MONDAY BLUE-BERRY OATMEAL COOKIE

MONDAY BLUE-BERRY OATMEAL COOKIE

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DOES IT SOUND LIKE A GOOD TIME TO FLUFF IT?

I have been told multiple times, by a number of highly credible professionals other than real doctors, that I present troubling signs of minor depression.

Do I?

I sleep.  I sleep for a staggering number of hours each day and struggle every morning day for reasons not to add a couple more.  But I wonder, perhaps even argue if a real depressed individual would be emotionally capable of the kind of trust and intimacy I share with my dog-hair-embroidered blanket?  I also distract myself from my wild discontent in life with the soothing and gentle comfort… of e-commerce.  It levels, if only momentarily, my spiritual black hole with mostly delusional clothing that are always one size too small… or one feet too tall.  There’s an out-of-place installation in my closet of sequin dresses, and jeans that squeezes my lower half like an outbursting Italian sausage, sounding a silent warning of my concerning mental status.

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And then, a new clinical symptom which has newly surfaced that I occasionally, on a daily basis, steer into Pinterest to enroll in a continuous, unstoppable montage of beautiful thing, only to fall deeper into bitterness that my life is, by comparison, infuriatingly un-pinnable.  Whereas others enjoy pin-porns from Pinterest, I find mostly addictive sarcasm in monochromatic tone, an insult to injury that my life is a graphic disarray of uncoordinated mess.  It only makes me mad.  Why can’t my fucking pins and ‘grams paint my delusional perfection in visual sensibility?!  Instead, they both reflect some level of ADD where there’s plenty…

“Aren’t you tired of staring at the same pictures?”, husband asks.

Shut up, MEN!  There’s that, too.  Random bursts of rage.

So what if I judge one’s togetherness and self-worth based on the level of visual harmony on their “boards”?  And that question in itself, I’m pretty sure, answers everything.

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But I assure you there’s more in this post than self-absorbency.

An anti-dote.

Maybe it is an extra testament that I’m an eternal, failsafe downer, but this Monday, I even managed to make a stack of cookies – the cheeriest words in English – blue, too.

The thing is, I realized that I have a very different attitude towards making cookies VS making… everything else.  Faux-smoked pastrami that takes 4 days in total?  Check.  But cookies?  I want them quick.  Instant actually.  And recipes usually stop me cold at words like “cream the room-temperature butter (subtext: give it 3 hours on the counter) and sugary until smooth and fluffy”.  NO, NO I SHAN’T!  I mean cookies have social responsibilities, man!  The first-responders suited in sugar and fat.  The last defence between let-me-work-this-out, and fuck-this-world-and-burn!  As someone walking the cliff of a mental meltdown and beginning to caress the keyboard on a suicide.doc, does it sound like it’s a good time to ask them to “cream” shit?  Does it feel like a good time to “fluff it”?

No, no it isn’t.

This is the time to barge in, ASAP, and inject them with a good dose of highly potent tranquilliser made with liquid butter and high glucose.

Well, this is where the blue comes in.  As in, frozen blueberries.

I like cookie recipe that uses melted butter which eliminates heavy machineries and creaming altogether.  It usually yields a chewier texture which is also conveniently, what I like.  But the downside to such recipes is that the cookie-dough is so soft and formless that it requires a substantial amount of chilling-time before reporting to duty, and that, is not what I like.

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Of course, I have previously found a way to neutralize this problem by dumping the “cookie batter” into a skillet, but let’s face it, the individual cuteness of dainty “happiness tablets” contributes to the psychological healing from crisis as well.  So I decided to flash-freeze the dough.

A cup of hard-frozen blueberries that could be kept dormant and ready inside anybody’s freezer, will instantly hardens the cookie-dough upon impact.  It’s so effective that it turns this browned butter (just because I had 5 min of sanity to spare), oatmeal and chocolate chips (as an insurance policy…) cookie-dough so firm and tight, that it almost gets a little difficult to fold.  Instantly scoopable.  Then blueberries being blueberries, they bursts and bubbles in the oven in a sweet and gooey manner, thus begins the first step of visual therapy.  And when they are ready to ingest, the random burst of blueberries serves as a subtle refreshment without compromising the total indulgence.  They’re thick, soft, moist, chocolate-y and slightly chewy.  Not bad for an under-20-min work.

Come on, I know you’re not always the monochromatic harmony like your boards.  Deep down you could also be disoriented assholes and bitches.  If you’re honest… you get a cookie.

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Makes:  approx 22 cookies

In absolute urgencies, you can skip browning the butter and just melt it in the microwave inside the same bowl…  It doesn’t make a huge difference actually.

The frozen blueberries can probably be applied to other non-oatmeal cookie-doughs that need firming as well.  Due to the blueberries, these cookies have a higher moisture-content than normal oatmeal cookies.  So keep them uncovered in whatever container you decide to store them with.

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Ingredients:  oatmeal cookie adapted from allrecipes.com

• 1/2 cup (1 stick/113 grams) of unsalted butter
• 1/3 cup (71 grams) of granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup (63 grams) of dark brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp of vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup (101 grams) of all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp of salt
• 1/2 tsp of ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp of baking soda
• 1 1/2 cup (136 grams) of quick-cooking oats
• 1/2 heaping cup (85 grams) of chopped semi-sweet chocolate
• 1 cup (125 grams) of frozen blueberries

Preheat the oven on 365ºF/185ºC

Melt the unsalted butter in a small pot over medium heat, and continue to cook for approx 5 min until the butter has turned clear and the milk solids are browned.  Pour the browned butter into a large bowl and let cool slightly for 5 min.  Then add the granulated sugar and dark brown sugar, and whisk until smoothly combined.  Add the large egg and vanilla extract, and whisk until thick and velvety.  Sift the all-purpose flour, salt, ground cinnamon and baking soda right into the bowl, then whisk again until smooth.  Switch from the whisk to a spatula, then add the quick-cooking oats and chopped dark chocolate.  Fold the mixture until evenly incorporated.  Add the frozen blueberries and fold again until even.  The cookie-dough will instantly firm-up as the frozen blueberries are mixed in.

Scoop about 1 1/2 tbsp of cookie-dough onto a parchment-lined baking-sheet, with about 1″ of space in between each.  The dough should be firm enough to shape with your hands.  Make round dough-ball for a taller/thicker cookie, or press it down into a disk for a thinner cookie.  Bake in the oven for 12~13 min, until the edges are set and the center slightly soft.

Let cool for at least 10 min on the baking-sheet before transferring to a cooling rack.  Or NOT.  These cookies will keep moist uncovered at room-temperature.

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