Oatmeal cookies.

 My great-aunt Carrie's recipe box has a ton of recipes for oatmeal cookies and their various variations. And why not? Oatmeal cookies are delicious, and because oatmeal is good for you, you can kid yourself that eating a stack of them is a good dietary choice. I'm a big fan of the oatmeal cookie, with or without raisins, nuts, or chocolate chips or any combination thereof.

This first recipe is written in a different handwriting and labeled "Ruth," which leads me to believe it's from Carrie's sister-in-law, my great-aunt Ruth Shoup Weaver, who was married to Carrie's brother John. I knew Ruth slightly--she and my great-uncle John lived in the house where my Weaver great-grandparents had raised their family on Renkenberger Road outside Columbiana, Ohio. I distinctly remember going to the estate sale there when she and John moved out, because it sparked my lifelong love of estate sales and digging through other people's junk.Also, Mennonite estate sales used to be a great place to get pie by the slice, baked by all the church ladies to serve at the refreshment table. That sale may have been here I had my first taste of peach pie. A memory to savor!

Here are John and Ruth as I remember them.

And here's my great-grandparents' little farm--the house has been white for as long as I've ever known it, but apparently long ago it was a different color. Looks red to me, but I can't quite imagine my reserved Mennonite Weaver family painting a house red.

ANYWAY, oatmeal cookies. We've had a break in our hot humid July weather the past few days, and the thought of turning on the oven is almost not unbearable. So perhaps an oatmeal cookie and a glass of iced tea would be appealing today...care to join me?

Aunt Ruth's Oatmeal Cookies

1 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 cup raisins
2 cups oatmeal
2 eggs
2 cups flour
1 cup sour milk
salt, soda, cinnamon- 1 tsp. each

Bake at 350 degrees; makes about 5 dozen. Note: could add 1 cup chocolate chips.

The method of mixing is not included here, but with these kinds of cookies, you want to cream together the fat and sugar, and then mix in the eggs, raisins and oatmeal. Then I'd mix the dry ingredients together and add them alternately with the sour milk, which you can make by adding a splash of white vinegar to a scant cup of milk, if you don't have any milk that has soured on its own. No baking time is indicated here, but I find 10-12 minutes is a good guideline for cookies of this type, depending on how big you scoop them.

If you're like me, you buy bananas and you throw away bananas. Occasionally, you may eat one, but mostly it's just buy them and throw them away. It's frustrating! Sometimes I toss the over-ripe ones in the freezer, thus adding another step to the buying and throwing away process.

But every so often I get the energy to use up some bananas, so if you have a few on the counter and some spare energy, consider a banana oatmeal cookie.

Banana Oatmeal Cookies

1 1/2 cups sifted flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 t. baking soda
1/4 t. ground nutmeg
1 t. salt
3/4 t. ground cinnamon
3/4 c. shortening
1 egg well beaten
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (2 or 3 bananas.) Use fully ripe ones.
1 3/4 cups rolled quick-cooking oats
1/2 cup chopped nuts

Sift together the flour, sugar, soda, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon into mixing bowl. Cut in shortening.

Add egg, bananas, rolled oats and nuts. Beat until thoroughly blended. Drop by teaspoonfuls, about 1 1/2 inch apart, into greased cookie pans. Bake in a moderately hot oven (400 degrees) for about 15 minutes or until cookies are done. Remove from pan immediately.

This recipe was clipped from a newspaper, one from the area where Aunt Carrie grew up (and I did, too) in northeast Ohio. Leetonia is the small town where my husband grew up and where he and I both attended high school. I think the submitter, Mrs. Ervin Miller, may have been a conservative Mennonite wife from one of the farms around Leetonia.