Photos by Suzzycue This is the view of St James Church outside my third floor apartment window facing North 
I hope all my friends and followers had a very Merry Christmas this year. I certainly did with my family. We are still snow less in Stratford town but I thought I’d give you a picture so you could remember what it’s like. LOL Snow really is beautiful and calming, unlike, the holidays which can be very stressful.
I found out that, of the top ten stress reducing foods, Oatmeal is number one. We can all afford oatmeal, I am hoping. Oatmeal helps get serotonin flowing which is a calm inducing hormone. I now buy steel-cut or old-fashioned oats instead of the instant oatmeal because they are higher in fiber and they take longer to digest, so you stay full longer.
Recipes are really just an outline to follow. You can add other ingredients to this cookie recipe.
For example in this cranberry oatmeal cookie recipe, you can change the cranberries to raisins, if you don’t have cranberries. That kind of thing.
My Sister-in-Law Lill added white chocolate chips instead of brown chocolate ones and said the results were great. Her sister loves white chocolate so this was a delicious New Years Dinner Treat.
You should be open minded, when you use a recipe, is to follow the steps especially in baking. Baking is an exact science. The steps are there, so that you actually take your cookie’s flavor to the next level. And I’m going to show you, what I mean, by this cranberry oatmeal cookie recipe that I used to bake, while working, in a Stratford restaurant.
First of all, in one bowl mix the ingredients: 2 cups of white sugar, 2 cups of brown sugar and 1 pound of butter.
Now you’re going to add three eggs,( crack your egg into a coffee mug, because, if you get a blood spot in your egg, all the dry ingredients will be ruined) but you’re only going to add them one at a time and mix the egg completely into the dry ingredients. This simple trick, that you you can use in all your recipes for cookies, in baking will make your cookies… WOW.
Then in another mixing bowl, because, we never mix the wet ingredients in with the dry ingredients until we get them altogether, is the second WOW trick.
You will mix together: 3 cups of flour, 3 cups a steel oatmeal, 2 teaspoons of baking soda, 3 cups a cranberries, 3 cups of chocolate chips, and 3 cups of Almond chips. (walnuts would also work good here.) Now mix together with the top wet ingredients.
Then, if you want big cookies, you roll them into 3 1/2 ounce balls. You set them on a greased cookie sheet or parchment paper at least 3 inches apart , because this gives them room to bake without touching each other. This recipe will give you lots of cookies to pass out to your guests.
You bake them in a rewarmed 350° oven for about 12 minutes. You can check the cookies by sticking a toothpick in them and if there is any cookie on the toothpick just add a couple more minutes. Be careful not to burn them because they are so good. Don’t forget to cool before eating so they don’t fall apart.
WOW… your friends at your New Year’s Eve party, with these cookies on your hors d’oeuvre table in your home. After the holidays, you can make these cookies smaller, as a healthy treat for your children to take in their lunchboxes. Happy New Year my friends and followers. May 2016 be your best year yet.
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