Smugness in the kitchen

One of the many reasons I love Nigella Lawson is that she acknowledges and embraces the smugness that goes along with cooking, and particularly baking. Bringing something to a party that people fawn over and just saying, of yeah I just threw that together before I left the house (especially if your friends don't bake) is a wonderful, and lets admit it smug and superior feeling. In a world where very little is in my control, I at least know I can count on a few recipes to impress people.
Here is one of my favorite ways to be a smug domestic goddess or god in the kitchen. Make a double batch of drop cookies (my favorite recipes follow), get a large sheet train and dollop out the dough with a small ice cream scoop, or whatever you use for cookie dishing. Then put the whole tray in the freezer. In an hour you can pull the frozen dough off the tray and pop them into plastic freezer bags or some other mode of containment and stash back in the freezer. You can cook them like normal directly out of the freezer. This way when you have an overnight guest you can say, would you like some cookies, whip out your tray pop them in the oven and you are only 10-15 minutes away from homemade bliss. This makes you look like a crazy prepared 50's housewife with none of the drawback, like severe psychological trauma. Plus if someone springs a party invite on you, even if you are super busy you can throw cookies in the oven and look like a culinary super star when you get to their house. The smugness that goes along with always knowing you have homemade cookie goodness in the freezer cannot be underestimated.
Now I know what you are about to say, don't you just eat all the cookie dough. I really don't and I love cookie dough as much as anyone, trust me, fights break out over licking batter and dough in my family, but I find that when it is present in the freezer and easy enough to cook up, I really don't find myself with my hand constantly in the freezer. I also think for personal eating it is nice to just cook up say 5 cookies for a midnight snack with milk, rather than the temptation of several dozen. Anyway, here are some recipes to get you started on the road of culinary smugness.

Classic Chocolate Chip
this one never lets me down and easily doubles. You can skip sifting in any recipe I think if you put the dry ingredients in a bowl and whisk them together. I use milk chocolate chips or M &M's but use whatever you like. White chocolate chips and dried cranberry's can be quite elegant for the winter as well.

• 11 1/2 ounce(s) Milk Chocolate Chips (Ghirardelli's please!)
  
• 2 1/4 cup(s) unsifted flour
• 1 teaspoon(s) baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon(s) teaspoon salt
• 1 cup(s) (2 sticks) butter
• 3/4 cup(s) sugar
• 3/4 cup(s) packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoon(s) vanilla

Preheat oven to 375ºF (skip this if you are freezing them all).
Stir flour with baking soda and salt (use a whisk here); set aside.
In large mixer bowl, cream butter with sugar, brown sugar, you want this to lighten in color, it taks a couple minutes
add the eggs, and vanilla.
Gradually blend dry mixture into creamed mixture.
Stir in chocolate chips or whatever else you want.
Drop 1 tablespoon of dough per cookie onto ungreased cookie sheets. (I use a silpat, which is a bit of an investment $20 usually, but worth it because your cookie bottoms won't burn.)



Cowgirl Cookies (this is what my best friend calls them and I like the name, they are oatmeal chocolate chip, and seem to have at least a theoretical added health value add nuts if you must, but I'm a purist)

1 cup (2 sticks) of butter, softened

1 cup packed brown sugar

½ cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1½ cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp salt

3 cups Oatmeal (old fashioned or quick cook)

1 bag of chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350

Cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy, add egg and vanilla and beat in well.

Mix up flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt in a bowl with a wire whisk.

Slowly add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and beat just enough to combine, then stir in the oatmeal and the chips.

Dole out the cookies with a small ice cream scoop or a teaspoon onto a cookie sheet.

Bake for 10-12 minutes.

You can also freeze the dough in zip top bags in cookie sized balls and bake off as needed.

Yields: 3-4 dozen