BUT I LOVE DA COOKIE

I just finished eating two chocolate chip cookies. It's now 10:30 AM. I ate them just cause they were there. I wasn't even hungry. And yeah, sometime I eat them for breakfast. I don't know why I have no self control around such things. If they're not around, I won't eat them, but if they are, you can bet I'll finish them off. (I have the same problem with really good chocolate. That's how I finished eating a box of Michel Chaudin chocolates 2 days after we'd gotten back from Paris).

And knowing this, I will still make myself cookies and brownies. I just like to bake. Last night it was chocolate chip cookies, another recipe from my Martha Stewart Baking Handbook. I've made chocolate chip cookies forever, but I've never found a recipe that I've loved. Of course, there are so many different types of chocolate chip cookies. Soft chewy ones, crispy crunchy ones. I like the crispy crunch ones, but the only way I had succeeded in making them was with frozen, sliced Pilsbury cookie dough. My other cookies always came out a bit lumpy and misshapen. So when I saw a pic of the cookies made by the Amateur Gourmet using Martha's recipe, all thin, crisp and golden, I decided that I had to make them myself.

While Tom was watching the Pats play the Colts, I set about making my cookies. The recipe asked for a surprising amount of sugar, but I went with it. Also, it asked for dark brown sugar, and I only had light brown, but I just used the light brown. While mixing everything up, I thought that the batter didn't seem very moist, but that made it easy to form into little balls and put them on the cookie sheet. Oh, this was also my first use for my new Silpats for baking cookies (thanks Leah!) and they made baking and cleanup so much easier. 20 minutes later, I had some golden, crispy chocolate chip cookies. They were almost perfect. The could only be improved two ways: First, I used up my remaining Tollhouse chocolate chips. Had I used a better quality chocolate, they would've tasted a bit better. Also, I'll probably cut down on the sugar the next time I make these. They really are great, but a little too sweet for me. I don't know how this will change the resulting cookies, (If I decrease the amount of sugar, should I also decrease the amount of flour?) but I'll keep you posted.