There are as many oatmeal secrets in America as there are splattered recipe cards – everyone seems to have a grandmother’s trick or a magazine shortcut to oatmeal bliss. Me? Forget fancy training and hand-kissed organics, because I’d never abandon this pleasure: pulling back the Quaker Oats tab with a satisfying “whh-ch,” getting a nice wholesome whiff, and then turning over the recipe to make Vanishing Oatmeal Cookies.
Oh, there are more glamorous recipes, more wholesome recipes, certainly more interesting recipes. But when it comes to oatmeal cookies, I don’t mess with the oven gods. Simple is best, and tradition rules.
Still – one gets creative, and on this particular day I sorely tempted Quaker man’s patience by mixing a handful of white chocolate chips into the dough. He looked at me sternly as they went into the bowl.
I say keep the base traditional – it can hardly be improved – and when white-haired guy’s not looking, throw something delicious in for fun. Here are 25 ways to trick out your oatmeal cookies – not necessarily ground-breaking, but all tasty and all in one place. I guarantee they’ll vanish.
I’ve made lots and lots of rugelach in my
day, but this one takes the cake. I have made my grandma’s, I have
made Ina’s, Martha’s and Rose’s. This one, from Cooks Illustrated is by
far the best I have ever had. Better than Weby’s bakery (most Sunday
mornings, when I was little, you could find me and my dad, waiting in
line to buy the fresh baked egg-onion bread). My kids don’t really like
raisins or dried fruit in their sweets. I altered the filling. I
substituted mini chocolate chips for the raisins.
Okay, It is true, I admit it! I make skillet jam, no really, I DO...No fanfare, no canning jars or water bath cauldrons just a non-stick skillet, some ripe, fragrant fruit, sugar and a lemon. That's it! This may not sound like a shortcut, but once you put this on the table some Sunday morning you'll forget that it took you half an hour or so to make. Well maybe 45 minutes until you get less nervous about making jam...
One of the best things of being a food photographer is the access to new tastes, flavors and recipes. Because 100% of what we do at our studio is actually edible, you’ll find me on set most days asking this series of questions to Adam, my food stylist partner:
I think I can speak for everyone when I say French fries are probably Americans' favorite guilty pleasure. So much so that Americans dared to rename them Freedom fries when France objected to the war.
Interestingly there is nothing French about them. As history goes,
potatoes were first brought to Spain via the New World expeditions.
Fried potatoes became popular during the 17th century in the Spanish
Netherlands, present day Belgium.
