COOKIES!

Everyone loves cookies.  I seriously doubt theres a single person alive who hasn't found one cookie they at least like, and what better time is there to make cookies than the holiday season.

This morning I kicked off the cookie baking in the Osetek Household with a new favorite from Good Housekeeping Cookies book and then moved to a variation on an old tried and true.  Ofcourse I had some fun with the "kids" on the way so, pardon the pics...(I was waiting for the cookies to come out of the oven and had a little too much fun!...oh and yes I washed my hands!)

First Recipie (the winner this morning by far!)

Chocolate Wows
Bake Time: 13 minutes, recipe makes 48 cookies (or if you like a little bigger cookie, it makes 24...yes, I like big cookies, you know you do to!)

Ingredients:

Waiting for recipe #1 to finish

1/3 cup flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
6 squares (6oz) semisweet chocolate
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
2 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups chopped pecans
1 6oz package of semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:  Some of the directions in the book were very specific for mixing eggs and using wire spatulas...thats great, but I'm a little to free spirited for that this morning and just did the following:

1. Preheat oven to 325' F and place some wax paper on a couple cookie baking sheets
2. Mix all dry ingredients.
3. Melt butter and chocolate squares in microwave at 30 second intervals, when mixable, take wooden spoon (or any spoon) and stir until smooth.  Put aside and let cool a bit
4. Put wet ingredients into dry ingredients and stir.
5. Add chocolate mixture and stir.
The batter will be like cake batter, don't panic (I did).

Chopped Chocolate

6. Add the pecans and chocolate chips.  Here's where the batter will look a bit better.  Still a little more wet than a regular cookie recipe, but don't worry it will turn out ok.
7. Spoon cookies (you determine the size) onto wax paper/cookie sheets
8. Bake for 13 minutes, the tops will be shiny and cracked

When they come out of the oven, they are super soft, thats where having a couple cookie sheets will come in handy so you can put one in and let the other cool.

These are the best!  They literally taste like chocolate pecan pie in a cookie!

Recipie #2
**White Chocolate Chip Cookies
(Honestly I ran out of chocolate chips...and I'm still in my PJ's and am to lazy to go to the store and get some at the moment, so this is the wonderful result!)

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter (1stick)
1/2 cup brown sugar (recipe calls for light brown, I only had dark in the house, still turned out good)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs

Waiting for recipe #2 to finish

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 package White Chocolate Chips (insert regular chocolate chips if that's what your going for)
2 cups pecans...(I used walnuts because I always use walnuts in chocolate chip cookies and because I had used all the pecans in the previous recipe)

Directions: Remember what I wrote up in recipe #1 with the directions saying specific things and me not following every detail?...that holds true with this recipe as well...dont be a hater, they will turn out)

1. Preheat oven to 375'F
2. Combine dry ingredients
3. Melt butter in microwave until stick is about half gone, then take out and mix until smooth (this makes it go by faster instead of letting the butter sit out for hours getting to room temperature)
4. Put wet ingredients into dry ingredients and mix
5. Add walnuts (or any nuts, or no nuts) and white chocolate chips and mix
6. Drop the cookie dough onto the baking sheets over wax paper and bake 10-12 minutes.  This recipe made a couple more cookies than the previous one, I think I got about 30 cookies total.

The Finished Product

YUM!