Cookie, cookie, cookie is good enough for me

Oh cookies, how I love you, you perfect most-portable right-sized vehicles of sheer delight!

You're my beloved Go To in times of stress, tasty little reminders of everything sweet.

Whenever Cancer and Death show up, cookies, you are my next stop.  I can't think of a better response, actually.  Maybe drug and/or alcohol abuse or rage or depression might be more the norm, but cookies, cookies, cookies are good enough for me.

Maybe it's demented, this cookie OCD, this burning desire to stand at the counter and mix butter and sugar and chocolate into something that melts in the mouth.  Maybe it's some messed-up Pollyanna dementia I slide into, a way of making lemon bars out of lemons.

Maybe I should just cry instead.  Maybe that would be better somehow, more appropriate?

Uh, nope.

Cookies, it is.

I'm currently making variations on my standard cookie recipe, one that came in a cookbook with our oven when it was new and that I screwed up from the get-go, forcing all kinds of great, successful alterations by trial and error (SCIENCE!) until it now yields what I think are the PERFECT drop cookies, suitable for chocolate chips, for candied ginger, for toasted almonds and dried fruit -- in short, for any variation a person sees fit to whip up of an afternoon.  What I love best about this recipe is that it's perfect for poor planners or last minute cookie-wanters: the butter is melted on the stove.  No need to pull the stick out in advance.  And the amount of brown sugar creates this lovely crackle top that I crave and which I always interpret as the sign of a perfect cookie.  

Now that it's been 30 minutes, I'm going to re-heat the oven and roll out the Miette Bakery chocolate sable dough that has been chilling in the fridge.  All I can say is that those bitches better turn out given the pain in the ass it was to grate the 3 1/2 ounces of dark chocolate for the recipe.  Chocolate everywhere! I happened to stop by Miette today after deciding to make this recipe and hope mine come out as good as theirs -- and a whole lot cheaper!  

Cookies, cookies, everywhere.  Yes!

Basic Cookie Dough

1 1/2 c flour

1/4 t each salt and baking soda

6 T unsalted butter, melted

1 c light brown sugar

1/2 c granulated sugar

1 large egg + 1 egg yolk

2 t vanilla

1 c dark chocolate chips (or chopped candied ginger or toasted nuts and dried fruit, whatev)

Sift the dry ingredients -- flour, baking soda, salt -- and set aside.

In a large bowl, mix melted butter into sugars.  Add vanilla and egg, mix well.

Add dry ingrediments and chocolate chip (or other extras). 

Bake 12 - 17 minutes, depending on your oven, at 350 degrees.

 PS The sables came out great!  YUM!