Mom's Oatmeal Drop Cookies

Mom's Oatmeal Drop Cookies

1/2 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 large eggs
1/3 cup molasses
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup chopped nuts
1 cup raisins

Mix shortening, sugar, eggs and molasses. Sift all dry ingredients together. Blend in shortening mixture. Stir in oats, nuts and raisins. Drop dough by rounded teaspoonfuls about 2" apart on lightly greased sheets. Bake 8 to 10 minutes in preheated 400*F oven.

Back to School

It's another long week-end for the kids and the parents. A welcome respite for the traffic that tomorrow's school opening will surely bring. People lucky enough to be finished with this stage in their lives can now fondly recall the mad rush to National Bookstore during the last week-end before school started to purchase their brand-spanking new notebooks and pencils and rolls and rolls of plastic to wrap their new school books with. I, for one am very happy that those days are over.

There is one aspect to going to school though that I miss, and that is the cookies and cakes that my mom made for us to take to school. Our mom worked full time as a chemist but she always found the time to cook us fresh and healthy meals and even managed to bake us treats. One of the treats that I remember was her delicious oatmeal cookies. It is only now that I am older and can bake my own treats on demand that I realized just how simple the recipe for her cookies really is. My mom's patient hands and the loving way she prepared it was what made it extra special.