Grandma Miriam's Cookies or...

Two bowls max!

This recipe is for all the bakers living in small apartments with small kitchens.  Especially the one's that aren't married and haven't run wild through the aisles of Bed Bath and Beyond zapping together a list of  shiny kitchen devices that need loving homes.  Or, alternately people like me, who think it is inappropriate to use a food processor for less than 10 cups of food.  These cookies will dirty a  total of two bowls, one wooden spoon, a knife, a cutting board and a piece of parchment paper.

I don't like to wash.  Dishes. AT ALL.  So that's one reason why I like to make cookies by man power. But there is another... (and here I will reveal my very nerdy side) I like to make things the way they were made before.  I do not like to be told to use my food processor to do things that had been done by hand for 50-700 years.  I know there are some things that cannot be made without the use of a blender, or a mixer, or ...that's all i can think of.  Are there any other electric appliances that are really necessary in the service of a recipe? I say no. So here is the most important step to making cookies by hand.  Take out the butter now. Right now!  While you're passing the fridge preheat the oven to 375.

Grandma's Chocolate Chip Cookies

1-1/4  cups sifted flour or 1 c. flour and 1/4 c. almond meal

1/2   tsp. salt

1/2   tsp. soda

1/2   c. soft butter

1/2   c. dark muscavado sugar

1/3   c. sugar

1     egg

1/2  tsp. vanilla

1     c. choc. chips

1/2  c. pecans or walnuts


So first, you gather your flour, baking soda, salt and almond meal. You drop it in a little bowl.

Toss it up to break up any lumps in the almond meal and to evenly distribute the salt and soda.


That bowl's done.


In that other bowl.





Beat the crap out of the butter.  Mix it up as best you can (this is very good arm exercise and should be rewarded with warm gooey cookies) with the dark sticky Muscavado sugar.  This sugar is really worth investing in. It can be found at Whole Foods, or specialty baking stores or sometimes health food stores, or  here.  It'll be lumpy, it'll be rustic, it'll be perfect.

Add yourself an egg.

And vanilla.

Mix that in too.  Same bowl.

If you are chopping up a bar of chocolate you can do that now.  If you are using chips you might want to look for Ghirardelli 60% bittersweet chocolate chips. They're my favorite, chip, but my favorite chocolate is the Trader Joe's 70% dark chocolate pound plus bar.  What a deal.

              

There it is now

  

You dump the contents of the flour bowl wholesale into the butter-sugar bowl and mix with a spoon.

Add your chips. Add your nuts.

Drop into cute little blobs. (Use a sheet of parchment paper if you want to make clean up even easier.)

Which one's milk? Which one is the soy imposter? Is it as obvious as I think it is?

Bake for 12 minutes (but check after 10, every oven's different).














Now you can enjoy delicious warm cookies and milk (or milk substitute) with only three things to clean. Yay!