Whiskey Raisin Oatmeal Bars

Raisins soaked in warm whiskey will plump up nicely, absorbing quite a bit of the liquid, thereby adding a sweet touch of whiskey flavor to every bite of these chewy oatmeal cookie bars. Top them with a glaze made from the leftover raisin-y whiskey for extra oomph. 

The Irish are known for a few things including, wrongly or rightly, the talent and skill to make great whiskey and a propensity drink it in prodigious quantities. Also, Irish oats seem to come up a lot online when one is researching Irish baked goods. When our illustrious Creative Cookie Exchange leader, Laura from The Spiced Life, suggested that we think ahead to St. Patrick’s Day for this month’s Drunken Cookies theme, I decided to find a way to combine the two without just baking drunk. Although that option had the allure of a personal challenge, I was thinking it wasn't quite what Laura had in mind.

My Drunk Kitchen, anyone?  **objectionable language warning for the sensitive**

I promise I did not drink a drop while baking these. The shot that accompanies the photos was purely for quality control. Someone had to do it.

Ingredients
For the cookies:
3/4 cup or 170g unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup packed or 150g dark brown sugar
1/4 cup or 50g granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup or 125g flour
1 1/2 cups or 120g oats
1 cup or 170g raisins of your choice (Optional: extra for decorating)
1/2 cup or 120ml Irish whiskey (I used Bushmill’s. Not a whiskey drinker? Sub apple juice.)

Optional - For the glaze:
1 tablespoon leftover whiskey from raisin soaking
Icing sugar
Pinch salt

Method
Warm your whiskey briefly in the microwave and pour it over the raisins in a small bowl.

Allow to soak at least one hour. If you have the raisins in a microwaveable bowl, you can gently warm them once more during that time. Stir them occasionally. Mine soaked up a little more than half the whiskey. The golden ones plumped up better than the dark ones.

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C.

Prepare an 8-inch or cm square baking pan by lining it with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, blend together butter, sugars, egg, salt, and cinnamon until smooth.

Add in the flour and mix well.

Drain the raisins, reserving the leftover whiskey, and add them to the bowl, along with oats. Stir until just combined.

Spread the soft dough out into your prepared pan. I like to put a piece of cling film on top and use my hands to get the dough nice and even, even into the corners.

Bake for about 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with moist crumbs attached.

Cool the bars completely in the pan and then remove the whole square with the parchment paper. Use a great big knife to cut it into 18 bars.

If you want to make the glaze, put your whiskey in a small bowl and add a tiny pinch of salt. Add icing sugar a few spoonfuls at a time and stir well after each addition, until you are happy with the consistency.

Put a spoonful on each of the cooled cookie bars and spread it around a little with the back of the spoon.

Decorate with a few more raisins while the glaze is still soft.  Allow the glaze to set before trying to stack or transport them.

Wouldn't these be great with a tot of whiskey or, if that's not your cup of tea, perhaps a cup of tea?

Enjoy!

If you are looking for a great way to add alcohol to your baked goods - and, really, who isn’t? – check out these great cookie recipes.

• Amaretto Tricolor Cookies from Karen’s Kitchen Stories
• Amaretti Biscuits from A Baker’s House
• Bourbon Creams from Baking in Pyjamas
• Cherry Blossom Tea Cookies from NinjaBaker
• Cinnamon Raisin Blondies from What Smells So Good?
• Chocolate Macarons with Bourbon Praline Buttercream from Sweet Cinnamon & Honey
• Chocolate Rum Balls from Noshing With The Nolands
• Coffee and Irish Cream Sandwich Cookies from Spice Roots
• Frosted Orange Cookies from Magnolia Days
• Guinness Chocolate Chip Cookies from Upstate Ramblings
• Nutella Baileys Cookies from Basic N Delicious
• Rosemary Bourbon Chocolate Chunk Cookies with Smoked Sea Salt from The Spiced Life
• Tipsy Chocolate Cherry Cookies from Our Good Life
• Whiskey Raisin Oatmeal Bars from Food Lust People Love
• White Chocolate Chip & Frangelico Hazelnut Cookies from Made With Love

If you are a blogger and want to join in the fun, contact Laura at thespicedlife AT gmail DOT com and she will get you added to our Facebook group, where we discuss our cookies and share links.

You can also just use us as a great resource for cookie recipes--be sure to check out our Pinterest Board and our monthly posts (you can find all of them here at The Spiced Life). You will be able to find them the first Tuesday after the 15th of each month!

Mushroom Ginger Congee #OATrageousOatmeals

A wonderful twist on traditional congee made with oats, mushrooms, ginger and vegetable stock, and a dash of hot spice, this Mushroom Ginger Congee is a bowl of pure comfort when you are feeling down or unwell or cold or hungry. So pretty much any morning around nine or any evening around six o’clock for me. 

Choose wisely but take chances
As I’ve gotten older and wiser, I’ve learned to say no to more things, for instance “volunteer” opportunities that will overextend me or make me feel resentful or used, even if they are for a very good cause. On the other hand, I try to say yes to more things that will push my level of comfort and make me try new experiences. This oatmeal cookbook is one of them.

When my friend Kathy first approached me about reviewing her new cookbook, OATrageous Oatmeals, I thought, “Oatmeal? A book full of oat recipes?” Yeah, I wasn’t sure about that. You see, I am not a breakfast person. By which I mean that I don’t believe in traditional American breakfast food. I’d rather have last night’s leftover lasagna than a piled plate of pancakes with syrup. And for me, oats are breakfast food, except when they are in our family’s favorite chocolate chip cookies.

Savory oatmeal. Who knew? 
But the book blurb promised so much more than breakfast or sweet uses of oatmeal. I was intrigued by the potential of “pepperoni” crumbles made with oats and spices to mimic the texture and flavors of chopped pepperoni and I imagined them sprinkled on a Caprese salad. But the one recipe I most wanted to make was, funnily enough, a breakfast one.

On my maiden voyage to Southeast Asia, when I met my first hotel breakfast buffet in Singapore - oh, they are tables of deliciousness - I fell in love with all the Asian breakfast options, including congee. There it is made with broken rice simmered in savory broth and garnished with soy sauce, chopped chili peppers and spring onions, often crispy fried shallots and occasionally, pork floss. If I could make congee that delicious with oats, it would be a game changer for me and how I usually think of oatmeal.

Kathy’s Mushroom Ginger Congee did not disappoint. Each spoonful was as much a delight to my nose as it was to my mouth. The heady rich vegetable broth, thickened with oats, sent steaming tendrils of ginger and spice through the air in the most warming and delectable of ways. I was so wishing that I had doubled the recipe and I think my husband agreed, as he went back to the pot and poured out the mere dribbles left at the bottom in the hope of just another mouthful or two.

So, I’m here to tell you what Kathy’s been trying to say for ages on her great vegan blog, Healthy Slow Cooking: Oats can be so much more than porridge with a spoon of jam! (Which is, by the way, my younger daughter’s favorite way to eat them. We went through a lot of oats and jam in her childhood!)

Kathy has simple instructions for making your own oat milk – so much better and cheaper than store-bought – along with desserts and smoothies and scones and myriad baked and breakfast ideas. But, for me, it’s the savory recipes that have won my heart. How about a cashew curry savory granola as a snack for your next cocktail party? Yes, please, and can you invite me? Her Indian-Spiced Tomato Soup will be next on our menu, if I don’t make the Chickpea Veggie Soup first. Before you know it, I'll be putting oatmeal in everything. And that's a good thing now!

Update: Made the Chickpea Veggie Soup with permission to share that recipe too. Check it out: https://www.foodlustpeoplelove.com/2015/01/chickpea-veggie-soup.html So good!

Want your own copy of OATrageous Oatmeals? Follow that link to Amazon and buy one! 

Now on to the recipe
Kathy’s headnote says, “Served in a bowl, congee is a thick Asian comfort food that can soothe a sore throat or just make you feel better after a bad day. This recipe makes enough for two but feel free to double or triple if you’re feeding more or want to keep some in the fridge for the duration of your cold. The mushrooms and ginger are great for getting your immune system back on track.” I concur. Especially with the part about doubling or trebling the recipe.

My adaptations
The only change I made was to serve the soup with a garnish of spring onions and season with chopped red chilies soaked in soy sauce, instead of salt and the hot pepper flakes. Oh, and I used portabella mushrooms because I couldn’t find shiitakes.

Recipe © Kathy Hester from OATrageous Oatmeals - Delicious & Surprising Plant-Based Dishes From This Humble, Heart-Healthy Grain, printed here by permission from Page Street Publishing

(Per serving: Calories 140.4, protein 3.9 g, total fat 1.5 g, carbohydrates 29.0 g, sodium 1570 mg, fiber 2.5 g)

Ingredients for 2 servings
3 cups (710 ml) vegetable or vegan chick’n broth
1⁄2 cup (48g) rolled oats
1⁄2 cup (35 g) minced mushrooms (shiitakes are great)
1⁄4 cup (27 g) minced carrot or sweet potato
1 tablespoon (6 g) grated ginger
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1⁄2 teaspoon rice wine vinegar
salt, to taste
hot pepper flakes, to taste

Method
Bring the broth, oats, mushrooms and minced carrot or sweet potato to a boil in a medium pot.

Lower the heat to medium-low and add in the ginger, soy sauce and vinegar.

I put all three together in a small bowl, measured and at the ready, while the congee was cooking.

Cook for 15 to 20 minutes until the oats are cooked and the stew becomes thick.

Before serving, add salt to taste and spice with hot pepper flakes.

My concoction looked more like this.

Enjoy!

Thick and savory and delicious!

Disclosure: I received one copy of OATrageous Oatmeals for review purposes. No other compensation was received. This post contains Amazon affiliate links.

Jammy Gooseberry Oatmeal Cookies #CreativeCookieExchange

Sticky gooseberry jam makes these oatmeal cookies even chewier. And everyone knows that a chewy oatmeal cookie is the best oatmeal cookie. 

This month’s Creative Cookie Exchange challenge was to use produce that we each have in abundance, wherever we are living right now. The UAE still grows a few things this time of year like okra and eggplant but I just didn’t see using either of those in a cookie. I decided to be adventurous and try a fruit that I had never cooked or baked with before, gooseberries, which are abundant in the United Kingdom this time of year, and are brought in to the UAE in prodigious quantities, at least in my local supermarket. A little research revealed that most gooseberries are too sour to eat uncooked without added sugar, so jam seemed like the logical answer. I’ll share the jam recipe at some point, but meanwhile, feel free to use whatever jam you’ve got handy for these great cookies. Something marmalade-ly with little chunks of fruit would get you closest to the taste of these made with my tartly sweet gooseberry jam.

Gooseberries!

I’d also like to point out that, despite their stickiness, clean up was a breeze thanks to my new silicone mats, a gift of the folks at Kitchen Executive Chef who are trying to spread the word about their great new product. Unfortunately, the mats are out of stock at Amazon right now but, according to a post on their Facebook page, they will be back in stock in just a few weeks.

Ingredients
For the cookie dough:
1/2 cup (firmly packed) or 100g brown sugar
1/3 cup or 70g granulated sugar
1/2 cup or 115g butter, softened
1/4 cup or 80g gooseberry or your favorite jam
1 egg
1 tablespoon milk
1 cup or 125g flour
1/2  teaspoon baking soda
1/2  teaspoon double-acting baking powder
1/2  teaspoon salt
1 cup or 100g uncooked quick rolled oats

For topping: 1/2 cup or 160g gooseberry or your favorite jam

Method
Cream your butter with the two sugars then add in the jam and mix well.

Now add in the egg and milk and mix again.

Add in the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and beat until smooth.

Add in the oats and beat until well mixed.  Chill the dough for half an hour in the refrigerator.

When you are ready to bake, preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C degrees and grease a cookie sheet or line it with a silicone mat.

Drop one tablespoon scoopful at least two or even three inches apart on your prepared cookie sheet. These cookies are going to spread out.

Dip your thumb in some water and press an indentation in the top of the scoop.

Spoon in a half a teaspoon or so of the jam.

Bake 8-10 minutes, or until light brown.  For chewy cookies, do not over bake!

These are fabulous with a cold glass of milk. Enjoy!

Check out all the fabulous recipes my Creative Cookie Exchange friends have made with summer's bounty!

• Blueberry Pecan Rugelach from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Breskvice (Jam Filled, Peach Shaped Cookies) from Spice Roots
• Cherry Viennese Sandwich Cookies from Magnolia Days
• Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies with Zucchini and Almond from The Spiced Life
• Jammy Gooseberry Oatmeal Cookies from Food Lust People Love
• Lemon Blueberry White Chocolate Cookies from Hezzi-D's Books and Cooks
• Lemonade Poppy Seed Linzer Cookies from Made with Love
• Nectarine Drop Cookies from A Baker's House
• Raspberry Crumble Cookie Bars from From Gate to Plate
• Rhubarb Shortcake Cookies from Rhubarb and Honey

The Creative Cookie Exchange theme this month is Creative Uses for Summer's Bounty! If you are a blogger and want to join in the fun, contact Laura via email (thespicedlife AT gmail DOT com) and she will get you added to our Facebook group where we coordinate events.

You can also use us as a great resource for cookie recipes. Be sure to check out our Pinterest Board and our monthly posts. You will be able to find them the first Tuesday after the 15th of each month!

Chewy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

A classic from Joy of Cooking, this oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe makes the best chewy cookies around.

We arrived in the sweltering heat and were met at the rustic terminal building by a man named Pup Joint. Back then, we meant me, my husband and one large Boxer dog.

So young! What the heck happened?

The seaside oilfield town of Balikpapan, carved out of the jungle on the southeast corner of Borneo, was as about as far as you could get, in distance and modernity to Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei, where we had met six years before, in the northwest corner of the same enormous island. Of course, compared to Balikpapan, most cities were developed.

We didn’t really have a grocery store to speak of. And, back then, there was only one decent hotel in town. Other options to eat out included the local warung – small holes in the wall serving Indonesian fare – or Chinese food. So we made our own fun. We hosted game nights and potlucks and barbecues around the pool. We played card games and did needlework. There might have even been some drinking games, possibly Quarters.

I took Indonesian lessons and traveled around the region, practicing my language skills. We went SCUBA diving and I enjoyed baking and cooking, despite the limited supplies. And then the dog got a baby sister, which suddenly gave me all kinds of necessary jobs!

So young! Still just as cute now

.
Telephone lines were poor and satellite television was our only real link to the outside world. The complex we lived in had one immense satellite dish with one receiver so everyone watched whatever it was tuned to and the guardhouse controlled it. We received the live feed so there were no commercials but we got to see the news anchors sipping their coffee or combing their hair or checking their teeth for lipstick between segments. It was all rather amusing. Until the time when we had a houseful of guests watching a rugby game and the guards decided to change the channel. A persuasive emissary was sent to convince them to change it back immediately.

But the single most important thing that made that little town one of our favorite places to live were the friends we made. All we had were each other. We became family. And without an English bookstore or internet, we depended on each other to share books and recipes and magazines. If you’d read something, you passed it on. And there were no secret recipes. If you made something delicious, you shared.

And that is the very long story of how I came by this recipe for oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. My friend, Valorie, made these for us one day back in 1990 and I have been making them ever since. Her original recipe comes from the Joy of Cooking, and you can see from my well-worn hand-copied version that it is used often.

I am sharing it with you today, because it became a favorite with my daughters as well and was probably the one cookie I made most often for after school snacks when they lived at home. I would make a double batch of dough and bake a few that first day, then freeze the rest of the dough and they would get freshly baked cookies with minimal time and effort on many other days as well.

Today I am joining a group of avid cookie bakers called Creative Cookie Exchange started by Laura of The Spiced Life and Rebecka of At Home with Rebecka. Our theme this month is Back to School – cookies that would be great packed in lunch boxes or for an after school snack. Make sure to scroll down to see the other delicious cookies my fellow bloggers have made!

Ingredients
1/2 cup (firmly packed) or 100g brown sugar
1/2 cup or 115g granulated sugar
1/2 cup or 115g butter, softened
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 tablespoon milk
1 cup or 125g all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda (bicarbonate of soda)
1/2 teaspoon double-acting baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup or 95g uncooked quick rolled oats
3/4 cup or 125g semi-sweet chocolate chips
Optional: 1/2 cup or 50g chopped pecans (I leave them out most of the time.)

Method
Preheat oven to 350°F or 180°C and grease a cookie sheet.

Cream your butter with the two sugars.

Add in the egg, vanilla and milk. As you can see, I've doubled the recipe.

Add in the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and beat until smooth.

Add in the oats and chocolate chips and beat until well mixed.

Drop 2 inches apart on well-greased cookie sheet.

Bake 8-10 minutes, or until light brown. For chewy cookies, do not over bake!

Yeah, I put them too close. Doesn't affect the taste though.

A single batch will make about three dozen two-inch cookies per the ingredients list at the top. I highly recommend making a double batch of dough and freezing the balance as outlined below.

Freezing and baking instructions
On a big sheet of cling film, spoon out your leftover cookie dough along the width of the film.

Fold it over and press the dough into a sausage shape.

Fold in the sides of the cling film and roll the sausage up to completely cover the dough.

Place on cutting board or baking pan and put into the freezer until firm. This keeps for a couple of months.

When you are ready to bake again, preheat the oven and cut off as many slices of dough as you want to bake.

Place them on a greased cookie sheet. By the time the oven is up to temperature, the dough slices will be thawed.

Once they soften, you can pat them round again, if you want. The shape does not affect the taste though. :)

Bake as per initial instructions. Now you can have fresh baked cookies anytime! And the best part is that you know exactly what has gone into these, unlike the store-bought dough.

Enjoy!

 Also, if you are looking for inspiration for this month’s theme, check out what all of the hosting bloggers have made so far:

• Pecan Chocolate Bars from The Spiced Life
• Chewy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies from Food Lust People Love
• White Chocolate Oat Cookies from Magnolia Days
• Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich Cookies from It’s Yummi
• Fortune Cookies from A Baker’s House
• Whole Wheat Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies from Karen’s Kitchen Stories
• Chocolate Chip Skillet Brownies from At Home with Rebecka
• Orange Cookies from Basic N Delicious
• Melting Moments from All That’s Left Are The Crumbs
• Pumpkin Oatmeal Pecan Cookies from If I Ever Owned A Bakery…
• Peanut Butter No-Bakes from Cookie Dough and Oven Mitt
• Banana Apple (Banapple) Spiced Cookies from LivLifeToo

 .