No Girl Scouts needed

Chocolate-Peppermint Snaps
The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion Copyright 2004

1 ½ cups unsalted butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons peppermint extract or 1/8 to ¼ teaspoon peppermint oil, to taste I used the extract
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
½ cup unsweetened natural cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease (or line with parchment ) two baking sheets.
In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugars. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in the vanilla and peppermint extract.
Add the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt, beating to combine. Stir in the chocolate chips.
Drop the dough by the tablespoonful onto the prepared baking sheets. Bake the cookies for 12 to 15 minutes, until they’re slightly darker around the edges. Remove them from the oven and transfer to a rack to cool.

Yield: 6 dozen cookies.
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I've made cookies that were very close to Thin Mints - rolled chocolate dough coated in chocolate mint but these cookies give you the same flavor with much less aggravation (that chocolate dough was a real bitch to work with). Anyone can make a basic chocolate chip cookie.

At least one person mentioned that this was the cookie he gravitated towards the most this year. I'm not sure if I'll make these again next year. They were delicious and easy but if I had the time and energy to do something a little more special, I would. This year, I was just looking for simple recipes to fill out my tins.

I thought I'd review my 2006 Culinary Resolutions and see what I accomplished and what I didn't. (Key: green = success and red = failure)

1. Make my own pizza dough. I make pizza dough almost every Friday in my bread machine.

2. Make something in a tart pan. I used it to make this Peach Crumble Tart.

3. Make something in a springform pan. I made a fantastic Cheesecake.

4. Smoke something in an electric smoker. It's still in the box.

5. Use my new bread machine at least 6 times, hopefully many more. I use it to make pizza dough every Friday and I've made bread a couple of times and dinner rolls once.

6. $100 spending limit on new cookbooks. Um, yeah. Didn' t happen.

7. Make homemade marshmallows. I though I might fit this one in but it doesn't look like I'll get to these.

8. Make jam. I didn't get to this. I'd still like to try canning but I realized that we don't really eat jam so there was no real motivation to make it. Pickles might be a better idea.

9. Make something with phyllo dough. I never got around to this. Next year.

10. Even out my categories a bit more. I still have too many main dish recipes and too few side dish recipes but I think I made a lot more appetizers and breads this year. I need another green so I'm going to say I accomplished this!

So I accomplished half my culinary resolutions. I'll just roll the ones I didn't accomplish over to next year (except for that $100 limit of cookbooks - who am I kidding?) I'll focus better next year. This year, most of the year was gone before I remembered that this list was out there.

Blast From The Past: Spicy Meatballs with Fiery Chili Sauce from earlier this month. I made them again last night. So good!

Question of the Day: Was 2006 a good year for you?