Welcome Back To Blogging With Chocolate Chip Cookies

          Now that the spring semester is almost over and I have taken my anatomy lab life can get back to my favorite hobbies. Some of my favorite hobbies are knitting, cooking, gardening, and baking. Let me tell you this, anatomy is a class that was sucking all the life out of me and was a super hard to remember all of the bones, muscles, and nerves. Sometimes to get through the memorization of them items, I needed to come up with some R-rated mnemonic to remember things.

         Last night while the husband was on an overnight snow machining trip far up North in the Paxson and Valdez area for one last trip of the season. The 2014-2015 season is  the first year that we have had to travel 3 to 4 hours one direction to find some snow to ride on. The Anchorage area has only had 20 inches of snow.  But, back to the original story, while he went snow machining I decided to try a new recipe that I had thought up.

Sorry about the picture, it is from my iPhone. 

Dark Chocolate Coconut Chip Cookies
1 stick of butter (softened)
1 8oz. package of cream cheese (room temperature)
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 1/4 cup flour
1 bag of dark chocolate chips (can use any chip or chunk)
1/2 cup coconut (I didn't measure, just dumped until I liked the look)
2 tsp cornstarch
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

         Cream together the butter, cream cheese, sugar, and brown sugar in a bowl. Once combined, put the eggs and vanilla in the bowl next, mixing them with the butter mixture.  Add the flour, baking soda, cornstarch, and salt in the mixture and combine until well mixed. Finally add the coconut and chocolate stirring them until mixed in the dough.  Bake at 350 for 12 - 15 minutes until light golden brown.  I used a cookie scoop and flattened them down because they do not spread like regular cookies.  Makes about 30 cookings using a cookie scoop. They turned out moist and tender cookies that go great with a big glass of milk.

Orange Pistachio Ice box Cookies

          Today has been a huge baking day in my house. When I say big, I am talking about 3 batches of my grandma's sugar cookies, 2 batches of chocolate chip cookies, and 1 batch of the orange pistachio ice box cookies.

          The inspiration for the orange pistachio cookies came from a 6 hour flight to Minneapolis from Alaska and watching the first episode of  Holiday Baking Championship on the Food Network. The original recipe for this cookie was just a regular ice box cookie that has been in my family and passed down for years.

Orange Pistachio Ice Box Cookies on vintage china

Orange Pistachio Ice Box Cookies

Zest of two oranges

1 1/2 tsp of orange extract

2 C Shortening (butter or Crisco)

1 C Brown Sugar (Packed)

1 C Sugar

2 Eggs

5 C Flour

1tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 C chopped pistachios

1.     Zest the oranges and set aside

2.     Cream the shortening, sugars, and eggs until pale yellow color

3.     Add in orange zest and extract

4.     In separate bowl place the flour, salt, baking powder and mix lightly

5.     Spoon the flour mixture and nuts into the wet ingredients.

6.     Mix until they are combined.

7.     Place on a sheet of aluminum foil forming a large roll.

8.     Stick in the freezer for about 12 hours.

Before baking pull out of the freezer. Slice them to the thickness you like and bake at 350 until edges are golden brown.