and the inner Cookie Monster comes out...

With Christmas coming quickly upon us, I thought it mostappropriate to start our “Best Recipes of 2012” with cookies.  I make a lot of cookies.  And we eat a lot of cookies.  And thanks to a little secret I'vediscovered, our cookies are fairly guilt free.

Meatball Cookies

Okay, so it’s not that big of a secret.  Basically, butter is crazy expensive here andI don’t much like baking with it anyway, because, frankly, I want to be able toeat a gajillion cookies without feeling too bad about it…. So I use mashedpumpkin.  I’d tried bananas.  I’d tried applesauce.  But things usually turned out kinda funky andI wasn't keeping hubby happy either. J  But pumpkin is amazing.  In pumpkin season I bake several of them,mash them, and then freeze two-cup portions for pie and smaller portions forsubstitution in baking.  And it works –for oil, butter, margarine, shortening – I substitute baked pumpkin 1:1.  Great for cookies, cakes, and breads. Infact, Luke actually prefers some recipes with the pumpkin over the oil. If youuse pumpkin, though, baking times will vary andyour treats will be best if kept refrigerated.

Now that the secret is out, on to the recipes.  Of all the amazing things we've tried thisyear, we've narrowed it down to these top three new cookie recipes.  And let me tell you, we made the peanutbutter chocolate chip ones just last week, and could not keep our hands off ofthem!

(I've noted mypersonal changes in parenthesis)

Peanut ButterChocolate Chip Cookies (courtesy of a Tasteof Home magazine from 1997)

½ cup butter or margarine, softened (use pumpkin!)
½ cup sugar (or Splenda)
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
½ cup chunky peanut butter
1 egg (or large egg white)
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup old-fashioned oats
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (I used 1/2 cup m&ms my mom sent –becauseapparently that’s all that comes in a single-serving bag anymore, and ½ cupmilk chocolate chips)

Cream butter and sugars, beat in peanut butter, egg andvanilla. Combine flour, oats, baking soda and salt and stir into the creamedmixture. Stir in chocolate chips and drop by rounded tablespoonfuls (I didteaspoons – makes way more!) on an ungreased baking sheet.  Bake at 350 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.  Cool 1 minute before moving to a wire rack.

Incredibly addictive…

And number two, which Luke probably wouldn't have put onthis list because he’s not much on meringues, but I absolutely love these (andcan’t make them this time of year because the humidity is crazy intense)….

Double ChocolateCloud Cookies (From a cookbook called “Light Cooking”)

3 egg whites
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
¾  cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 Tbsp cocoa powder
½ cup mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 300. Place parchment or silicone baking matson cookie sheets.  In large metal bowl,beat egg whites and cream of tartar until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugarand vanilla, beating until stiff peaks hold their shape, sugar is dissolved andmixture is glossy. Sift cocoa over egg white mixture is glossy. Sprinkle cocoaover egg white mixture; gently fold in until combined. Fold in chocolate chips.Drop by teaspoonfuls onto cookie sheets. Bake 20-25 minutes until dry (or turn the oven off at 20 minutes and letthem stay in as long as you like while it cools). Peel the cookie s off thepaper/mats and cool on wire racks.

This recipe calls for a chocolate drizzle glaze on top, buteven being a chocolate lover, I don’t find it necessary.

Meatball Cookies (fromAllrecipes.com)

Don’t be put off by the name! Or the look! These. Are.Amazing.

3 cups all-purpose flour (or 1 ½ white, 1 ½ wheat flour)
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup chopped walnuts (I can’t remember if I skipped this completely or did ½cup peanuts…)
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp allspice (which I don’t have, so I just threw in a bit of ginger, andextra nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon)
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp nutmeg
1 ½ cups white sugar (or use Splenda for part)
3 eggs (or 2 large egg whites and 1 egg)
½ cup butter, margarine or shortening (or pumpkin!)

Glaze: (this makes A LOT – more than you really need for thecookies – feel free to halve it)
2 tsp vanilla
4 cups powdered sugar
¼ cup cocoa powder
½ cup milk

Preheat oven to 350. Spray cookie sheets with nonstickspray. Cream the fat (or pumpkin!) sugar, eggs, and vanilla.  In a separate bowl, stir the flour, 2/3 cupcocoa, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices.  Add this to butter mixture.  If too sticky, add more flour. If too dry,add a little milk – you want it to be a consistency that allows you to roll itinto ½-1 inch balls.  Add nuts (optional)and mix with hands.  Roll into balls,place on the cookie sheets and bake 10-12 minutes or until cookies arefirm.  Don’t overcook.  Remove from the oven and let rest for a fewmoments.  Remove to wax paper or bakingmats. Combine ingredients for the glaze and when cool, pour a small amount ofglaze over each cookie.

And remarkably, they do look like meatballs, but taste oh somuch better. 

Close runner's up included Rocky Road Cookies, Iced Pumpkin Cookies, and Gingerbread cookies (that tasted fantastic but wouldn't roll worth a darn).

Cooking School

Just to be clear, I'm not pretending to be like Julie in the movie Julie & Julia as I tell you about a little challenge I took this year... Especially because:
A. French cuisine looks kind of gross - other than the desserts, many of the foods in that movie made me want to gag
B. Julie lived in New York, and had access to whatever she wanted for cooking, and
C. I failed to post progress through the year so I probably won't remember most of what we tried and you won't hear the stories of taffy that wouldn't pull or upside down cake that didn't fully cook.

That being said, my New Year's goal for 2012 (yes, I said "goal" - a little less binding and sure to fail than a "resolution"), was to try at least one new recipe every week. Even with trips to Thailand, Ethiopia, and all around Zambia (essentially putting us away from home for 8+ weeks), I can say we tried well more than 52 new recipes this year. Some weeks, that's all I made! Leaning on a stack of cookbooks, the good ol' Internet, and a few fun recipe apps on my phone, I set out to keep hubby well-fed while not making the exact same meals week after week.

Was it challenging? Sometimes. Finding substitutions for ingredients is always an interesting experiment. Unexpected power outages didn't help much either. More than anything though, it is probably one of the few tangible things I could cling to through some rough patches of emotional blah this year. Add to it our weekly "alphabet date nights," themed around a letter of the alphabet, and we've eaten some fun, usually tasty (with a few flops), and creative meals. Luke and I will probably disagree on our favorites, but in the following posts, I'll provide some of the "best recipes of 2012" - at least in our minds.

Dig in!!

(pictured: ratatouille-stuffed pepper halves, a recipe that I wasn't even going to try to feed Luke, but I absolutely loved it!!! )