Well I have something I have to get off my chest. I did something this evening I swore I'd never do, but the devil pulled me in. Yes, I'm talking about Pinterest. You see, I've only ever set foot on that dreaded site twice, and the first time it was really by accident. The thing is, I know myself too well. I have this amazing amount of focus and so I can sit down and lose myself and look at the clock and see that it's four hours later. No, I know that Pinterest and I will not get along, and it is not because I won't like it.
It may sound funny that the reason I found myself on the site wasn't because of food. After all, you would think that because I have a food blog, I would want to find more inspiration. But actually, it was because of kitchens. My mom always said that when you spend enough time living in a house, you'll learn what's good and what's bad about the set up and you'll make those adjustments for the next house you get. I never really understood what she was saying, because she kept talking about sections of floor, corners and cupboards (or that's what I think she meant.) Now I get it though, because as I've been spending more and more time in the kitchen I've come to realize that one day when I finally get to build a house from the ground up, the kitchen is going to be the focal point of the house. I know a lot of people say that when you have company over, you don't want them anywhere near your kitchen because it's such a mess, but the reality is, you spend most of your time in the kitchen even when you have guests, and most of the people I know just cram themselves into the kitchen with you regardless of how ugly of a mess you have. (Some even start doing dishes because they feel sorry for you.) So, why not make it a large space that is amazing? Yeah, I can see a lot of money being spent in the future on this kitchen. Even though I am so incredibly thrifty, I think that that would be a good use of money.
So this brings me back to Pinterest. Because I sort of have these ideas in my head, but I'm not artistic in the slightest and thus have no really good way to express what I'd one day like, I figure I can start accumulating images now of what other people have done and then one day put them all in front of someone with some artistic ability who can connect it all together. So that is my justification for signing on to the whole Pinterest craze. It's kind of like my Twitter usage. I signed up there and then never used it so I deleted my account. Then I resigned up and still to this day I have never sent a single tweet. I do follow many many people though. Mainly surrounding country music or anyone that has anything to do with the Bachelor/Bachelorette (yeah, yeah I know, but haters can hate.)
Back to the food. I didn't like these cookies. Then I still didn't like them. But then I really liked them. At first I found them to be lacking something. But, maybe that was just because I was comparing them to what I believe is my favourite chocolate chip cookie which have so much flavour. Well, then these cookies didn't get eaten all that quickly so I threw them in the freezer, because even stale or bad cookies come out of the freezer tasting better. Well, frozen they weren't wonderful either so I stopped eating them but didn't throw them out (I guess I had hope for these poor suckers.) Then a few days ago we were out of cookies, except for some really bad oatmeal ones (I don't know why I made them, I'm not even fond of oatmeal cookies, but I had a craving for them), and so I pulled the container out of the freezer one more time...and they were good. Actually, better than good. Now I don't quite know what it is. Maybe it's just that at first I was comparing them to the best cookies and then by the end it was a comparison with the worst cookie. Or as I'm sitting here I'm remembering that I really overcooked the first couple of trays of these cookies. Maybe all the cookies on the top layers of the container were the overcooked ones, and now I'm getting to the normal ones. Or, maybe it's just a little of both.
With all that being said, I won't get rid of this recipe like I had been planning to do awhile ago. I wasn't even going to post on this recipe even though I had the pictures all ready to go, but things change.
I used the recipe that I got from Catz in the Kitchen, and because I didn't plan to share the recipe, I never marked down if I made any changes to it. I'm pretty sure I stuck with it pretty closely as I don't stray too far with cookie recipes. I usually only slightly increase the vanilla and add more chocolate. Oh, and for the hot chocolate mix, I used a package of Starbucks Mix that was caramel flavoured with caramel pieces in it. When I went backtracking to try and find who the original poster was for this recipe, I had to trace it back through many blogs. And I think I can say that The Little Things I Find is where it originated. One thing I just noticed is there they call for 4 packages of hot chocolate mix, which seems a bit excessive to me and I'm glad the recipe I used only called for the one.
I never knew what 'creaming' meant until I got my mixer. Before I used to 'crumble' not 'cream' butter and sugar. Oops!
Ingredients
3 1/4 C. Flour
1 Pkg. Hot Chocolate Mix
1 Tsp. Salt
1 1/4 Tsp. Baking Soda
1 C. Butter, softened
1 C. Sugar
2/3 C. Brown Sugar
2 Eggs
1 Tsp. Vanilla Extract
2 C. Chocolate Chips
Directions
~In a medium bowl, whisk flour, hot chocolate mix, salt and baking soda together. Set aside.
~In a mixing bowl cream together butter and sugars.
~Add the eggs and vanilla to butter mixture and mix to combine.
~Pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix.
~Stir in chocolate.
~Place dough in the fridge for 1 hour.
~Preheat oven to 350 F.
~Drop cookies onto cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes, making sure to not over bake (which is hard seeing as they are already a dark colour to begin with, but a very important step).
~Cool cookies slightly on baking sheet and then transfer to cooling racks to cool completely.
Enjoy
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