Secret Recipe Chocolate Chip Cookies

A quick perusal of my Pinterest boards would reveal a few things: first, I recently chopped all my hair off (I obsessively pinned hair pictures for weeks beforehand). Second, I am a sucker for a good DIY idea (as who is not?) and third, I can never have too many chocolate chip cookie recipes.  I am fairly confident in saying that, if forced to only have one dessert forever, that dessert would be some sort of chocolate chip cookie.  It's a love story for the ages. 

My favorite sort of cookie is extremely chewy, a little crisp, has sea salt and no nuts (I will post my favorite recipe for that at some point-- it's my excessive modification of these). I could live on them for days. My poor husband, though, prefers crunchy cookies with nuts and lots of other ingredients (sacrilege!), so I like to find recipes for him too. Just the other night I was going through my mom's giant recipe box and I found a "Secret Recipe Chocolate Chip Cookies" recipe. It had some unusual ingredients (lemon juice, ground oatmeal) so I thought I'd give it a try.  Verdict: excellent.  They're flavorful and soft and unique.  The cinnamon doesn't make them taste like oatmeal cookies, it just gives them a depth and (apparently) the lemon juice helps to activate the baking soda? Sure!  Here's the recipe:

Not a great photo, but the idea is there...

Secret Recipe Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2 Cup Rolled Oats

2 1/4 Cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup (2 sticks) softened butter

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 teaspoon lemon juice

2 eggs

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350F. Place rolled oats in food processor or  blender (I used our Magic Bullet) until finely ground. Combine ground oats, flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in a mixing bowl. 

In a mixer, cream butter, sugars, vanilla and lemon juice together. Add eggs and beat until fluffy.

Stir in the flour mixture and add chocolate chips and nuts. Drop a couple inches apart on a cookie sheet and bake 10-12 minutes or until lightly golden and set in the middle.