NRA Cookies

Dear Reader,

I apologize for my absence.  My time has been taken over by matters of politics and persuasion.  You can read about it here if you like.  One of my new activities has included spending time with members of the NRA.  Being a decent person, who likes to fix things in the kitchen, occasionally I make a little treat to bring along to these meetings.  It turns out that everyone, Radical Lefties and NRA members alike, LOVE cookies.  So today I am sharing with you my never fail NRA Cookies.  These aren't going to win you any friends among those who ideologically oppose you, but I have personally seen at least one pistol packing paranoid patriot double fisting these bad boys.  Enjoy.

NRA Cookies

You will need:

Ill-fitting jeans
2 cups flour
2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking soda
Carhartt Jacket
1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup sugar
Concealed Carry Permit
2/3 cup brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
12 ounces best dark or bittersweet chocolate

Preheat oven to 375.  Dump the flour, baking soda and salt into a bowl and stir it around.  Do not use your rifle or pistol for this task, as can result in clumps forming in barrel.  Beat butter until smooth, add vanilla.  For avid bakers, vanilla may be carried on your person at all times, for easy access and cookie defense, with no permit required.  Add eggs one by one, first breaking them against the side of the bowl or on the tip of a .223 - if you can find one!  Beat the eggs into the butter.  Mix the dry ingredients into the butter (have a personal aversion to calling this mixture the "wet" ingredients) then add in the chocolate.  Spoon the dough onto baking sheets in sizable chunks to make either skeet-sized cookies, or itty-bitty buckshot-sized guys.  Bake for about 10 minutes, depending on size and how chewy you like them.  Store cookies in a securely locked cookie-safe until needed to defend your home from the zombie hoard.

Mother of the Year Cookies

Dear Reader,

I have told you before about my friend Claire who is a superstar baker.  Recently she told me of a cookie that was so light, so delicious, and so guilt-free - just 1 Weight Watchers point, and that sent me into a complete tizzy, because I've have lost almost twenty pounds on Weight Watchers.  TWENTY POUNDS.  Here are some things that weigh twenty pounds:

Anyhow, I had to have one of Claire's cookies, and I did - for breakfast.  It was a meringue, chocolatey, crunchy, chewy and so damn good that I had to eat while carefully holding my hand under the cookie because I wasn't going to waste a crumb.

Claire's perfect meringue.

Claire told me the recipe is from Giada De Laurentiis, so I looked it up and made them myself.  I couldn't get them quite as chewy inside as Claire who claimed that she used magic to make them.  I was also too lazy to use a pastry bag, so I sort of glopped them on the cookie sheet, and I ran out of vanilla, so used almond extract, but let me tell you, they were delicious.

My gloppy meringues.

I went a little meringue crazy and made peppermint chocolate chip meringues the following day, and for those puppies I did use the pastry bag, as it was absolutely imperative that I dot red food coloring around the meringue so that when it was piped out it looked like a candy cane.  You understand.

If that weren't enough, I made chocolate cookies the day AFTER THAT.  They aren't quite one point, probably three, but they're worth it.  I think I've aptly titled them.  Enjoy.

Mother of the Year Cookies

You will need:

12 oz. chocolate chips
3/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
little bit more salt

Melt 2/3 of your chocolate either in a double boiler if you're a masochist, or in the microwave if you're a normal person.  Mix together the flour, cinnamon, baking powder and salt in a small bowl.  Pack down that brown sugar (but good!), and beat it with the other sugar and the butter in a larger bowl.  Add the melted chocolate and beat again.  Then mix in the flour stuff on low speed until it's blended.  Stir in the remaining chocolate chips and drop onto a parchment covered baking sheet and sprinkle with just a tiny bit more salt.  It's not necessary to actually count the crystals, but don't add more than, say, ten per cookie.  Bake at 375 for 8 minutes until they are set.

Cookies.

Dear Reader,

Ah, Christmas!  This year my husband and I are getting ourselves a new flat screen television for the bedroom, so the only thing to surprise him with is perhaps a tv stand.  The true meaning of Christmas can not be found in a gift box though.  It can only be found in a cookie.  Tonight I will share with you the recipe for my family's most favorite Christmas cookie.  It was given to me by my mother-in-law who is a world-class cookie maker, from a long line of world-class cookie makers.  This one was my husband's favorite as a child, so of course, I have no choice but to make them.  She can't remember where the recipe originally came from, perhaps an ad for Hershey's chocolate.  Anyway, here they are, and we call them, simply, Chocolate Sandwiches.  Enjoy.

You will need:

For the dough:

4 1/2 cups flour

3/4 cup sugar

3 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

1 stick butter

1/4 tsp. cream of tartar

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. baking powder

3/4 cup milk (or more as needed)

For the filling:

16 oz. milk chocolate chips

16 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips

large can evaporated milk

1 tsp. vanilla

As you see, my recipe is not in good shape, and I didn't write down any directions.  I mixed the dough ingredients together at the same time, and preheated the oven to 350 degrees.

Divide the dough into two plump, round, triple D sized balls.

I then melted the chocolates with the vanilla and evaporated milk in the top of a double boiler.

Glistening gooey melted chocolate.  Wanted to stick my face in it, but refrained, as it was hot.

Normally I leave the dough just dough colored, and cover the top with green and red sugar sprinkles, which add a nice crunch, but alas, I had no sprinkles.  I decided instead to color the dough green and red.  This was time consuming and utterly exhausting.  Roll out half the dough to the size of your cookie sheet, and then spread the chocolate on top.

Cover the top of the chocolate with the other half of the dough.

At this point, the thing was in the oven and I was making tomorrow's lunches for my kids, because in the mornings I am far too bleary-eyed to provide both nutritious breakfast and nutritious lunch, and they would end up with a lunch box full of Ritz crackers and olives.  My son was impressed with this photo, but I pointed out that it is not in focus.  I don't want him getting cocky.  Cook the thing (it's not really cookies at this point, but just one super big cookie) for about thirty minutes or until the dough is browning.  Let it cool completely - it isn't a bad idea to refrigerate before cutting.

Cut the cookie into cookies, and sprinkle with powdered sugar.  I can tell you from experience that Santa absolutely adores these cookies, especially when served with a nice Stella Artois or glass of spicy California Zinfandel.

Loooove Cookies

Dear Reader,

In my ongoing crusade to not be a total lardass, I recently purchased a copy of Shape Magazine.  Not to read, mind you, but to place on the little treadmill tray thingie and serve as inspiration.  I couldn't help but notice this piece of flawed advice screaming at me from the cover over Mandy Moore's face:

 

I will agree that you cannot find love in most cookies.  But then again, you can't find love in most people, either.  Today I offer you a cookie that won't exactly make out with you, but it will feel like a nice groping.  Enjoy.

Loooove Cookies

You will need:

1 1/4 cup butter

2/3 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp. baking soda

3/4 tsp. sea salt

1 large egg

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1 cup flour

chocolate chips

toffee

malt balls

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Instead of creaming your jeans over your latest ex, how about creaming some butter with brown sugar, baking soda and sea salt instead?  When that's done, crack in a large, round egg to represent the chance you have of getting laid anytime soon, and mix that up, too.  Pour in the vanilla to match your personality.  Stir it all together and dump in the flour.  

Place chocolate chips, toffee and malt balls in a food processor and pulse a few times, keeping time to your own pulse just to make sure you still have one.  Mix this into the dough and drop in tiny spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet. 

Bake for seven minutes or until as delicious and gooey as the scuba instructor you met in Barbados last year.  Click on the video below, and eat cookies either very, very slowly and tenderly or with total abandon, as desired.

Santa's Favorite Christmas Cookies for Know-It-Alls And Their Families

Dear Reader,

This recipe comes at the request of Erin, who is visiting her family in Ohio.

Enjoy!

Santa's Favorite Christmas Cookies for Know-It-Alls And Their Families

You probably already know you will need:

4 1/2 cups of flour

3/4 cup sugar

3 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

1 stick butter

1/4 tsp. each cream of tartar, baking soda and salt

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 cup milk (as needed)

Chocolate filling:

16 oz. milk chocolate

16 oz. semi-sweet chocolate

large can evaporated milk

1 tsp. vanilla

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar.  Sugar comes from the sugar cane and your body changes it into glucose.  Certain varieties of chicken can produce up to 300 eggs per year, but we only need three.  Beat them into the butter and sugar.  Add vanilla, which was originally harvested by the ancient Totonaco Indians of Mexico, but now either comes from Madagascar, Indonesia, Tahiti or Mexico.  If you have been to these places, provide family with points of local interest or aspects of their culture.  In a separate bowl mix together  dry ingredients including Potassium bitartrate, more commonly known as cream of tartar, which is a byproduct of winemaking.  Mix dry ingredients into wet.  Add as much milk as necessary to roll into a dough, divide in two and wrap in plastic wrap.  Put it in the refrigerator.

In the top of a double boiler mix the ingredients for the chocolate filling.  Chocolate, which comes from the Cacao tree, was disovered over 2,000 years ago in the tropical rainforests of the southern Americas.  But everybody knows that.  The chocolate chip was actually invented by Ruth Wakefield who ran the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts.  Massachusetts became a state on February 6th, 1788.  Steve Smith, the drummer from the band Journey, is also from Whitman, Massachusetts.

Roll the dough out to the size of a baking sheet.  Pour on the chocolate and then roll out the second piece of dough, to make the top layer - like a pie crust - and put that over the chocolate.  Brush with an egg wash - another interesting fact about eggs is that a chicken egg has about 17,000 tiny pores on its surface.  Also when you boil a duck egg, the whites turn a bluish color and the yolks reddish-orange, which is really gross.  Emu eggs range from medium green to very dark green and weigh 3/4 pound.  They are mostly yolk, and very mild in flavor.  Place in a preheated oven set to 350.  Cook for about 20-25 minutes.  Wonder where the heck everybody went.

Cookie Bowls For Nobel Prize Winners

Recent events have many people believing that anybody – even you - could someday receive a telephone call with the news that they have been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. Not all feelings are bad, and celebratory feelings can be eaten, too. I have whipped up Cookie Bowls For Nobel Prize Winners should you ever be one.

Cookie Bowls For Nobel Prize Winners

You will need:

Nobel Prize

Cookie Dough

Baking Spray

Ice Cream

When you answer your phone and hear the following, “Gratis, du har vunnit Nobels fredspris!” Don’t hang up! You are not having a stroke, it is Swedish! In fact, you have just won a Nobel Prize! Be sure to ask, “Hur mycket är detta pris värt?” or “How much is this prize worth?” Ten million kroner? That’s about a million and a half in regular money. The next call you make should be to a real estate broker. While doing so, fire up your oven to 350°. If you don’t need the money, for example if you are a best selling author and person of influence already living in a nice house, a good idea would be to donate the money to charity. That would maximize the appearance of your good nature and show the world you are deserving of such an honor. Either way, break out some cookie dough. You can make the dough yourself – Toll House works well, but why not blow some of that prize money on dough that someone else made? Spray a muffin pan with baking spray and pop it in the oven.

Write to your alma mater’s alumni magazine, making sure that everyone you ever knew – especially that know-it-all freshman room mate who thinks she’s so important because she’s got a local radio show – knows about your good fortune. Take the pan out of the oven and squish cookie dough into the muffin cups leaving a well in the center. Stick pan back in the oven.

You’re going to need to make a speech, and it would be a good idea to write one. Make sure that it includes the following:

1 funny anecdote about your childhood

4 (at least) jokes – making at least one in Swedish would go a long way

6 counts of humility

7 hopes for the future

Practice the speech in the mirror, as you are going to need to keep a straight face while orating.

When the cookie bowls are brown and crisp on the outside, remove them from the oven and pop them out of the muffin cups and fill with a scoop of ice cream as you update your facebook profile to list profession as “Nobel Prize-winning Peacemaker.”