I just finished writing Year of the Dog ! It had a massive plot hole that I had to fix which turned out to be more work than I expected. Here’s a snippet: “Hey, Auntie Nell.” He wrapped his arms around her, bussing her on the cheek and breathing in pikake flowers and shortbread cookies. And suddenly he was nine years old again, and her solid presence had made his chaotic world stable once more. “What are you doing here?” He usually took her to dinner on Wednesday nights, but today was Tuesday. The edges of her smile faltered a little before brightening right back up again. “What, I can’t visit my nephew?” She angled around him to enter his home. “Is this your new house? Looks lovely.” Which was a blatant lie, because the fixer-upper was barely livable, much less acceptable to a neat-freak like his aunt. She also left four matching pink and purple floral suitcases on the stoop behind her. Only then did Ashwin notice the cab driver standing slightly to the side of the walkway. “Can ...
Captain's Log, Supplemental
I suck at baking. No joke. Something always burns—either me or whatever I’m baking.
My husband, however, is great at baking. Probably because he’s more careful than I am. LOL
We also tend to buy too much of any ingredient we need. As a result, we bought several bags of chocolate chips when we only needed one bag because the chips were on sale.
Oh, shucks.
Captain Caffeine made chocolate chip cookies to help use up the many, many—MANY—bags of chocolate chips we’ve got in the pantry.
For scooping out the cookie dough, Captain Caffeine uses an ice cream scoop—much thanks to Alton Brown from Good Eats on the Food Network for this tip. According to the Captain, that ice cream scoop is worth it's weight in gold.
Uniform, perfectly baked cookies! Captain is quite a good baker, unlike his wife.
Snickers, naturally, hoping Daddy will magically drop a cookie just for her. Never mind it's so hot it would scald her mouth.
Captain Caffeine in action.
There is so much butter in these cookies, can you see the sheen of grease on the baking stone?

I suck at baking. No joke. Something always burns—either me or whatever I’m baking.
My husband, however, is great at baking. Probably because he’s more careful than I am. LOL
We also tend to buy too much of any ingredient we need. As a result, we bought several bags of chocolate chips when we only needed one bag because the chips were on sale.
Oh, shucks.
Captain Caffeine made chocolate chip cookies to help use up the many, many—MANY—bags of chocolate chips we’ve got in the pantry.
Uniform, perfectly baked cookies! Captain is quite a good baker, unlike his wife.
Snickers, naturally, hoping Daddy will magically drop a cookie just for her. Never mind it's so hot it would scald her mouth.
Captain Caffeine in action.
There is so much butter in these cookies, can you see the sheen of grease on the baking stone?
Comments
I'm not much of a cookie baker either, but I did recently post a recipe on my blog for Pumpkin Chip Cookies~ they are fantastic!
Hey, we have the same kitchen floor, only my diamond shapes are a pinkish color! LOL
Have a good weekend~ eating all those cookies!
I love it that whatever you and the Captain are doing that you put up pictures. It is almost like a soap opera that I tune in to watch I(if I watched soaps--you and the Captain are much more interesting, if you ask me.)
The scoop does make all the difference in the cookies being perfectly baked. I also love the result of spliting the amount of butter the recipe calls for into half margarine (cubed) and half shortening. (Make sure to add the teaspoons of water the shortening suggests for the substitution.) The texture with that mixture is divine.
My son just "outgrew" his gluten intolerance/allergy so we'll be breaking out the chocolate chip cookies tomorrow!
Have to try Christina's suggestions. Just hope I can remember. Cool on the scoop! Gonna have to try that too.