Crispy Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

These are more chewy than crispy, but that's how I like 'em. I splurged and bought Ghiradelli semisweet chips for these cookies--and I should have bought bittersweet, because I think the added bitterness would have stopped me from eating so many at a time. Irresistible!

Taken from one of my favorite cooking blogs (Smitten Kitchen), taken from one of my go-to recipe sites (allrecipes.com).

The brown sugar and vanilla in the cookie dough make it delightful paired with the sweet chocolate chips--that toffee flavor in chocolate chip cookies is enhanced quite a bit in this recipe. I love it!

Also, you can make face cookies with this recipe. That's right, cookies the size of your face will not burn in the oven when you use this recipe. Face cookies, as many of you might know, are my stress food of choice. I'm keeping this recipe for later.

Post-Grad Cooking in Alabama

My air conditioning wasn't working yesterday. This only lasted a day, but it was still about 90 degrees in my house. Ridiculously hot Alabama weather, ya'll. I wanted to eat something cold and light (and fast, so I could get back to sitting in front of a fan), so I made this simple salad, inspired by one that I saw on Tastespotting.



You can't really see the mango 'cause I should have added more, but the salad was yummy anyways. It could be even better with some avocado. Definitely good for hot weather.

Here's the recipe:
Ingredients
3-4 carrots
1 large cucumber
1 large (or 2 small) mangoes
chopped cilantro (as much as you want)
juice from 1/2 a large lemon (or 1 small lemon!)
1 tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
a pinch of salt

Directions
Julienne the carrots, cucumber, and mango and put in a bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix.
Makes about 4-5 servings.

Unfortunately, I had a BAKING DISASTER this morning. I painstakingly mixed and froze the dough last night for these spiced almond wafer cookies, and I burned them this morning when baking.



See they look fine here, right?



But they're totally ruined! Waaah :(