Products that will knock your socks off: Back to Nature's Fudge Mint cookies

This new feature on my blog is inspired by my love of Cocoa Metro. I needed somewhere to share some of the wonderful products out there that have simply knocked my socks off. These are items that my friends will hear about constantly until they try them. It can be a beloved flavored olive oil or a new bottle of Gin anything goes as long as I love it and want other people to give it a shot. For this first installment I offer a cookie to rival the infamous thin mint. Back to Nature's Fudge Mint cookies.

Are you tired of waiting for girl scout cookie time to roll around to get your thin mint fix? Did you miss the little darlings as they came around with their delicious wares this year? Well, then these cookies are definitely for you. I picked them up on a whim the other day when I was trying to fulfill a chocolate-mint craving without baking it myself. These cookies are, dare I say it, even BETTER than thin mints. They are fresh and they don't taste processed or preserved at all. There is no waxyness in the fudge surrounding the cookie. Not only that, but these cookies have a wonderful crispy crunch that many store bought cookies lack. That crunch combined with the melt in your mouth fudge and perfect dark chocolate mint combination makes for one heck of a satisfying cookie. I highly recommend these for anyone who has a love of chocolate and mint together. I found these at Stop and shop, but they are also carried at Whole foods. Next time you are craving chocolate and mint, give these a try I think you will be pleasantly surprised ( and then you will eat an entire box in one sitting :)

C is for cookie

I know I should be making cookies shaped like bunnies, chicks or easter eggs at this time of year, and that might come later on this week, but all I really want is a chocolate chip cookie. So last night after I made dinner and settled my husband in with his video game I did just that. These aren't particularly inventive, heck they aren't even my usual recipe, just good old nestle toll house chocolate chip cookies. Sometimes its best to just stick to the basics. More baking adventures this weekend as I prepare for Easter at my friend's parents house.

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 large eggs

2 cups Nestle chocolate chips

PREHEAT oven to 375° F.

COMBINE flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each additionand and vanilla extract. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

BAKE for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Fuckin cookies

Everyone has their cooking phobias and nightmare recipes. Well, this is mine.

Every year at Christmas time I make my Dad these cookies. They are my grandmother's recipe and I am the only one in the family who can "make them right" now that my grandmother has passed on. Man do I hate these fucking cookies. I wouldn't make these things for my husband if they were they only sweets he would ever eat. But I make them every year because they are my father's favorite thing in the world. Only for him do I endure the torture and annoyance of making these fucking cookies.

Only for my father, and then only once a year. This year I was laid up post surgery at christmas, so I would have made them for his Valentines birthday but, I was at a wedding for Valentines day so I just managed to make them this weekend. They are still his Valentine/birthday present, hence the heart shapes. It took me and a friend an entire day to get these things made. And this is not a job you can do by yourself or you will go mad. As it was we needed a stiff drink by the time we were finished.

First the dough, a simple enough recipe (they are a family secret so forgive me if I don't give the exact recipe here) flour, butter, eggs, sugar, salt. There is a cuisinart involved. Then you have to pat the dough down into discs and refrigerate it. The recipe says refrigerate for an hour, but if you don't leave it in the fridge at least overnight you're in trouble.

Then there is the rolling. Now most cookie recipes call for rolling out to a 1/4 of an inch or 1/2 an inch thickness. No no, this stuff has to be rolled out almost paper thin, and it is sticky as all hell. I have to use a silpat covered in flour with flour sprinkled over the dough and flour on the rolling pin in order to keep them from sticking to the silpat or the rolling pin, this flouring process needs to be repeated constantly. Then you need to cut them out and very carefully, as you can image being paper thin they are very fragile, transfer them to cookie sheets. Then, because they aren't enough of a pain in the ass already, you need to decorate them with loose cookie sugar before they go in the oven.

The cookies are shipping out to Atlanta on Monday and my cookie cutters and colored sugars will head into storage for another year. Banished to the recesses of my house not to be thought of again until next years dreaded Christmas cookie marathon looms.

I think I'll go make something easier, like coq au vin or chocolate mousse now.