For the Cookie Monster

"C is for cookie, that's good enough for me!"

This is my hubby's favourite line from Sesame Street - in fact, the only one that he remembers to this day as he mimics from time to time that little ditty sung by the blue Cookie Monster.

My own lovable Cookie Monster at home had been nagging me for weeks about the lack of cookies in the cookie jar, and it didn't help that I had forbidden him to purchase any from the supermarket (can't bring myself to pay for dry and sometimes tasteless cookies in packets when one can so easily make a batch at home in half an hour).

The nagging reached a certain crescendo last weekend and I found myself in the kitchen weighing the usual suspects of flour, butter and sugar. As my Cookie Monster will only allow rolled oats to enter his diet in the form of cookies, I normally make oatmeal cookies. This time around, I added raisins (instead of chocolate chips) and for experiment sake, some Chocolate-flavoured Horlicks malt powder (out of a complimentary promotion pack). Ended up with fragrant slightly chewy (soft-centered) cookies which I like! Cookie Monster has been placated for the moment, or at least until the cookie jar empties again!

If you are interested to try your hands at these 'no-sweat' cookies:

• Cream 1/2 cup of brown sugar and half a block of softened butter (125g) in an electric mixer until light and creamy.
• Add 1 egg to the mixture and stirred until mixed thoroughly.
• Add 1 and 1/2 cups of plain flour, 1/2 cup of Horlicks powder, 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda, 1/2 cup of rolled oats and 1/2 cup of raisins to the bowl and mix to combine.
• Drop 1 heaped tablespoon of the cookie mixture on the baking trays lined with baking paper and flatten slightly each heaped mixture.
• Bake in a preheated 160C oven for about 20 minutes or so.
• Remove and cool on wire racks before storing in an air-tight container.
• This recipe makes about 25 to 30 cookies depending on how heaped your tablespoon of cookie mixture is!

Just recently, we saw this promotion for soyabean milk sold in bottles at Giant supermarket. It's been a long time since I drank my soymilk straight from the bottle instead of tetrapacks and milk-cartons. A Saturday afternoon, an ice-cold bottle of milk, a couple of cookies, an inviting comfy sofa - now, where is that remote control for the TV?