I tied one on...

...a new apron, that is, and baked some Rolled Oat Cookies. Actually, this is a new apron I made for someone else, but I did tie one of my old aprons on a baked my Grandma Long's rolled oat cookies today.

I love this apron pattern with its angled pockets, bodice and hem. It isn't a fussy apron and stitched together quickly.
The pockets are nice and deep and I added the buttons as embellishment, though they are not functional, meaning they are stitched to the outside of the pocket. I love buttons whether they are meant to be functional or not.
I think this fabric is really sweet. I bought it years ago and purchased quite a bit. I'm not sure what I thought I was going to do with but last summer I made a number of tote bags with it and still had plenty left over for this apron.

And I did make my Grandma Long's Rolled Oat Cookies this afternoon. When I was a little girl I spent many weekends with my Grandma and Grandpa. In the summer, when I'd mow their lawn, Grandma always went straight to her kitchen and made up a batch of her rolled oat cookies. It was the best "payment" for helping out with chores. Grandma always lightly stewed her raisins before adding them to the batter and then, with the raisin stewing liquid, she'd add that as part of the liquid ingredients to the batter. And of course, she added a hint of cinnamon too. She'd laugh that her cookies never turned out the same each time she made them but I'd insist that they always were THE BEST ever! And they were! Today I substituted dried cranberries and white chocolate chips for the raisins and made them giant sized. The mister will have a giant cookie every day this week in his lunchbox.

I learned something today about rolled oats. I always like to look up origins of things (like yesterday's post about Graham crackers and graham flour.) Anyway, I learned thatrolled oats were first produced in 1877 by The Quaker Mill Company and are known for their distinctive cardboard canister with its red, white and blue label. By 1884 the Quaker Mill Company began selling their product, calling it "Quaker Oats". Incidentally, Quaker Oats is said to have been not only the first packaged food in America but also the first product to be mass marketed in the United States.

And speaking about Oatmeal Cookies. The first oatmeal cookie recipes contained just one half cup of oatmeal. The recipes that we see today, that are loaded with oats, are adaptations of a recipe first developed by The Quaker Oats Company during the Second World War. That recipe also used vegetable shortening instead of butter, which was in short supply. So if you see recipes today calling for shortening you now know where that originated. Read more: http://www.joyofbaking.com/OatmealCookies.html#ixzz1kDbvkaDA

So there is a little history less today too.

Hope you are having a restful Sunday.

Cheers!

Jennifer