Cookies for everyone

The Seahawks were playing in frozen Minnesota on mute in the other room, and every time I looked in I kept focusing on all that breath hanging around the players. Football is a sport I usually tolerate because people I love love it, but seeing those teams in those freezing conditions only added to my general disdain of a brutal game. In any case, it was making me feel cold. (Is that empathy, or sympathy? I can never keep those terms straight.) I kept thinking I should take a bath. Instead I put together a stock pot of chicken carcass and vegetables to simmer on the stove for a couple hours. I finished my chores, the kind I only do with gusto in January (like cleaning out the pantry, or taking a lemon half to the hard water stains in the shower - just to see if it actually works [it does, on certain areas]). But when it came down to it, what this Sunday really called for was making giant cookies. Surely that would be the warmest, most comforting thing. If I could give those poor freezing football players something to combat the cold, this would not be a solution, but it would be a nice gesture.

I'm working my way through my "Recipe Adventure" spreadsheet, and therefore my cookbooks, and after cleaning out the aforementioned pantry this weekend, I had search terms a-plenty to choose my next recipe. For this: several half-opened bars of dark chocolate, a bag of dried cherries, pecans, and a Costco-load of oats.

The recipe is from my Science of Good Cooking book by America's Test Kitchen. I wouldn't say the recipe - Oatmeal Cookies with Dark Chocolate, Cherries and Pecans - is a remarkable one, but it is a smart use of ingredients. Blame January for tiring me out, but I'm too lazy to post it, especially because many people have a go-to oatmeal cookie recipe - or one can be found easily on the internet. So take your basic oatmeal cookie recipe but be indulgent in the extras. Add 4 oz. of chopped dark chocolate, about a cup of dried tart cherries, chopped, and a cup of pecans, toasted and chopped. Lots of chopping, but worth it. Take them out of the oven sooner if you like soft cookies, later if you like them crisp (as mine turned out to be).

Make tea. Eat cookie. If you still want to soak in the bath, do so at your earliest convenience. It's January and this is what I love about it.