Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Hello all, so after an awesome time at the River Cats game last night, I decided to stay in this lovely summer evening and make some spontaneous oatmeal raisin cookies. These oat-filled beauties have always been a family favorite around here and I was in serious need of a cookie enduced pick me up...

Enter Quaker Oats man,



That jolly little blue-hat-wearing man with his flowing locks of white hair really called to me from his cylindrical box and I thought, Why not??

And all of this leads to...

MY VERY FIRST FOOD BLOG ENTRY

Granted I should have started with some amazing layered cake with ganache and fresh fruit and a custard of some kind, but the Quaker man got to me first so here it is..


This recipe is ridiculously easy and is actually on the bottom of the box lid or on the back of the wrapper depending on which box you buy.




Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

You will need:

1/2 lb (2 sticks) margarine or butter, softened
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt (optional)<-- I used it in mine.
3 cups Quaker Oats (quick or old fashioned, uncooked)
1 cup raisins

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F
2. Beat together margarine and sugars until creamy.
3. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well.
4. Add combined flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; mix well.
5. Stir in oats and raisins.
6. Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet.
7. Bake 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.
8. Cool 1 minute on cookie sheet; remove to wire rack.

And here they are..


photos courtesy of my crappy iPhone camera.

and here is my wonderful baking assistant Nicole,



she mostly just watched and taste tested but that was to be expected, not all my friends are as domestic as I am. ;)

Summer time, BBQ's, and Baseball Games

Ok so I've got two of the three I suppose but what is the deal with the lack of barbecues this summer. I mean come on, what's not to love?

The smell of charcoal and barbecue sauce fills the air. You're hot and sticky and you smell of sunscreen but you still look super cool in your flip flops and sunglasses. You spend the afternoon catching up with friends, getting some sun, and munching on fresh fruit and veggie platters while eagerly anticipating the hot dog or cheeseburger in your immediate future. Is it the most nutritious thing in the world? No. Is it an amazing culinary feat? No. But that hotdog, slightly charred because my dad left it on the BBQ for too long, tucked in a white fluffy bun and smothered in ketchup, mustard and relish throws me back to the summers of my childhood and the many many barbecues that filled them.

Ok, so that was a little intense but can you understand my nostalgia?

The thing is, BBQ's aren't even that hard to have. They aren't complicated at all. Call up your friends, assign them something to bring, break out the sunscreen and you're good to go.

"So, Tiffany, why don't you just have one?" you ask?

Well I guess I should...I don't have a good enough excuse not to.

Ok, i'm doing it!!




But not today. Because today I am going to a minor league baseball game in the 109 degree heat that Sacramento has so kindly graced us with. I will most likely spend the entire summer complaining of this heat, but I know once I'm back in Monterey enduring the gale-force winds and shivering my way through the winter, I will think back fondly to the feeling of my skin soaking in the sunlight and how wonderful it was to spend 3 months being carefree, spontaneous, and TAN.


<3

blonde. blonde. blonde.

So the latest news is:

I am now blonde.





I wish I had something more exciting to blog about today in my new found blogging glory, but alas my day consisted of dance practice, subway sandwiches, and a serious nap time with Lauren.--That's what best friends are for, right?

So anyways, back to the blonde. It was a process and I looked remarkably like Vitamin C (the girl from the 90's who sang that song Graduation) there for a bit but now I am blonde and loving it. :)


Check out the time line:

Here I am as brunette as god created me.



Here is the week long Vitamin C stage where I rarely left the house and rocked a red bandana most days just to cement the whole trailer trash peroxide blonde feel.



See the resemblance???




So then I went to see the wonderful Colie at Willow Salon & Spa and by the magic of hair dye and foils she transformed me into a normal looking individual who could finally leave the house. Yay!



and that concludes this semi=pointless post.

:)

Knight & Day and a Lovely Night.

Ok, so I guess amongst the hodgepodge of posts regarding recipes, boys, college life, and sparkly things, I am also adding movie reviews to the mix. Not by choice but due to the fact that I saw THE MOST ridiculous movie of my life tonight. I literally laughed the entire time...

Ok so to start I had the pleasure of dining with two of my favorite people this even Jake and Lydia, it was a belated birthday celebration dinner/it had been to long since we saw one another sans snotty teenagers so it was a much needed get together to say the least.

Anyways

Once Toy Story 3 was out of the running due to ridiculous show times that were clearly catered to infants and not the generation that grew up with Toy Story 1 & 2 we let the birthday girl pick. So it was decided that we would see the 9:55 showing of Knight & Day, and action movie starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz.

First off let me say that ever since Tom Cruise acted like a crazy person on Oprah I have never been able to look at him the same, and Cameron Diaz, while I do love her and most of the movies she's done, is aging and needs to quit playing the ditzy blonde roles....just saying.


The movie it self was romantic comedy meets intense action flick meets ridiculous amounts of special effects.

Sounds perfect right? like the ideal movie for boyfriends and girlfriends to see together. But....its not. it was odd and cumbersome and hilarious in a "I can't believe what I'm watching" way.

Ok, so there it is. I just had to get all of that off of my chest, I guess if it's a Sunday afternoon and you have nothing to do and the sort of cute guy at the ticket booth wants to let you in for free, then I'd say go for it. But other than that, I wouldn't waste your time. :)

Because all the cool kids are doing it.

So my friends Chelsea and Ashley decided it would be a good idea to start a blog (morethanvanilla36.blogspot.com) and I thought, why not? My roommate and I have both created bucket lists and on mine it says "create a food blog" as number 7 or something, so I figured why not just start a blog, throw in a few recipes here and there, and the use my crazy life to fill in the gaps. Good idea, yes? Well, maybe not, but you are reading this anyways aren't you? :)

So today I will start with why I chose the blog title I did. should anyone question me, haha.


Ok, so I'm always saying how much I love love. I love being in love, seeing people in love, sappy romantic comedies, the works. I try not to love so freely and actually protect my heart from time to time, but lets face it. I'm not very good at it. I love freely and given the opportunity (and a very tall ladder) I would literally shout it from the rooftops. <3=greatness

Next up we have chocolate. I feel like this one is pretty self explanatory but for the sake of blogging I will say that 1. I love chocolate. 2. I have a serious sweet tooth. and 3. I bake some pretty awesome desserts.

And that leaves us with the things that sparkle. I'm sure that most of the female population can relate to the love of shiny and sparkly things but I think I might have been given an extra dose of that love. I get distracted by the smallest excess glimmer of light it is ridiculous. So all things that sparkle seriously do some damage in the life of Tiffany Osgood. It could literally be anything: glitter, rhinestones, sequins. But most the time its more dangerous, like.......diamonds. ;)


But alas, diamonds are a girls best friend (and my name IS Tiffany) so there. :)