Once-Around-The-Kitchen-Cookies

There once were two little girls who met each other at a picnic. Their families became friends and they spent many hours at each other's homes, playing "sardines", sewing, watching movies, building princess villages in what turned out to be a drainage ditch but they thought was a river, and many other things that imaginative girls like to do together. As happens so often in these stories, one girl had to move far far away from her sweet friend and after many years they started to write letters. For almost ten years letters passed between the two girls. However, much more passed between them than hundreds of letters. Recipes, gifts and most importantly, the joy of true friendship was shared one piece of stationary at a time.

One girl has gone on to become a professor, helping students learn to speak English. She has travelled all over the world, studied at Oxford, and finished many years of education. She is much loved by her friends, family and students. The other finished several years of education, married and is raising a houseful of lovely children. In her recipe box, she has many recipes shared with her friend. Recipes from tea parties and a cookie business. The other friend has recipes from traditional french picnics and another cookie business. So when one friend picked up the scallop-edged note card and set out to make cookies, it almost felt like they were in the kitchen together again. Almost but not quite. And here is the recipe she made.

Once-Around-The-Kitchen Cookies

1 cup butter

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1/2 cup raisins

2 cups chocolate chips

1/2 cup flaked coconut

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

Cream butter, peanut butter, sugar, and brown sugar in a large bowl. Beat in eggs. Stir in next five ingredients. Add flour and baking soda and mix thoroughly. Scoop with a tablespoon onto an ungreased baking sheet and bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes. A note on the bottom of the note card says that they are very good if you omit the raisins and coconut and add wheat flour instead of white.

The only change I noticed was that the recipe says it makes 2 1/2 dozen and for me it made 5 dozen. I guess it depends on how big you make the cookies. If you don't need 5 dozen at once just scoop the extra dough in cookies sized portions onto a waxed paper lined baking sheet and freeze until solid. They can be stored in a plastic bag in the freezer until you want to bake them. Frozen cookies will take a minute or two longer to bake than fresh but you can bake them straight from the freezer.