Chocolate Chip Cookies

When we lived in Europe, I often used baking chocolate chip cookies as a reminder of "the good life" in America.

Thirty years ago, finding chocolate chips anywhere outside of the US was very difficult. Notice I did not write "good chocolate"chips, since nothing beats good Swiss and Dutch chocolate. For many years I made my own chips by beating up a good bar of European chocolate. Maybe I was the first one to bake chunky chocolate bits cookies. But I think not! I know that I did use Nestle's recipe, since I keep an empty chips bag in my recipe box.

Many times when I was homesick for my native land, I would mix up the cookie dough, bake 3/4 of it, and eat the rest of the unhealthy dough as the cookies baked. That is just how the cookie crumbled! (Mrs.A. at ASH would not have approved of eating the raw egged dough. But bet she did it, too.) YUMMY!

From Just Plain Cooking, here is the first of several chocolate chip cookie recipes:

Chocolate Chip Cookies (Memaw's)

1 1/4 cup sifted flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon soda

1/2 cup butter or oleo ( margarine)

1/2 cup white sugar

1/3 cup brown sugar (packed)

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 package (6 ounces) chocolate chips

1/2 cup chopped pecans

Heat oven to 375 degrees F. In a small bowl, combine flour, salt, and soda and set aside.

Cream butter and sugars. Beat in egg and vanilla. Gradually add flour mixture.

Stir in chocolate chips and pecans. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto lightly greased baking sheets.

Bake 10 - 12 minutes.

Makes 2 1/2 dozen cookies.