Monday, November 5, 2012

I Baked Cookies

or The Low Barometric Pressure of Sandy




If you have read this blog before, you may have to come to understand that for me cooking is an activity that just gets in the way of more interesting things to do. So if there's a short cut, I will take it. For example, when baking cookies, I make them all bar cookies--no matter what kind they are. All of the cookie dough goes into a baking pan and bakes at one time. I discovered long ago that cookies taste just as good when they are cut into little squares as when they are round.

However, something unusual happened recently. Monday after all of our storm preparations were done, I decided to bake cookies the old fashioned way. I didn't use a mix* and each cookie was placed one at a time on the baking sheet. It did take a lot longer, but it seemed as if it were the right thing to do at the time. I don't know what possessed me. Maybe it was the low barometric pressure of the storm or maybe it was the full moon. Who knows? But if I ever have that urge again, I'm going to check the weather. I wouldn't want this to become a habit. :)
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In case you're wondering what I baked, it was Andes Mint Pudding Cookies and they were delicious. A very nice blend of chocolate and mint flavor in a perfectly chewy cookie. The cookies were based on a recipe I got from A Place to Reside but you know how I can never follow a recipe? Marilyn's cookies used vanilla pudding and peanut butter cups, but I used chocolate pudding and Andes mints.

*I have found that Betty Crocker has very good cookie mixes and if you get them on sale, they aren't very expensive. Including baking time, I can have an entire batch of Betty Crocker cookies fresh out of the oven in about 20 minutes. Of course, you have to bake them bar style to do it this quickly.