from one recipe to the other, but I will explain that next time.  See you then.