Any excuse will do

I was supposed to visit a friend this morning. She e-mailed me that she wasn't feeling well - a touch of food poisoning. That, combined with the fact that it's butt cold outside left me with only one choice.

Make cookies.

From scratch.

No cheating with a cake mix.

The Monkey and I embarked on a cookie adventure and guess what - when someone (me) exercises a bit of will power and there isn't anyone else around to eat all the cookie dough, my recipe sure makes a butt load of cookies.

And, they are sooooo goood! Because they are so good - and I've been baking them for, oh, I don't know 20 years maybe, I thought I'd share my recipe. Well, share my thoughts on how to make them.

First, start with all the right ingredients.


shortening ( 1 cup)
sugars (white and brown. I like more brown so it's usually 1/2 c. white and 1 c. brown)
eggs (2)
vanilla

Mix well (I prefer to do it by hand, and not cheat using an electric mixer)

Then add:
salt (just enough)
baking soda (just enough)
flour (enough to make the dough not be sticky anymore)

mix into the "wet" ingredients

add chocolate chips to your hearts content. the dough should look like this:


bake at 375 degrees for 7 min then check.


They should still be squishy, but like, 90 percent done. If you're not sure, give the cookies another minute, but no more than two. When done, they should look something like this:


Finally, test on a sugar fiend - the 2 year old closest to you. If he gives you a goofy look with chocolate chips all over his face - you've made the cookies correctly.