Lil' Terry Homemaker

I definitely like to cook, but cookie baking isn't nearly as successful for me. I used to bake birthday cakes when the kids were little, and those were fine, but I've never, ever, had success with cookies. I'm talking every cookie: chocolate chip, peanut butter, oatmeal, sugar cakes, snickerdoodles, you name it...always hard as a rock. I take that back; I bought the Mrs. Fields Cookie Book years ago, and the peanut butter ones turned out nicely, but Jack doesn't like peanut butter cookies. Figures. Jack is, 99.9% of the time, a grateful, gracious consumer of my cooking, but he does like to make little snipes regarding the "crisp" consistency of my cookies. So I set out to find the magic ingredient that would turn my crunchy cookies into soft, chewy, more palatable ones (that don't need dunked in milk or coffee to get them down!)

Hours of Pinterest scouring later (not really, but I did check out a number of blogs, which was fun), I found the recipe for THESE! Could I have finally gotten it right?!

I DID! I DID GET IT RIGHT!!!

I don't know who to give credit to, because this "secret" recipe is all over Pinterest. However, I found this on eatcakefordinner.blogspot.com.

 

Best Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies

3/4 c. brown sugar

1/4 c. sugar

3/4 c. unsalted butter, softened

1 egg

2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 c. all-purpose flour

2 tsp. cornstarch (a/k/a "magic ingredient")

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

chocolate chips, as many as you like! I used 1/2 bag each of dark chocolate and semi-sweet

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream together butter, brown sugar and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and beat to combine. Combine the flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt and add to wet ingredients. Mix to combine and stir in the chocolate chips (don't worry if the dough is a bit crumbly, it comes together). Chill dough for at least 30 minutes. Use a small cookie scoop and drop dough onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes or until barely golden around the edges. The key is to NOT overbake. 

 

YUMMO!  

(we'll see if they're still soft tomorrow...)

   Then I made dinner !

This is 'Lighter Sesame Chicken' from Iowa Girl Eats (love her). We put ours on lo-mein noodles rather than rice, and it was fab. Her photos are beautiful, and I'm ashamed to even put this on here, but I snapped it in the dark dining room after I had taken two bites. Sheesh. Amateur.

 

Here's the pro's link:

http://iowagirleats.com/2012/10/22/take-out-fake-out-lighter-sesame-chicken/