Cowboy Cookies!!

I am linking up with Andrea again today for her Recipe Round Up!

I LOVE to bake.  Cookies, cakes, muffins....you name it and I love to bake it.

My mom was always baking yummy goodies while we were growing up and I love always having a treat on hand for my kids and husband :) 
 I have several "go-to" recipes that I make on a regular basis.

Cowboy Cookies are one of those recipes!  The great thing about this recipe is that it is very versatile!  At the end of the recipe- I will show you a few ways you can switch it up and get several different cookies out of this one recipe!

  Every oven is different- so you might have to play around with the baking time a bit!

This recipe is a tad bit messy- but that is half the fun of baking! :)  This is a great recipe to have your kids help with because it is a lot mixing and dumping- but it is fool proof!

Now here is where you can have some fun with the recipe-

You don't like coconut? Leave it out! Just add another cup of oatmeal or rice crispy cereal in its place!

Substitute 1 1/2 cups raisins for the chocolate chips- best oatmeal raisin cookie you will ever have! 

Or- use a mixture of chocolate chips AND raisins- LOVE that combo!

One of my daughters doesn't like chocolate chips (I know- she is a weirdo :) So when I make this dough- before I add the chocolate chips- I will separate some and add white chocolate chips to half the dough and put regular chocolate chips in the other half.

A mixture of peanut butter chips and chocolate chips would be SO good!

My husband's favorite is when I add M & M's to these cookies. I make the dough as mentioned above with the 12 oz package of chocolate chips.  Then right when the cookies come out of the oven, I will put several M & M's right on the top of the cookies.  It is important to do this right when they come out so they stick to the top of the cookie.  By putting them on top after the cookies have been in the oven, the M & M's stay nice and pretty and don't lose their color (sometimes when you bake the M & M's directly in the dough they lose their bright color or they crack). 

While I am baking, this is my view from the oven :)  All of my loves hanging out in the kitchen...it is controlled chaos and I love it! :)

Just a few other tips- this dough freezes beautifully.  Just put it in a Ziploc container, put a piece of saran wrap right on top of the dough and then the lid to the container.  Let the dough come to room temperature before you bake them.

These cookies, once made, freeze beautifully too!  When I bake, I always let my girls have a cookie and my husband has 2 (or 5). Then I put the rest in Ziploc freezer bags.  I pull them out for a treat or for when we have company over to the house.  You can either defrost them in the microwave or the best way (in my opinion) is to put them on a plate and just let them come to room temperature.

Seriously- these cookies are our family FAVORITE!  I really hope you try them!  Winter time is the best time to spend a morning or afternoon baking...your kids will have SO much fun and what is better than freshly baked cookies?!?