Warm cookies in the oven on yet another cold day. The whole baking stuff in cold weather scenario really works as I’ve mentioned in my previous posts, and yes it’s been freezing cold for this long. Supposedly the temperatures will be back to normal over the weekend, but since this is my first winter in Portland I can’t really say or know what’s normal for Portland weather, but it’s generally not this cold from what I understand. I did come across some beautiful photos of frozen bubbles! By Angela Kelly in Washington. It kinda makes me wish it were 9° again so I could try it out. I’m inspired!

I bought some white chocolate chips at Trader Joe’s last week with grand ideas to make some peppermint bark, but I have yet to get anything resembling candy canes (I’m a last minute holiday shopper, yikes!), and it’s been a while since I’ve baked some cookies so I was feeling a bit overdue. I really wanted a white chocolate and cherry combination, I also wanted pistachio and all of that to be combined in a nice oatmeal cookie, so here it is, I found an oatmeal cookie recipe on Bon Appetit and changed up the ingredients. I forget how easy it is to make these drop cookies, really, it’s always mix sugar and butter, then egg, then dry ingredients, throw in whatever you like, fruit, nuts, chocolate and there it is, ready to drop and bake. It’s really quite simple. The cookies are delicious and so easy to make.

Also I’m renting a camera lens over the next few weeks, a Sigma 50mm f/1.4, so you may see some extreme bokeh on the next handful of posts, I regularly use my Nikon 50mm f/1.8 but wanted to try something out that was a bit better. I was really pushing the large aperture on this shoot, maybe a bit too much at times, but overall it really helped with the low light in the afternoon. It’s much much heavier than my nikon 50mm, but I like the weight of it, and the focusing ring is tight which is really nice. It feels like a quality lens and I’m finding less chromatic aberrations.

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White Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies with Cherries + Pistachio

(adapted from Bon Appetit)

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup (packed) brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups rolled oats
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup dried tart cherries
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup green raw pistachios

Preheat to 375°F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Whisk together butter, both sugars and vanilla (either with fork or stand mixer) until well combined and smooth. Whisk in eggs until incorporated. With wooden spoon mix in oatmeal, flour, baking soda and salt until combined. Mix in cherries, white chocolate chips and pistachios.

Working in batches, drop by tablespoonfuls on prepared baking sheets. Bake for 13-14 minutes until tops are golden brown.

Transfer cookies to cooling rack.