My Grandma Joanne is the best baker I know, hands down! I like to think that I inherited some of my baking ability from her. She can take the most simple ingredients and turn them into tasty treasures that fit in at a church bake sale, fancy tea party or serve as family birthday cookies!

Here I will share one of her oldest recipes, one that brings back memories of baking up treats to serve the masses of children that gathered at her home.

Always made us happy

For many years, Grandma would make wedding cakes for her family members and friends.

We could always count on her to have a bag of frosting in the fridge when we came over to visit!

Grandma would sit us down at the table with a package of graham crackers and a pastry bag of buttercream, then let us go to town!

Sometimes we would make cute decorations, other times we would just glob the frosting in the middle of a cracker sandwich and enjoy!

Such beautiful memories

Many times when we visited, Grandma's cookie jar would contain Cowboy Cookies. Grandma once told us the story of how she had found this recipe when her oldest boys (twins) were babies. As they grew up, they loved to help her stir up the dough.

All of her kids enjoyed the taste of the cookies with a tall glass of milk, so this recipe became an old standby as Grandma raised her 16 children. These gourmet cookies became such a standard that my dad (her oldest) could easily recite the recipe from memory at a very young age!

When I asked Grandma for a copy of this recipe, she could barely read the writing on the index card because it had been pulled out so often. I wanted to share this recipe with all of you to pay tribute to my Grandma and because, well the cookies are so darn good!

Simply Delicious!

So here it is, a very basic recipe that cranks out a very tasty morsel:

• 1 cup lard (the real stuff)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 cup coconut
• 1 1/4 cups oatmeal

Cut lard into the sugars with a pastry cutter. Mix in 1 egg. Combine the remaining dry ingredients (may be easiest to do with your hands).

Drop by the spoonful onto a cookie sheet. For smaller cookies, just make smaller drops of dough. Then adjust bake time accordingly.

For average sized cookies, bake for 8-10 minutes at 350 degrees.

Cool and enjoy!

YUM