If you give a mouse a cookie...

You know that story I'm talking about. "If you give a mouse a cookie, he'll ask for a glass a milk..." and it goes on and on and on. Well, I feel like that is a good allusion to my family when they come in contact with sweets. Or rather, if you give my family cookies, they'll eat the whole plate. But that's a good thing right? It shows my baking is appreciated. My dad's a funny one though. It has to be the traditional recipes used. The recipes that he grew up with, that his mother made. So anytime you make something and it's different than Grandma's he'll tell you. "You know when my mother makes this...." or my other favorite is I'll be in the kitchen making one thing and he'll come in and say "You know I like ___". Well then make it yourself dad!

At this point I think it is necessary for me to point out that I really love my dad. And I rant about him in the most deeply loving way. And I understand why he compares everything to my grandma's baking; she is a phenomenal cook/baker. Seriously, everything she makes is amazing. Even foods I normally don't like a delicious... but this could also be due to the fact she swears by the theory that a stick of butter solves any cooking disaster.

These past few weeks have been hectic. It has consisted of studying, writing 28 page reports, and driving from Santa Barbara to Petaluma for numerous graduations. My brother graduated from UC Berkeley and my sister graduated from high school (note that she is attending UC Santa Barbara in the fall!). So I made the 6 hour trek up from Santa Barbara and my grandma hopped on the 6 hour flight out from New York to stay with us for three weeks in order to see both graduations. Along with the two graduations came two graduation parties which meant lots of baking for Grandma and me. We made numerous types of cookies, brownies, and a bread pudding with all the excess rolls left from the party. Grandma has the best snickerdoodle recipe which I will post at a later time when I have it in front of me. The other favorite I made was chocolate chip cookies! I have had the Ghiradelli's chocolate chip cookie recipe memorized since I was ten years old. But I decided to change it up a little bit this past weekend and replace the granulated sugar with honey and add nutmeg and cinnamon. The cookies were gone very quickly!

Honey nutmeg chocolate chip cookies

1 stick of unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg at room temperature

1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 F

Cream butter and add sugar and honey until well combined. Add the vanilla and a beaten egg. When well combined (make sure not to overmix). Combine all dry ingrediants in a seperate bowl and add 1/3 of the dry ingrediants at a time. Stir in the chocolate chips. Bake for 9-10 minutes and enjoy!