More Teeth & Cookies!

K-dub is teething again.  He had 2 teeth when he was placed with us.  The first month he was here, he got 6 more!  And after a short break, he's teething again.  I'm pretty sure he is working on everything that's left.  Every spot that doesn't already have a tooth is swollen and I could feel a molar had just broken through or was about to.  Needless to say, he has been very grumpy this week.  He just follows me around the house crying and fussing.  Holding him doesn't help.  Motrin usually works but today it didn't.  By 7:30 tonight, I was ready to go bonkers.  And to top it off, I had a sugar craving.  Bonkers and cravings tend to go together.



Yep, that's drool!



So, I decided I'd whip up a batch of my favorite cookies, Chocolate Chip-less.  For those of you that don't know what that is, it's mom's chocolate chip cookie recipe, minus the chocolate chips.  These are my absolute favorite, even if my intestines and gluten have an ongoing disagreement.  I have never been able to convert these to gluten free and have them turn out.  Trust me I've tried.  They either taste horrible or bake into a paper thin rock or both.  So when I really crave them, I make them.

My favorite is right out of the oven, and ever-so-slightly undercooked.  I don't know how my love for these started.  I would assume that it has something to do with being the youngest of 5 children.  Picture this with me if you will.  You come home from school and mom is baking cookies for everyone.  The oldest kids (Brian and Jeff) call dibs on the first batch of cookies to come out of the oven.  These cookies are loaded full of yummy chocolate chips.  They eat them and run along.  The middle kids (Steve and Lisa) call the second batch to come out.  They too have plenty of chocolate chips in them.  They eat their cookies and run along also.  Now it's my turn.  Mom is scraping dough that is stuck on the sides of the bowl to get enough to make one or two more cookies.  If I was lucky, there might have been one chocolate chip left for one of the cookies.  She bakes them up and because she is trying to clean up with all 5 kids home, she puts them in for the minimum time.  She doesn't give them that extra 30 seconds to a minute more that they need because she's ready to load the cookie sheet into the dishwasher.  And there you have it.  My love for chocolate chip-less cookies begins!

Those of you that are the youngest in your families completely understand this sibling hierarchy.  I have a similar reasoning for why, as a child, always took cool water baths!  Still to this day, I don't care for real hot showers.  But all said and done, I wouldn't trade my childhood for anything.  I love my family and love to laugh at our stories.  I hope my children will think so highly of their childhoods when they get older. 

Here's my mom's recipe if you're lacking some yummy goodness in your life.  It's an older Hershey's recipe and is not the same as on the bag of chips today.

1 cup crisco

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 eggs

Cream together then add:

2 1/4 cups flour (a little more if needed)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

Add 2 cups chocolate chips (optional!)

Bake in pre-heated oven at 375* for 8-10 minutes.