Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

Taken from Taste of Home's "Best Loved Cookies & Bars" magazine

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 cups quick-cooking oats
• 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 package (3.4 ounces) instant vanilla pudding mix
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup chopped nuts

Directions:

In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Combine the oats, flour, pudding mix, baking soda and salt; gradually add to creamed mixture. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts.
Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls 2 in. apart onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake at 375° for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove to wire racks. Yield: about 7 dozen.

Take 5 Cookies

- I stumbled across these cookies on a cookie blog I read frequently, www.cookiemadness.net. I've never had a Take 5 candy bar so I wasn't sure what to expect, but these are quite good.

Mom and David’s Faves (from Carrie Fields)

1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup dark corn syrup
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 Cups creamy peanut butter
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups chocolate chunks (your choice of intensity, just use good chocolate)
large double fisted handful of pretzel sticks lightly crushed (good and salty)
soft caramels to melt and drizzle

Preheat oven to 325. Line baking sheets with parchment.
In medium bowl, cream together butter, sugars, corn syrup, baking soda, salt, and vanilla. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the peanut butter, beating until the mixture is light and fluffy. Stir in the flour. Mix in half of the chocolate and half of the pretzels.

Drop dough by soup spoon full onto cookie sheets. Add 3 or 4 more chunks of chocolate on top and a few nice size pieces of pretzel so that they will show nicely when baked off.

Bake the cookies for 15 minutes, until they are lightly golden around the edges. Remove from the oven and cool on a cooling rack.

When cool drizzle with caramel.

Orange Slice Cookies

Taken from www.northpole.com, recipe by Karin

1 pound orange slices (candy) 1/4 cup flour 1 cup margarine 1 cup brown sugar 1 cup sugar 2 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla 1 3/4 cup all purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 cup coconut 2 cups rolled oats 1 cup chopped pecans (I replaced these with chocolate chips)
Mix candy (cut into bite pieces) with ¼ cup flour. Cream margarine and sugars until light and fluffy. Beat eggs and vanilla thoroughly. Beat in dry ingredients. Stir in rolled oats, candy, pecans and coconut. Drop from teaspoon on ungreased cookie sheet 2 inch apart. Bake at 375F for about 13-15 minutes or until delicately brown. Makes about 7 dozen cookies.