An apple a day keeps the doctor away...

...but cookies taste much better.

Yesterday morning the boyos and I set out down to the end of the front yard to pick raspberries. This activity is largely made up of:
1. Keeping Daniel out of the road
2. Keeping Daniel from throwing fistfuls of picked berries into the ground, having snatched them for the pot
3. Letting Leo eat all the berries he can pick

It's no surprise, therefore, that the fruit of our efforts was a mere few cupfuls of the ruby gems.

So, in an effort to be like one of those much more classy and more often updated etc. etc. blogs....here's what we did.

Fresh Raspberry Cookies with some Oatmeal

1. Put this guy down for a nap. One small man vying for the cookie dough is enough.

He's just as mischieveous as he looks, folks.

2. Looked online and found a cute blog with this recipe. Buuhhhht, didn't have the white chocolate chips, or the patience to use frozen berries. Also found this recipe from Emeril. But seriously...I don't have white chocolate chips, you think I have actual lemons and raspberry liquor? Uhhmmm...nope.

3. Ended up using my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe, but w/o the chippies, and w/ (cold, not frozen) raspberries. Plus some oatmeal. Because there wasn't enough oatmeal just to go that route.

This is flour in a bowl, so that you know I actually did these things.
...and this is an actual post about food. Something like that.

The dough. It was too moist from the berry juice, so I added oatmeal,
but we didn't have enough oatmeal.
Mostly I need to go grocery shopping, huh? :)

NO PAPARAZZI IN THE KITCHEN!
"No picture!"

5. Here's what they look like. Consistency of muffins, really, but the boy-os still called them cookies...so I win, right? I was positive that Steve would call them "healthy", which is what he says when I make cookies like this that don't really taste like cookies, but all he asked was, "what's in these?", which is what he says when I make something that tastes weird. Le sigh.

"What's in these?"

  Too young to know that I made them fake cookies...

The chocolate chip cookie recipe I use is actually really good though! You can try that if you actually want to bake something!

Best Chocolate Chip Cookies*

*very slightly adapted from a recipe I found online in another cute blog
Disclaimer: "Best" is obviously what I consider to be best: chewy, moist, yummy, yummy cookies

What goes in:

3/4 c. butter, softened (not melted)

3/4 c. brown sugar

1/4 c. white sugar

1 egg

2 tsp. vanilla plus extra to moisten as needed

2 c. flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 c. dark chocolate chips (good ones, like Ghiradelli's)

What you do:

Preheat oven to 350

Cream butter and sugars together until "fluffy" (whatever that means...!)

Add egg and vanilla (I just pour some out of the bottle...)

Mix the flour, soda, salt in a different bowl, then add to your sugar-butter-egg-vanilla combo and mix.

Add more vanilla if the dough is too crumbly (I literally slosh it in there...but I live on the edge, ya know?)

Stir in your good dark chocolate chips. (Ok, you can use lameo milk chocolate chips...these are just way way better).

Put blobs on your cookie sheet (they end up the exact size you put down, so form accordingly)

Bake for 8-10 minutes ONLY, barely baked looking, just golden-brown on the edges. Do not bake longer. Do not pass GO, do not collect $200. NO MORE THAN 10 MINUTES.

Let cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, than remove to wire rack if you feel fancy/can wait that long to try one.


I think I'll retire from food posts forever now...