Oatmeal Cookies fit for a Lion

little cookies, for little hands 

{I know, I know. I kinda want to barf at the sign of anything sweet right now, but this post was from last week...}

    So… I may or may not have googled ‘healthy sugar cookies.’ I know, it  is an oxymoron, but I was thinking maybe there was some alternative to 100% sugar for Siena and her little friends to eat. No, I’m not one of those crazy people who doesn’t let my child eat sugar at all, but I am one of those people who’d rather give her treats that are from real ingredients and maybe have a little something good in them- in this case, oatmeal.

   I’m not pretending these are healthy- note the 2 cups of sugar and cup of butter. They would be divine with chocolate chips, peanut butter anything, white chocolate and dried cranberries, butterscotch etc., but for this special little lady we just kept it real simple.

I didn't have cinnamon on hand like my original recipe calls for, but I did have pumpkin pie spice- either is great.

 Ingredients

1 cup unsalted butter, softened at room temperature

1 cup white sugar

1 cup packed light brown sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt (or just under if you can)

1 tsp. pumpkin pie filling, or 1 ½ tsp. cinnamon

3 cups quick cooking oats

Directions

1. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugars. Add eggs, one at a time,  and vanilla, beating to incorporate.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, and pumpkin pie filling (or cinnamon). Gradually add dry mixture to sugar mixture, stirring to incorporate. Stir in oats til just blended.

3. Roll oatmeal into small balls (or use a cookie scoop) and place cookie dough on baking sheets. Bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Allow cookies to stay on sheet for 3 min or so before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely.