Sending a piece of home overseas...

Today is a very special day for two reasons: 1) I'm baking cookies to send to an awesome Marine and 2) in exactly one year from today I will hopefully be starting culinary school! I'm almost ready to send in my application and will be crossing my fingers until I hear if I'm accepted for the Fall term or if I'll have to wait until the winter term... Let's hope I get into the Fall term! :)

Anyway, back to baking...

So over the summer I sent a care package to a young Marine whose mom works with my dad. I randomly remembered that my dad had a co-worker whose son was deployed, so I asked for his address to send a care package. I think I went a little overboard, but he did get it and told his mom to thank me, so hopefully him and others in his company were able to make some use of the contents! His mom said he loves to get baked goods, so of course the nest package must be some cookies! So I'm going to make some Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies (which I know I already kinda did a couple weeks ago) to send to Afghanistan. Maybe it'll inspire you to find a service man or woman to send a little bit of home to while they are serving their country.

So along with the recipe (it's a different one then last time), I'll post how to package cookies so they stay fresh while they journey overseas to the Marines.

Chewy Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
1 cup butter softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups AP flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups quick oats
1 cup chocolate chips
Optional: 1 cup chopped walnuts (I'm not adding theses, because I don't want to risk any allergy problems in his company)

325 degrees for 12 minutes. Yield: about 3-4 dozen


Oh! And the movie of the hour is Sherlock Holmes, I just finished the BBC series, Sherlock, so I decided to finish my marathon off with a movie version! After watching all this Sherlock business, I feel like a detective, haha!

Back to cookies!

 So to package these babies, I think I remember how his mom told me how to do it, so lets hope this works...

Let the cookies cool for a few minutes, and then wrap a single layer of cookies in paper towels. Then wrap that in plastic wrap. Then put them in a ziplock baggie and stick a piece of white bread inside and try to get as much air as possible out. And that's about it! Then write a note and go send the finished package to your service man or woman!



I hope you've been inspired to send a little piece of home to anyone serving our country, to let them know much we all appreciate them!

Have a fantastic week!


Vi Ses,

Holly

United States Marine Corps

Recipe source: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/chewy-chocolate-chip-oatmeal-cookies/

Pictures taken by me!