Thursday, January 21, 2010

A Lesson in Being Prepared

I wouldn't have made a good Boy Scout. The most obvious reason is that I'm not a boy. The less obvious reason is I'm just not very prepared. My dear husband will tell you that I'm an "Idea Person." I have great ideas but I'm not very good at implementation.

So, today, I decided to make Aunt Doris' Chocolate Chip Cookies (which could quite possibly be the best chocolate chip cookies ever - just sayin'). I start grabbing my ingredients from the pantry: sugar (almost all gone but enough for cookies), all-purpose flour, brown sugar, butter, eggs, etc.

I cream the butter and sugar and get ready to mix in the baking soda and water. Oops. Problem number one - no baking soda. (An aside: Who runs out of baking soda? Doesn't a box of baking soda last for, I don't know, ever?) OK. No problem. I'll just use self-rising flour and leave out the soda and salt. Problem solved.

I continue mixing. Add in the vanilla; go to the fridge to get the chocolate chips. Those who know me best know that I always (always) keep chocolate chips on hand in the refrigerator. However, today, NO chocolate chips. How can you have chocolate chip cookies without chocolate chips? Ugh! At this point I could blame someone in my family for eating the last of the chips and not putting them on the grocery list, which incidentally, is RIGHT NEXT TO THE REFRIGERATOR, but I'm not going to lay blame. Not today.

All of a sudden I feel like I'm on the Worst Cooks in America show. If I had just read through the entire recipe first and made sure I had all the ingredients, I wouldn't have ended up with this:

This is what chocolate chip cookies look like without chocolate chips. Not quite as tasty as with the chips. Guess I'll be making a run to Publix . . . in the rain . . . with the baby. Oh joy. In the meantime, here's Aunt Doris' Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe in case you happen to have chips at your house and decide to make them for yourself.

Chocolate Chip Cookies - a heritage recipe from my great aunt Doris Olliff

[Ingredients]
1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup butter or shortening (use butter, trust me)
1 egg
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons hot water
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 package chocolate chips (use mini chips)
1 cup pecans, finely chopped

[Directions]
Cream sugar and butter, add egg and beat well. Dissolve baking soda in hot water and add to batter. Add flour which has been mixed with salt. Mix well. Fold in chocolate chips and nuts. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees 8-10 minutes until done.

1 comment:

Heather said...

yummy!
i have done the same thing ... and found myself scouring thru the internet trying to figure out a subsitute for EGGS!

xo
HH