Amazing Chocolate Chip Cookies (216:365)

I'm so over Toll House.

Their Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe makes flat and greasy cookies which are always disappointing. 

I found a recipe on the back of my Gold Medal Flour bag the other day (which I bought for $1.68 on sale and then used a coupon from the bag, a "pealy" to buy 4 bags of chocolate chips for $0.75 each!) for Chocolate Chip Cookies and hoped it was better than Toll House.

Image from here.

Well, they sure are! Less greasy, less flat and chewier. Yum!

I made 2 additions to the recipe.

I added 1 tsp Vanilla and 1 small box instant Vanilla Pudding mix.

Hope you like them as much as we do!

Amazing Chocolate Chip Cookies

3/4	cup granulated sugar
3/4	cup packed brown sugar
1	cup butter or margarine, softened
1	egg
2 1/4	cups Gold Medal® all-purpose flour
1	teaspoon baking soda
1/2	teaspoon salt
1	cup coarsely chopped nuts
1	package (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips (2 cups)

Heat oven to 375ºF. Mix sugars, butter and egg in large bowl. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt (dough will be stiff). Stir in nuts and chocolate chips. Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light brown (centers will be soft). Cool slightly; remove from cookie sheet. Cool on wire rack.  (I cooked them for 11 minutes and should have done 10. I tend to overcook my cookies fearing rawness...I need to get over that fear!) Let me know if you like them too!

Food is Good (188:365)

It was a snowy, recovery day around these parts, so I had loads of time to hang out and be busy in the kitchen. Lately I've been dying for some french bread with butter - best food in the world!!! - so I made me some. Straight out of my Kitchen Aid cookbook, this recipe was quick, easy and fantastic. (Find the recipe here.) Everyone from my baby up to my honey loved it.

Yes - that is Goose's Birthday Banner STILL up in the background...We like birthdays...

Loved it so much, we decided to snack all day on it then have meatball sandwiches for dinner.

They were better than they look...

Can you hear my lips smackin'?

Delish.

While the bread was rising, I felt a little ambitious and made some homemade graham crackers. What?! Yeah, homemade! They turned out pretty good. What I would do differently - roll them thinner and bake to a crunchier texture. Then they'd be perfect.

Find the recipe here, from The Petit Appetit Cookbook.

Cookies for Santa (163:365)

Dee and I made cookies for Santa tonight.

We had fun rolling out the dough and stamping shapes.

Dee loves to make cookies and it was fun to do as a new Christmas Eve tradition.

Charcoal-ate Chip Cookies (100:365)

In honor of my 100th post, I thought I'd burn my first batch of cookies today.

Yes, I've burned cookies before, but never to the point of them being inedible.

I guess that's what happens when you bake while taking a shower.

Update: I burned the second batch too.
That is what happens when you bake following the "pan cookies" time and not the regular cookie time, which is exactly 1/2 the "pan cookies" amount because you were too lazy to pull the directions back out all the way and just visually latched onto the first numbers you saw.
Brilliant.

Puff Pastry Palmiers (32:365)

We went to a friends wedding party today and I needed a dessert but didn't have the time or the ingredients for something as delicious as I would normally try to make. I googled puff pastry dessert ideas because I happened to have some in the freezer and this was the simplest thing I could find. It turned out pretty good! I used Lingonberry Jam (from Ikea) and some Apricot Preserves, then sprinkled them after cooling with some powdered sugar to make it look a little more elegant. (This blog explains more details, like to bake for 15 minutes at 400F.)