Soft and wholesome oatmeal cookies.  Be it with raisins or chocolate chips, sometimes you just are in the mood for a cookie with oats. 

Let me tell you, this oatmeal cookie may rival your grandmothers’. 

I make a lot of oatmeal cookies and this variation is one of my favorites.  It is based off of a recipe from 2004 of Emeril Lagasse.  A master chef who knows his food, so I know it’s a good recipe.  The beauty of the oatmeal cookie is that you can really add any nuts, dried fruit or chocolate you would like!  I still have yet to say if I am an oatmeal chocolate chip or oatmeal raisin kind of girl.  Ask it yourself, it’s a tough decision! … so I just do both.

A trick that is worth it:   Soak the raisins for 15 minutes in boiling water.  They will plump up.  You may not think it’ll make a difference, but once you bake the cookies and eat them, you will be VERY glad you took this extra step!

LOADED OATMEAL COOKIES

• 1 cup raisins
• 2 sticks unsalted butter
• 2 cups light brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 large eggs
• 1 ½ cups wheat flour
• ½ cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• pinch of nutmeg
• ¼ cup buttermilk
• 2 cups quick-cooking oats (not the instant or old-fashioned)
• ¾ cup chopped toasted pecans
• ¾ cup white chocolate chips
• ½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

-Preheat oven 350 degrees.  Place raisins in bowl with boiling water for 15-20 minutes, covered, to plump up.  Drain well.

-In large bowl, mix butter and sugar until fluffy.  Add vanilla and eggs.  In medium bowl sift flour, powder, soda, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg. Stir into butter mixture.  Add the buttermilk to dough.

-Fold in oats, raisins, nuts and chocolate chips until well blended.

-Bake for about 9-10 minutes or until golden brown, don’t overbake or they are hard.  Let cool and then completely cool on a wire rack.

TIP:  Right when you take the cookies out of the oven you can easily shape the edges of the cookies if they didn’t bake into a perfect circle.  Then the cookies will all look uniform and perfect :)

When I package them, I put a square of parchment paper in between the cookies so they don’t stick together.