Finally

My husband has a crush on chocolate chip cookies. Seriously, he has a very strong chemical attraction toward those soft, pillowy, melt-in-your-mouth kind of chocolate chip cookies. The kind of attraction that drives him to lustfully devour at least a half-dozen in one sitting while moaning Oh God! between bites. It's intense.

But he married me. The woman who can cook up tasty concoctions from scratch and make anything taste amazing {so he tells me, anyway}. Anything, that is, except cookies. Especially chocolate chip cookies. For years, I have tried every new recipe claiming to be the best chocolate chip cookie. And for years, I have met my bitter friend, Disappointment, at the buzz of the timer showing me flat, crunchy, or falling-apart cookies that usually end up in the trash. So naturally, for years I've been blaming my cookie sheets. It must be my cookie sheets because I always carefully follow each new recipe to the "T". {The things you do for love! I HATE following recipes...} I always tell myself that I will buy new cookie sheets, the kind the pros use {whatever kind that might be}, but then I always forget. Basically, I've just been boycotting cookies altogether.

 So when I recently pinned a recipe for nutella-stuffed brown butter + sea salt chocolate chip cookies I thought maybe this was the one. It sounded far too good to fail. And if it failed, well then I decided I was definitely hanging up my hat. My husband would just have to satisfy his lusts on a stranger's chocolate chip cookies. So I embarked on my potentially last cookie-making excursion and browned my butter {happily it did not burn!} and mixed up my dough. With a 15-month-old in tow, I only have so much time to devote to these endeavors, so I decided to refrigerate my dough overnight and actually make the cookies the following day. This was the only deviation I made from the recipe {her instructions were to refrigerate at least 2 hours} and I crossed my fingers and prayed that it wouldn't be fatal.

I am proud to say that my friend Disappointment got a taste of his own medicine yesterday when he was ousted by Sheer Joy at the sound of the timer. Never before have I made such amazingly chewy, delightfully tender and sinfully delicious chocolate chip cookies! And my husband has sworn to remain faithful to these cookies as he exclaimed Babe! These are your new specialty! which means that I'll be making these cookies for every occasion we ever have and any time he is overcome with a salivating lust that can only be satiated by devouring at least 6 of these cookies with a chilly glass of milk.

{Click here for the recipe}

Please tell me that you've had similar cookie-making experiences! Do you swear by a particular chocolate chip cookie recipe?

Homemade Peanut Butter

I promised myself that once we finished our jar of commercial {though natural} peanut butter, I would take a stab at making it myself. After all, the only ingredients listed were peanuts and salt. How hard could it be? And, I thought it would be one more easy step toward replacing commercial food staples with my own homemade varieties. So, I purchased a bag of salted peanuts from the bulk room at our natural foods store {if you've never shopped in a natural foods bulk room, DO IT!} and set out to finish off our last jar of store-bought peanut butter. A few days ago, I scraped the bottom of the container and excitedly broke out my food processor.

I dumped about 3 cups of peanuts in my food processor and let it work its magic. About five minutes later, I had peanut butter.

Smooth. Creamy. Peanuty. Delicious! The perfect blend of salty and sweet.

We are hooked! My husband has a scoop or two with his granola {his typical evening snack} and raves each time over how delicious it is. Next time you're running low on peanut butter, go buy some peanuts and make your own. I bet you won't go back!

Try it! And then come back and let me know how you like it!! Do you add anything extra to your homemade peanut butter?