oatmeal raisin cookies.

Today was a very productive day. Not only did I clean my entire apartment, but I also baked a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies (just used raisins instead of chocolate chips like the recipe calls for!) and made crunchy chicken tenders and french fries for dinner fourth-meal. I can't justify calling it dinner when it is eaten at 10pm. 

So around 4 o'clock or so I put the chicken breast tenders in a casserole dish with some buttermilk to hang out for a few hours. 

I was slightly concerned by the sour smell of the buttermilk, but after a quick phone call to my mom, I learned that the smell was perfectly normal. [And by "learned it was perfectly normal, I mean the conversation went something like this:

Me: Mom, my buttermilk smells sour. Is it supposed to?

Mom: I don't know, I've never smelled buttermilk before.

Me: Well I checked the expiration date, and it isn't until September 7th.

Mom: I think in one of my old cookbooks I read that you can substitute buttermilk by adding some vinegar to regular milk. So maybe that's what you're smelling?

Me: Eh. Sounds good to me.]

I make at LEAST one phone call per week to my mom for food advice. Aren't mom's handy? :) [Oh, and don't get me wrong, my dad is a PHENOMENAL cook. At some point I'll have to post some of the recipes I learned from him.]

So around 9, I took the now buttermilk-infused chicken tenders out of the fridge to give them their delicious coating. Panko breadcrumbs. Have you ever used Panko? I never did until a few weeks ago when I breaded some fish in them. Um, where has this been all my life? 

 

All dressed and ready for the ball! (And by ball, I mean 450 degree oven. But you knew that). Don't worry, these studs had a date. They met up with the yukon-gold potato french fries that had already been in the oven for 20 minutes. 

They turned out great. I dipped everything in ketchup... but doesn't ketchup just kind of make everything better? Dillon agrees. 

Yukon gold potatoes cost a little more than your run-of-the-mill white potatoes, but oh.my.gosh. are they worth it. They have a much deeper flavor than regular potatoes. I also think they are less starchy. 

So by now I bet you're wondering why I titled this post "oatmeal raisin cookies" and then spend ten minutes rambling about buttermilk, panko bread crumbs, and yukon gold potatoes. Don't you worry, I didn't forget.

Dillon has been asking me to make these cookies for a few days now. And by that I mean every time I gave him the choice between these cookies and ANYTHING else, he always chose these.

Honestly, I wasn't that excited about making them. I like making cookies with exciting ingredients and new combinations that I have never tried before. But oatmeal raisin? Come on, how much more old school can you get?

I officially stand corrected. These are actually my favorite cookie I have made since starting this blog. They are just so-so-so delicious, moist, chewy, and everything else that you would want out of a cookie. I have to admit that I WAS going to make half the batch with chocolate chips instead of raisins, but I thought if I made them all with raisins, I wouldn't eat any. Um, wrong. 

 

The first cookie I tried (straight out of the oven, straight into my mouth) didn't have any raisins in it because it was the batter from the bottom of the bowl. It was sooo yummy that it made me want to make a batch right that instant that had no raisins.

Don't be fooled- I have also eaten two cookies with raisins, and since I usually only eat one of whatever I'm baking, that means these are pretty dang good. But I'm just saying that if you detest raisins, these are phenomenal sans raisins. Or you could always do it with chocolate chips like the original recipe calls for. Jessica knows what she's doing when it comes to chocolate.

Are you sick of stacked cookie pictures yet? Good. Me neither.