Double Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

Chocolaty oatmeal cookies equals a lot of warm, fuzzy, happy family memories for me. My mom would make a HUGE batch of these for a lot of different road trips and family outings - and the way I grew up we had a lot of road trips! We traveled a lot of miles moving back and forth across the country (from Washington to Pennsylvania, and later, back to Washington for example). My mom always made road trips fun and exciting. It helps that my siblings and I got along pretty well, for the most part, and we were generally easily entertained with word games, "I Spy", "20 Questions", Mad Libs, the license plate game, etc. We liked to use our imagination and come up with stories and be silly together, and mom kept it going and helped us pass the time. In any event, especially when I was a little older - middle and high school aged - I remember these cookies being a part of many of those memories. Kept in a Ziploc in the car for quick snacks, or pulled out at meal time to go with lunch or dinner, or after dinner as dessert. Even the ones that crumbled at the bottom of the bag could be sprinkled over vanilla ice cream, or eaten by the loose handful... yumm. :) My brother and I even made a point to make a big batch to take with us and 2 of our friends when we went from Washington to the redwood forest in California for a vacation about 11 years ago - for old times sake!

I thought this was the perfect recipe for our own family road trip for Memorial Day weekend to visit Kenneth's parents in the mountains, and really enjoyed pulling this one out to make with my son. He had fun rolling the dough, and I think the taste testing was his favorite part. :)

These are super chocolaty cookies, and are a little on the sweet side, especially when straight out of the oven. They are super gooey, and yummy with a glass of milk when warm. They store well in containers or you can lay them in Ziplocs and freeze them for later use. I think you could probably reduce the sugar to 1 cup without sacrificing taste, if you are concerned with the sweetness. The chocolate chips add plenty of "sweet" to each bite. :)

Double Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup butter, softened to room temperature
1 egg
1/4 cup water
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups quick cooking oats
1 12-oz package semi-sweet or milk chocolate chips (I used about half and half)

Directions

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Blend the first 5 ingredients thoroughly in a mixer until well combined and creamy. Add in flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt and mix on low speed until the batter is blended. Hand mix in the oats and chocolate chips.
2. Roll dough into walnut sized balls (or a little larger) and place about 12 per rectangular cookie sheet. Bake for 10 - 12 minutes (I baked for 10), allow to cool for 1-2 minutes on the cookie sheets (just until mostly set on the bottom, and you can slide a spatula under them without much difficulty) and move to a cooling rack.
3. Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

Link Parties:
Make Ahead Meals for Busy Moms - Melt in Your Mouth Monday
Marvelous Mondays
Mouthwatering Mondays