I Don't Follow Recipes

    At least not all the way.  I take a look at the recipe and then measure things like soda, salt, vanilla, etc in the palm of my hand.  I've had many people tell me you can't estimate measurements while baking.  It's a science.  This, in the past, has particularly driven my dad nuts when he's asked me to make stuff for him because he measures out every single ingredient exactly.  But I do it my way and people will always eat what I bake and no one has died yet.
     This recipe is based on Neiman Marcus cookies (my mom's fav, btw).  I'm baking them to trade.   Two dozen cookies traded to a coworker in exchange for enough rhubarb to make a small pie!  I'm excited.  I grabbed a Neiman Marcus recipe off the internet (this one has chocolate chips!) and starting mixing.  
     I then realized that this recipe doesn't have oatmeal and my mom's does so this recipe is unacceptable.  So, then I started getting creative.  First of all, I used almond instead of vanilla (whoa, crazy!) which had nothing at all to do with the oatmeal at all but it sounded tasty.  I reduced the amount of flour so that I could add oatmeal.  Then I was looking through my cupboards and realized that I also have whole wheat flour and bran.  Wouldn't that go great in an oatmeal cookie?  So, I again reduced the flour so I could add those too.  I kind of measured.  Almost.
   Then I thought to myself, "man, I sure do like craisins and walnuts in my oatmeal cookies.  I should add craisins and walnuts!"  A quick text to my coworker gave the okay from him and his wife to add craisins and walnuts.  Good thing my parents gave me this ginourmous bag of walnuts!  The next issue was that when I dumped all my craisins in there weren't enough since I had doubled the recipe so I could bake my cookies and eat them too.  Good thing my parents gave me part of a bag of golden raisins!

 So anyway, that's the usual series of events when I bake.  I find a recipe, then make it "better."  I sampled these cookies and they are pretty dang tasty.  And my apartment (which I cleaned yesterday) smells amazing! Here's an approximate recipe (again, I didn't measure).

Kind of Neiman Marcus Cookies
1/2 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
3 tablespoons sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon soda
1/2 teaspoon powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons almond extract
3/4 cups flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup oatmeal
1/4 cup bran
chocolate chips, craisins and raisins, chopped walnuts to taste.

1.  Cream butter in sugars
2.  Mix in eggs and extract
3.  Mix soda, powder, and salt
4.  Add the rest of dry ingredients and mix just until incorporated
5.  Mix in chocolate chips, craisins/raisins, and walnuts with a wooden spoon
6.  Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes (in my oven anyway)
7.  Cook, remove from cookie sheet, and eat!

*Note:  if you don't have or don't want to add wheat flour and bran, just add do about one cup of regular flour.  Again I didn't measure.  Try that and add until it looks right.