Cookie Monster

Once upon a time (BTC, before three children) I used to make cookies from scratch. Now the kids are lucky if I even make cookies at all. On that rare occasion that I can be talked into it I use the Betty Crocker cookie mixes. You simply add butter, an egg and a table spoon of water. One minute later you have cookie dough. It usually takes longer to heat the oven than to make the cookie dough. Albertson's usually has the mixes on sale 4 times a year and I can pick them up for a dollar a piece and they make 24 good sized cookies, and they taste amazingly delicious. It is so worth my time to use the mix and not have to clean cookie mess from my kitchen!

On Wednesday night we had an hour before American Idol and the kids talked me into making cookies. I think they like the dough more than the actual cookie. I have no idea where the get that from?!!!

Mark wanted to use a gingerbread mix. He has had a thing for gingerbread cookies since Christmas. At Christmas I did actually make gingerbread cookies from scratch, and I think he was so fascinated with the fact you measured ingredients out he now wants to make gingerbread cookies every time we make cookies. Although he did really like using the cookie cutters to make shapes. (Christmas is my one exception to the only make cookies from a mix rule. I am superstitious and believe that if I do not make homemade gingerbread men at Christmas I will be cursed by my mother for the next 12 months. I have enough disasters in my life, I try to avoid those that are foreseeable)

When I make gingerbread using the mix I don't roll them out and use the cookie cutters, much to Mark's dismay. I roll the cookie dough into balls, coat the cookie dough balls in white sugar, and bake the cookies. I made 24 cookies and left them on the kitchen counter to cool while Rick and I and the kids watched the results show for American Idol. Through out the show Mark kept coming into the family room with a cookie and I kept sending him back into the kitchen to eat his cookie, so as to avoid the inevitable cookie crumbs all over the carpet in the family room. I thought he had eaten about two cookies. After the show was over I went into the kitchen to put the cookies away only to discover that each time I sent Mark back into the kitchen to eat his cookie he put the partially eaten cookie down and began to munch on a new cookie. I found six cookies in various states of being eaten.

It's official Cookie Monster resides at my house!