Cookie Time: I get by with a little help from my friends

I know this blog is supposed to be about HEALTHY eating, but I have to admit I love to bake. I hate sweets, but I like baking quite a bit. I find it tremendously relaxing, so if there’s ever even the slightest occasion to make cookies or cake, I’ll take it.

I’ve been having a bit of a difficult time lately, partially because of the lackluster job search (covered here and here). In addition to that, I’ve had some personal issues lately that I don’t think would be appropriate to post on the Internet for the world to read. Long story short, when I feel riddled with self doubt about who I am and what I want in life, I like to go back to the my home town–the place I lived for the first 18 years of my life. Returning to one’s roots can be incredibly refreshing. I’m going back to Michigan for Father’s Day and I need someone to watch the best cats in America.

Don’t forget to pack me, Mom!

My good friends, Dauren and Emily, were nice enough to volunteer to check in on the cats for me while I’m away, so I decided to reward them with a gift of cookies. This is a recipe I made about two years ago, borrowed from a blog I found on Stumble Upon. I wanted to make them again so I had to go back and dig up the recipe via a series of increasingly specific google searches. Success! There recipe can be found here. The only difference is, I used mint chocolate chip ice cream in lieu of vanilla.

Pretty much copied and pasted exactly, here you go:

Ice Cream Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 sticks softened butter

1 Cup granulated sugar

3/4 Cup packed brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 1/2 Tablespoons pure vanilla

Heaping 1/2 Cup vanilla ice cream (frozen from container)

4 Cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 bag chocolate chips

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  In a stand or electric mixer, cream the butter and sugars until fluffy.  Add in eggs and vanilla until well combined.  Add in ice cream until combined.

2.  Place flour, baking soda and salt into a large bowl; mix.  Add to wet ingredients along with the chocolate chips; mix until just combined.  With a medium cookie scoop, scoop dough onto a silpat or parchment lined baking sheet.  Bake for 9-11 minutes or until cookies are cooked through.  Let cool for 5 minutes on baking sheet before transferring to a cooling rack.  Serve with a marashino cherry on top

3-4 dozen cookies

Now, if you follow these directions, from the original blogger, things will probably go relatively smooth and normal for your cookie making experience. However, I think you’ll find my version of events is a bit more…colorful.

Erin’s Custom Instructions

1. Pull your hair back, something you never do because you think pony tails make your face look fat. But, you don’t want to give your friends cookies that look like they were made by Cousin It.

The least piggish angle.

2. Open up your laptop and open itunes. Locate the playlist titled, “Erin’s Super Ballin’ Bakin’ Playlist.” Add a few extra Tom Waits songs because it’s been that kind of week. (Playlist is included below)

The piano has been baking cookies. Not me.

3. Get out all your ingredients, just so you don’t have to go to the trouble of fishing in the cupboard for something while you’re baking.

4. Shoo your little kitty, who only wants to help! He swears!

5.  Realize you’re a dumbass and bought SALTED butter instead of unsalted. Get very, very, probably unreasonably frustrated by this development.

6. Run out to get non-salted butter. Find out that the notoriously unreliable elevator in your apartment building is–once again–not working. Get angry again.You understand that perhaps it is healthier to take the stairs, and that fitness instructors often claim one should walk as much as possible in the course of a day. But what they don’t know is that you spent 60 minutes doing cardio this morning followed by 30 minutes of pilates and you’re fucking tired. They can suck it.

7. Reluctantly take the stairs.

8. Go to the Walgreens on your corner, the most useless store in the world. It never has what you want when you need it. Find out all they have is margarine and neglect to buy it. Making a friend cookies using margarine is about as tacky as getting them a birthday present from a grabber machine in the mall.

9. Run all the way back to Jewel Osco (you were already there earlier getting ice cream and chocolate chips).

10. Become overjoyed to find the elevator started working again while you were gone!

11. FINALLY, you can start baking. After that, because you’re actually GOOD at baking, things go pretty smooth.

12. Mix the sugar and butter.

13. Add eggs and vanilla. Forget to add the ice cream. You’ll have to hastily mash that into the dry ingredients later.

14. Mix the dry ingredients, something you hate doing because flour  makes your hands feel moisture-less and cracked.

15. Add the dry ingredients (and ice cream because you fucked up JUST A LITTLE!)

16. Roll dough into balls, place on cookie tray, cook for 9-11 minutes.

17. And, the final result….

Like I said, I don’t usually care for sweets, but I had to test my own creation. Tasted like your run of the mill chocolate chip cookie, but a little fluffier and mintier. Like thin mints meet the generic chocolate chip. I’m not sure what my friends will think, but I’m gonna go ahead and declare this a success.

Lastly, if you’re curious, I included my baking playlist below. My taste in music is…varied. I like what I like and it’s all across the musical spectrum. This playlist is arranged pretty much at random and none of the songs really fit together. At all. It’s like what Genius would spit out if it had a stroke.

(Although, one thing you can gather from this post is that Tom Waits is my favorite. <3)

Erin’s Super Ballin’ Bakin’ Playlist:

1. Grey Seal by Elton John
2. Cold Water by Tom Waits
3. Lost in the Supermarket by The Clash
4. God’s Away on Business by Tom Waits
5. Come Fly With Me by Frank Sinatra
6. Squeeze Box by The Who
7. Out in the Street by Bruce Springsteen
8. Magical Mystery Tour by The Beatles
9. I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing by the Hillside Singers
10. If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out by Cat Stevens
11. It’s All Coming Back to Me Now by Celine Dion
12. Ed Is A Portal by Akron/Family
13. Friends in Low Places by Garth Brooks
14. Moves Like Jagger by Maroon 5
15. Say Goodbye To Hollywood by Billy Joel
16. I Hope That I Don’t Fall In Love With You by Tom Waits
17. Downtown Train by Tom Waits
18. The Card Cheat by The Clash
19. Cemetery Polka by Tom Waits
20. Maybe I’m Amazed by Paul McCartney
21. Under Pressure by Queen
22. Rain by The Beatles
23. Koka Kola by The Clash
24. Rocks Off by The Rolling Stones
25. Surrender by Cheap Trick
26. Crocodile Rock by Elton John
27. Dancing in the Street as performed by David Bowie and Mick Jagger
28. Shadow Stabbing by Cake
29. Sherry Darling by Bruce Springsteen
30. Cat’s In the Cradle by Harry Chapin
31. Keasbey Nights by Catch 22
32. Sukie In The Graveyard by Belle and Sebastian
33. Tik Tok by Ke$ha
34. Rudie Can’t Fail by The Clash
35. Alabama Song by The Doors
36. We Didn’t Start the Fire by Billy Joel
37. Heart of Glass by Blondie
38. Space Oddity by David Bowie
39. Baba O’Riley by The Who
40. The Sweet Escape by Gwen Stefani
41. Wild Horses by Garth Brooks
42. Rain Dogs by Tom Waits
43. I Don’t Wanna Grow Up by Tom Waits
44. Come On Up To The House By Tom Waits
45. Rip This Joint by The Rolling Stones
46. I’m Alright by Kenny Loggins
47. Satisfied by Tom Waits
48. Pinball Wizard by The Who
49. Any Way You Want It by Journey
50. I Love NYC by Andrew W.K.
51. The Seeker by The Who
52. It’s a Hard Life by Queen
53. Video Killed the Radio Star by the Buggles
54. Alejandro by Lady GaGa
55. Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen
56. The First Cut Is The Deepest by Cat Stevens
57. Roll to Me by Del Amitri
58. Magic Dance by David Bowie
59. Party Hard by Andrew W.K.
60. Faith by George Michael
61. Substitute by The Who
62. Giving Up The Gun by Vampire Weekend
63. Heart of the Moment by Asia
64. Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves by Cher
65. Forever Young by (and this ACTUALLY what it’s saved as on my itunes) Some Band, Idk…
66. I Wanna Marry You by Bruce Springsteen
67. I Was Born a Unicorn by The Unicorns
68. Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me by Elton John