snacks became tradition

Sometimes it's hard to balance a college life with my home life. I suppose I technically don't live at home anymore, but I do visit whenever I can during the semester.


This year, I would bake cookies every time I came home. It started out as a way to say thank you to my parents, either for driving two hours just to bring me home or for constantly putting up with my various problems. Cookies became synonymous with Sami.


However, I was basically terrible at baking. I'd follow the recipe on the back of the Nestle chocolate chips bag (the same recipe in this post), but my cookies would turn out like pancakes.


Flat, misshapen, but still delicious.


I've now baked cookies so often that I know the recipe by heart. Every time I bake, the cookies turn out a little differently than the time before. Oh well.


There was no way I could have taken photos for this post; my hands were incredibly messy. 


Here's the recipe and how I make these cookies my own:

• 2 sticks of butter (1 cup) at room temperature
• 3/4 cup of brown sugar
• 3/4 cup of sugar (granulated)
• 1 tsp. of vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 2 and 1/4 cup of flour
• 1 tsp. of baking soda
• 1 tsp. of salt
• 1 cup of goodies

Before you get started, preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

In a medium-sized bowl, combine your dry ingredients (flour, baking soda and salt).

In a big bowl, use a mixer (I just use an electric hand mixer) to blend the first four ingredients (butter, brown sugar, sugar and vanilla extract) until it's creamy. This is the step I often have the most trouble with - sometimes it's more creamy than others, so just go with the flow.

Beat in the eggs one at a time to the wet ingredients until fully combined.

Now, beat in a little of the flour mixture at a time. Depending on how creamy the wet ingredients are, this could become difficult or incredibly easy. I've seen it all, trust me.

All that's left is the cup-ish of goodies! These are usually milk chocolate chips, but I've been adding craisins to my cookies lately. I once made cookies with milk chocolate and white chocolate chips - those were a big hit!

Stir in your goodies until it seems like each cookie will have equal amounts.

Then get out two baking sheets - no need to spray them or grease them with anything.

One cookie = one spoonful of dough. Space them on the cookie sheets about two inches apart.

If you have room in your oven, put both baking sheets in for 9 to 11 minutes. So, 10 minutes, basically. After 10 minutes, take a peek to see if they need more time. If you can't tell, stick a toothpick in the middle of one of the cookies - if it comes out clean, your cookies are done!

Voilà!