Angela's Best Cookies

The first recipe I ever felt confident about modifying is this one, and these became my very best cookies. I've baked them for school treats, for lecture series (when my budget didn't reach to snacks), for cross country pasta parties. I've had people ask for them by name. When are you going to make more Angela's Best Cookies?

But of course, I stole them -- or rather tweaked a recipe I found in one of my go to cookbooks, the Frog Commissary Cookbook.

I wasn't in Philadelphia when this place was still retail, but I appreciate their description of these cookies: "We sell this cookie the way McDonald's sells burgers: they fly out the door." What they don't say is that they also made money on these cookies by stretching the dough -- basically we are talking Toll House cookies plus a LOT of oats, so that the recipe makes a LOT of cookies fairly inexpensively. I added dried cranberries to make them even yummier.

It's great to make a whole recipe and then stash half in the freezer for later, but after my teenaged son figured that trick out, it's safer to just make half a recipe at a time: 2 1/2 dozen.

Enjoy!

Angela's Best Cookies

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup brown sugar (or reduce)

1 cup white sugar (ditto)

2 t. vanilla extract

2 eggs

2 cups flour

1 t. salt

1 t. baking soda

1 t. baking powder

2 1/2 c. old-fashioned oats

12 oz semisweet chocolate chips

1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts

3/4 cup dried cranberries

Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes. Let sit one minute, then remove to cooling racks.

Before

After

Mac & Cheese -- it's what's for dinner

Whenever anyone asks why I married my husband, I have a few stock answers: 1) he was the first good boyfriend I ever had; 2) I was looking to date an American; 3) he knew how to cook.

That last one is not insignificant. In the pre-tenure days when I was working from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. in my office and dining on Snickers bars, his "I make dinner every night, just come over" was a real turn-on. In fact, it was true: I will never cease to be amazed that he can come home from work and have a yummy, healthy meal on the table within twenty minutes. Without going to the store for more ingredients. (Indeed, without following a recipe.)

Tonight, I almost achieved parity. I made a pretty decent baked macaroni and cheese without running to the store. In fairness, I've had this in mind for a few days and I've been accumulating ingredients -- but I resisted leaving the house at 5:05 to get more cottage cheese (a good portion of which said husband had eaten) and instead began to put the meal together. What's more, though I didn't do without a recipe, I did make up my own version, based on two different recipes. Here goes:

Baked Macaroni and Cheese

12 oz. elbow pasta
1 cup large curd cottage cheese
2 cups milk
1/2 t. salt
1 t. dried mustard
1/4 t. each nutmeg and black pepper
about 14 oz. cheddar cheese, grated
dried Italian bread crumbs (or panko -- whatever you have on the shelf)
1 T. dried flat leaf parsley (courtesy of a neighbor)
1/4 c. grated parmesan

Butter an 11 x 7" glass pan and begin preheating the oven to 375. Cook the pasta about 7 minutes and drain. Whiz the cottage cheese, salt, pepper, mustard, nutmeg and milk in the blender. Grate cheese.

Pour the pasta into a bowl and add the cottage cheese/milk mixture. Sprinkle on 3/4 of the cheddar and mix. Pour into prepared pan. Now mix the rest of the cheddar with the bread crumbs, parsley and parmesan. Sprinkle on top.

Cover tightly with foil and bake about 20 minutes.

I also threw together a black bean/corn/tomato/scallion salad with some corn we'd cooked and taken off the cob on the weekend, with a garlic and onion powder seasoning (don't know how that landed on my spice shelf, but it's okay in a pinch).

The reviews from kids and husband were good. If I ever find my camera cord, I'll begin recording these things in living color again -- for now, just use your imagination.

A nice way to celebrate our 14th wedding anniversary tonight.

ADDENDUM 10/29:

I wanted to make mac and cheese again this week, and couldn't recall which two recipes I had melded together. And then I remembered that I had chronicled the project here! I was so glad, I eked out a photograph from my still-cordless camera... This time I used rotini and maybe a bit too much dried mustard (emptied the jar), but it was still very yummy, and there were enough leftovers for three lunches!