I grew up in a cookie family. Some families are pie families. Some families are ice cream families. Some families are into cake. The Eyres were firmly into cookies. As teenagers, my sister Shawni or I made cookies all the time after school. Our friends and younger siblings and all their friends had handfuls of cookie dough (a lot of times, the cookies never made it to the oven and we never really heard of salmonella but no one ever got sick) and fresh hot cookies for their after school snacks in our crowded kitchen – always the gathering place. We experimented with lots of recipes and borrowed lots of ingredients from our very patient neighbors who probably wondered why in the world we kept starting to make cookies without verifying that we had all the ingredients first. Sure, we probably could have picked a healthier after school snack. But we also could have picked something worse… At least there wasn’t corn syrup or partially hydrated oils or chemicals involved…(and I’ve got a whole post 1/2 written about my theories on healthy eating for kids so maybe that will make up for some of the non-super-healthy focus of this post…)

Now, whenever we get together, someone is whipping up a batch of cookies at least once a day. Our kids have been trained in cookie-making from young ages and they do a lot of the cookie baking these days. Most of us have developed our own special versions of the primarily oatmeal chocolate chip recipes we made growing up.  Shawni brought a great oatmeal-heavy recipe from her mother-in-law to our family. Jonah perfected a fabulous recipe including ground flax seed instead of some of the butter. Saydi created a recipe that includes coconut and rice crispies for an added twist. Oatmeal is a staple in all our recipes as are semi-sweet chocolate chips. And we’re all into cutting out some of the butter and sugar – we like a little lighter taste and figure that if we’re going to make and eat cookies a lot, we’d better make them a little healthier. Everyone has their strong opinions about what’s the best recipe but luckily, since we make cookies repeatedly when we’re all together, everyone gets a chance to make their favorite recipe.

Here are a few photos I found quickly and easily of cookie-baking experiences over the years:

my sister Saydi making cookies with Ashton and Isaac the night before the twins were born
Ashton doling out the cookies to siblings and cousins
Liza and Silas work as a team to make cookies
(this is how many should fit on a cookie sheet for the recipe below – and the cookie scoop is a great thing!)

Anyway, over the years I’ve fine-tuned what is now MY favorite oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. And here it is – for posterity – and for those who might want to try it out!

Here’s how the cookies from this recipe are supposed to look
(the twins wanted them for their birthday “cake” a couple years ago)

This is the recipe we use at least a couple times a month for after-church cookie baking or family home evening treats. It’s super yummy and we love doing different variations – sometimes with chocolate chips and dried cherries and coconut, other times with chocolate chips and raisins, sometimes with chocoate chips and walnuts. As this recipe uses ½ the butter of most recipes and has lots of oatmeal and some flax seed, it’s quite healthy as far as cookies go.

2 cubes butter (1 cup) – softened
½ cup ground flax seed
1 ½ c. brown sugar (loosely packed)
1 c. white sugar
3 large eggs (or substitute one egg for ¼ c. water to cut down on fat)
2 tsp vanilla

MIX TOGETHER, then add:
1 ½ c white flour
¾ c. whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

MIX IN with the rest,
then add, one cup at a time:
3 ½ cups quick oatmeal
1 c. chocolate chips (or 1 1/2 cups if you like them more chocolaty)

Optional: (you can cut down a bit on the chocolate chips if you want to add all this stuff)
1 c. raisins, craisins or dried cherries
1 c. flaked sweetened coconut
1 c. rice crispies

Preheat convection oven to 330 degrees. Drop by spoonful (or cookie scoop) onto a cookie sheet. Should fit on two cookie sheets if you do 5 rows of 4 (plus there will be a little dough to eat!). Cook for 8-9 minutes. Take out when slightly brown on edges but still a bit doughy looking in the middle. Once cooled, put in the freezer if you’d like to have them remain super fresh for use in the future. Or eat the day you bake them!

Makes the equivalent of a double batch of most recipes – about 40 cookies.