C is for cookie...

I'm not much of a baker. In fact, I'm terrible at following directions...which is why I usually steer clear of baking. For some reason, I felt compelled to bake last night. Compelled to bake not one batch of cookies, but THREE different kinds. Holy potatoes.

I picked up 2lbs of butter, a tub of shortening, a container of sugar, a bag of flour and a crapton of chocolate chips. It was a party in my shopping cart.

I decided on Monday that I was going to lay off the sweet treats for an entire month (I tend to eat a ton of sweet treats during the holidays for no apparent reason - I don't even like sweets!), but the Betty Crocker in me was triggered and I thought I should bake a bunch of cookies for my coworkers - running store and office. It seemed like the appropriate holiday thing to do.

I browsed Foodgawker and found three cookies I really really wanted to make (note, these are what they are supposed to look like):

Chocolate Chip Shortbread courtesy of Not without Salt
Chocolate Peppermint Bark Cookies courtesy of The Recipe Girl
Pudding Cookies courtesy of Taste and Tell
How did mine turn out?? Um, I think they were pretty successful...considering I'm a novice baker. My hand mixer is from CVS. My arm got sore after the first cookie. I only own spatulas that come with gift packs. I had to pick up cooling racks at the Giant because I don't find them to be a necessary item in my home.

First cookie up - Chocolate Chip Shortbread.
These were pretty easy to make. Very few ingredients and I think the hardest part was rolling it in parchment to chill. My cookies are a bit misshapen as you can see ;p. The final product was a little greasier than I expected...but I guess that comes with all the butter that was used hehe.

This guy had to chill for at least 30 minutes so I got started on the dough as soon as I devoured a bowl of this, which btw, was delicious for canned soup. It also had the least amount of sodium of Amy's Organic canned soups:
I scarfed the soup down pretty quickly because I hadn't eaten since noon...and at noon I only had a salad. Totally had the shakes. It was a little sweet for a black bean soup, so I tossed in some extra corn (can't go wrong with extra corn!) and some Texas Pete for a li'l kick.

While the Chocolate Chip Shortbread chilled, I started on the Chocolate Peppermint Bark Cookies.
Apparently I own the last bag of Candy Cane Kisses on the planet. I went to THREE stores and couldn't find them anywhere! Luckily I had grabbed a bag for home decor last weekend and didn't touch them. Score. I unwrapped the entire bag of Kisses before I realized the recipe only called for ONE CUP not ONE PACKAGE. Oopsie!
So I chopped those suckers up and sprinkled them on top and then drizzled only a portion of the bag of white chocolate chips. SO YUMMY. The rest of the white chocolate chips went into these bad boys (my second favorite of the bunch)
These Pudding Cookies were pretty delish. I prefer white chocolate chips to regular chocolate chips any day and these were fantastic with the pudding mix, which is used to keep the cookies chewy. Do you prefer crispy or chewy cookies?

I have you know that I sampled one of each before packing a few up to send to Jamie and distribute to coworkers. :)

I had a mini snow day today and got lazy with dinner as I chatted with Jamie on the phone. I grabbed a small butternut squash, a bag of spinach and a wee ham (we're talking like no wider than a CD case. I was going to get fancy and saute things, but I ended up just roasting the squash with some salt, olive oil, nutmeg, thyme and sage. Since I was on the phone when the squash was done roasting, I threw some chopped up ham and all the spinach into the roasting pan with the squash. Tossed it with the squash, added some garlic powder and put it back in for another 15 minutes.
Final product was not pretty, but it wasn't inedible. Could have been better though. Scooped some in a bowl,
poured a glass of wine and turned on Empire Records - LOVE DVR and I forgot how much I loved that movie AND the soundtrack...even to this day! Great end to a snow day! Hope everyone is staying warm!!