Hey, Guess What

I forgot to mention that April 1 marked one year of no eggs or dairy for our house. We didn't completely give up honey until a few months later, but I consider this our biggest vegan step and I'm so glad that we decided to do it.

Though last week was insanely busy, I did manage to attempt a new cookie recipe--and I could use some help with it. The chocolate chip cookie recipe from Please Don't Feed The Bears is one of the best tasting cookies that I've ever had. The problem is that they ran like crazy and basically ended up not even slightly resembling cookies. The recipe says that they spread out as they cook, but this was insane. I didn't get a photo, but just imagine a crazy, runny blob of cookie and that's exactly what they were. So, the result was kind of a failure, but dough and ugly cookies tasted so good! I followed the recipe with no changes, so I don't know if it's my oven, the recipe or some other, yet to be discovered factor. If anyone wants to give it a try, I'd love to see if they turn out for you. I'm definitely going to try them again at some point because the dough is too good to give up on.

Curly Jim's Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 tsp vanilla
3/4 c brown sugar
3/4 c white sugar
2.25 c flour
1 c margarine
1 bag chocolate chips
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup applesauce
3 T peanut butter
1 tsp sea salt

Preheat oven to 325F. In a large bowl, mix the margarine, sugars, vanilla, applesauce and peanut butter until creamy. Then add the flour, salt and baking soda and mix. Finally, add the chocolate chips.

Place the dough in tablespoon-sized dollops on a baking tray. They will flatten and spread out as they cook. Bake 9-12 minutes, keeping an eye on them the whole time. The longer they bake, the harder they get. Cool on racks.