Oatmeal Trail Mix Cookies

I bought Joy the Baker's cookbook months ago but never opened it up until last weekend! I'm not sure why it took me so long to make one of her delicious recipes, but I'm sure glad I found these oatmeal trail mix cookies - they are so dang good! They taste exactly like a handful of your favorite childhood trail mix with M&Ms, raisins and peanuts...I felt like I needed to go hiking after I tried them. They're super easy to make and are great for both kids and adults - a fun new twist on oatmeal raisin cookies!

Oatmeal Trail Mix Cookies
makes about 3 dozen
adapted from Joy the Baker

Ingredients...

• 2 1/2 cups old fashioned oats
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 cup peanut butter chips
• 1 cup M&Ms
• 1 cup chopped roasted & salted peanuts
• 1 cup raisins
• 2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions...

1. Preheat your oven to 350F and line two large baking sheets with parchment paper. (Or 4 medium sheets if you have a tiny oven like me and can't fit large sheets in!)
2. In a large bowl, whisk together oats, flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, mix together the peanut butter chips, M&Ms, peanuts and raisins. Set aside.
4. In the bowl of your standing mixer, beat butter and sugars on high speed until light and fluffy.
5. Reduce speed to medium and add the eggs one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl after each addition.
6. Beat in the vanilla until fully incorporated.
7. Turn the mixer off and add the entire bowl of dry mixture. Then beat on low speed until just incorporated, scraping down the sides of the bowl to make sure everything's mixed well.
8. Reduce speed to stir. Add the bowl of trail mix ingredients and let mix until evenly distributed.
9. Roll the dough into small balls with your hands and place on the baking sheets.
10. Bake for about 13 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned.
11. Let cool a few minutes on the cookie sheets and then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.
12. Devour!
13. Store in tupperware containers for up to 5 days at room temperature.