Sustenance

Too bad if Pringles hates the bread machine. I officially adore it.



It couldn't have been easier. Dump water, oil, bread mix into the machine, then make a little divet for the yeast on top of the flour. Press start, wait 2.5 hours, and enjoy delicious homemade bread.



I will be doing this every single weekend from now until forever.



However, the universe seeks balance, and for every successful kitchen venture, I tend to also have a tremendous failure. Lately, its been chocolate chip cookies. I just can't get them right. First it was the no-name brand chocolate chips. I was trying to save a few bucks by getting the Safeway brand instead of the genuine Nestle semi-sweet chocolate chips. Unfortunately, the recipe on the Safeway brand is extremely sub-par. I ended up with round rocks of dough instead of nice, soft, flat cookies.

So, like any extremely stubborn and persistent person would, I attempted to make cookies again, this time using the Nestle recipe. Only I didn't have any chocolate chips left. So I chopped up some unsweetened Baker's Chocolate that was in the cabinet, begging to be used up. (Or so I thought.)

The dough looked glorious. I thought I'd conquered the bad-cookie fluke.



Turns out, unsweetened chocolate is called "unsweetened" for a reason. It was horrible. The chocolate pieces in each cookie tasted like chocolate-flavored chalk. Two strikes. My cookie skillz are not looking good.

I went shopping today for reinforcements: brown sugar, eggs, two bags of Nestle Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels, vanilla, flour... the works. I have printed out a rather famous cookie recipe.**

I will not be foiled again!

(**Also, I realize that it is rather ironic for me to slam Neiman Marcus leopard print flats in one post and then laud the Neiman Marcus cookie recipe in a second post. What can I say, I am a study in contradictions.) :)