Brown Bag Hunger Brigade and The Cookie Factory

In the true spirit of giving and helping fellow human beings, some amazing friends of Tommy and mine have developed an initiative to collect food and other hygiene and basic care products to hand out to the hungry and homeless folks in the Vancouver, WA and Portland, OR areas.  Anyone familiar with Portland knows that there is a large number of people that live on the streets.  It is disheartening that seeing someone sleeping in the doorway of a business office on the sidewalk or stairs in their sleeping bag has become so common of a sight that it can go virtually unnoticed. 

Rob (aka Hobz) and Heather are currently collecting the following items to include in their 72 bags for distribution on Christmas Day:

• MREs
• Bottled water
• Fresh fruit
• Granola
• Cookies
• Socks
• Gloves
• Dental hygiene products such as toothbrush, small tubes of toothpaste, dental floss, etc

I think that for this run, most of the donation needs have been met, but if you are interested in learning more or helping in the future, because I am certain there will be more donation drives to come, they have a new blog, The Brown Bag Hunger Brigade that you can visit. 

In an effort to help support this very worthy, very selfless effort, tonight, I baked approximately 260 oatmeal raisin cookies.  My house smells good, and I didn't have to run the heater all evening.  When I first started the baking, I nearly panicked because I could not locate my very favorite oatmeal raisin cookie recipe.  The good news is not only did I find it, but I now know it by heart.  Seriously.

And because I'm quite tired, I'm going to post the recipe right here:

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon (generous) cinnamon
1 1/2 cups flour
3 cups oatmeal
1 cup raisins

Heat oven to 340.  (The original recipe calls for 350 degrees, but I found 340 to work perfect for these.) 

Cream together butter, brown sugar and sugar.
Add eggs and vanilla and combine well.
Add baking soda and cinnamon, mix until combined.
Mix in flour.
Stir in oatmeal and raisins.

Place by teaspoonfuls onto cookie sheet about 3 inches apart.  Bake at 340 for about 9 minutes or until just starts to turn golden in color.  (The key to soft cookies is not to overbake - but to maybe even underbake them oh, so slightly!)

Let cool on cookie sheet for about 2 minutes then transfer to wire cooling rack to cool completely. (If you move to the wire rack too soon, they'll be so soft that they'll fall apart through the wire.)

 I honestly have no idea if most recipes call for cinnamon, but to me, it makes all the difference in the world!

I hope you enjoy the recipe, and I hope you'll keep the BBHB in mind should you feel compelled to help out. 

To Rob & Heather and their awesome brigade, I hope that your storming of Vancouver and Portland to search out and destroy hunger with extreme prejudice is an incredible success! 

~Peace and blessings~