This is the grossest baking picture I've ever taken...

I know it looks bad but I was soaking raisins in a mixture of white rum and water to plump them up.

I picked up a trick of the good 'ole internet somewhere awhile ago.  Put the desired amount of raisins in a microwave safe bowl.  Just cover with water (or water and alcohol of your choice) and zap 'em for about 4 minutes.  Let them stand covered for at least 5 minutes after that then drain and use.

My raisins, unfortunately are old and cheap and did not plump up spectacularly well.  They went from dry and woozled to wet and gross looking.

They did, however taste better in the oatmeal raisin cookies I made tonight with the magic cookie dough that people have a hard time replicating.

So here it is...my oatmeal raisin cookie recipe that is based on a really old Chipits chocolate chip recipe.

OATMEAL RAISIN COOKIES

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Plump up between a cup and a cup and a half of raisins.

In a smallish mixing bowl combine:
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2 cups oats
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 level teaspoon of baking soda  (actually I'm so paranoid about  baking soda flavour that I barely make it a full level teaspoon)
3-4 tablespoons of cinnamon powder (honestly, I don't measure, I just dump a whole bunch in until it changes the colour of the dry ingredient mixture)

In a medium to large mixing bowl:
1 cup butter or margarine
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup boiling water
1-2 tablespoons of vanilla extract (use less if you've got the good stuff or more if you've got the cheap stuff)

-cream the softened butter and sugar with electric beaters
-add boiling water and mix
-add vanilla and mix
 -Mix the dry ingredients into the wet
-drain the liquid from your plumped raisins and add raisins mixing thoroughly with a spoon.

-Your cookie mix will be a bit too liquidy so let it rest and firm up a bit
-firm dough looks like this:

-with firm dough you should be able to almost  "cut it" with your spoon
-Once it stiffens up a bit drop teaspoonfulls of the cookie dough onto greased/sprayed cookie sheets

See my dough dollops?  Aren't they nice?

FYI, these are a bit too close together and will spread out and stick together but tonight I didn't seem to care so much.

Here's the firsr pan spreading out and baking away :-)

-bake for about 15 minutes.
-I still recommend baking only one pan at a time for consistent results.

You know what I forgot to take a picture of?

THE FINISHED COOKIES.

Imagine them all golden brown and yummy....and in a ziploc on my counter....

It was one of those days where I just had to bake.

So I did.