Breast Cancer Awareness Giveaway and Cookies

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. 5 Minutes for Mom is giving away a pink camera to help spread the awareness of this disease. Take a minute and hop over to their site and enter the drawing. Be sure and tell them I sent you!

Now for a completely unrelated topic: COOKIES! The dinner dishes were done. We were waiting for Kenny to get home from work. God Bless him and the OT hours he puts in. Jesse was on the couch watching Pokemon or Hanna Montana or The Suite Life of Zach and Cody or who knows really. Austin was trying desperately to get him to play Uno. He's not a big fan of watching TV. And he's not allowed on his Play Station or Gameboy or the computer due to his progress report in English. So while he sulked upstairs a brilliant idea came to mind. Let's make cookies! I called him down to see if he wanted to help and he of course said yes. Anything is better than watching TV in his eyes. We made Three Chocolate Cookies from Paula Deen. Dear Lord are they good. We've made them before but each time it still amazes me. If you have gimpy hands like me I strongly suggest that you have someone help you. Mixing in all of that chocolate is pretty hard. We all took turns stirring in the chocolate, even Jesse who managed to pull himself away from the TV for 5 minutes. When the cookies were done, we ALL played Uno (I kicked teenage butt!) and waited for Kenny while enjoying one of these gargantuan cookies. Nice thing about them is you only need one! Since the weather appears to be changing now for a lot of us and turning the oven on isn't killing us anymore, why don't you try this recipe. Believe me - you will not be sorry!!



1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1/2 cup vegetable shortening (I used butter flavored Crisco)
3/4 cup sugar
1 3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 3/4 cups AP flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 (12-oz bag) semisweet chocolate morsels
1 cup milk chocolate morsels
3 (1-oz) squares bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 cup almond brickle chips (I actually used half of a bag of Heath bar pieces)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Lightly grease baking sheets.

With an electric mixer, beat butter and shortening at meedium speed until creamy; gradually add sugars, beating until fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla, beating well.

In a small bowl, combine flour baking soda and salt; gradually add to butter mixture, beating until blended. Stir in chocolate morsels and almond brickle chips (or Heath pieces.) Drop cookies by 1/4 cupfuls (I used an icecream scoop because that's what she did when I saw her make it on the show) about 3 inches apart onto prepared baking sheets. Bake for 11-12 minutes or until lightly browned. Let cool for 2 minutes on sheet. Remove to wire racks to cool.