Chocolate Chip Cookies

I am a professional garage-saler. Every Saturday morning at about 6AM I start twitching with excitement. Sadly the garage sales in Utah aren't quite as awesome as the ones in Texas, but I am learning to adjust. Last Saturday though....was a total bust. Not only did I drive way out of the way to go to a neighborhood garage sale, but the sales themselves were pretty pathetic and overpriced. Aside from a life-size cardboard cutout of Edward Cullen, there wasn't a treasure to be found. (And they wanted too much for said life size cutout of Edward, and just to clear things up it wasn't that I wanted the cutout for me. It was to prop outside of the front door of a dear friend who loves Edward more than Jacob - weirdo). Anyway, at one of the garage sales there were some kids out selling cookies. I have a personal standard to always buy food from kids. Always. So I snagged a cookie and cinnamon roll.

I was already to the next neighborhood when I took my first bite of the cookie and...oh my. It was the best chocolate chip cookie I had ever tasted, which was really saying something since I make a mean chocolate chip cookie. So, I stewed about it for a good five minutes and decided to drive back to the kids selling cookies. As embarrassing as it was I found the maker of the cookies and got her e-mail address. Here we are nearly a week later and she sent me the recipe and I have made and devoured an entire batch.

The really ironic thing is that her recipe for chocolate chip cookies is strikingly similar to my own, with just a few minor changes. As for which one is the better cookie...well, it just depends on which one is in front of me at the time.

Garage Sale Chocolate Chip Cookies

by: Jenni Carlson, a very nice person who was nice to not call me crazy when I demanded her recipe.

1 cup shortening
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 bag of milk chocolate chips

Cream together the shortening, brown sugar, white sugar and vanilla. Add the two eggs, then mix in the flour, salt and soda. When thoroughly mixed, gently mix in the chocolate chips. Form in to balls. Please on greased cookie sheet and bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes.

Mom's Chocolate Chip Cookies

by: Jan Genessy

1/2 cup white sugar
1 cup shortening
1 cup brown sugar, well packed
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
2 1/4 cups flour
1teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Cream together shortening, sugar, vanilla and eggs. Add salt and soda, mixing well. Add 1 1/4 cups of the flour, mix well. Add the last cup of flour and mix by hand, add the chocolate chips and mix by hand. Bake at 350dgs for 7-10 minutes. The trick to these cookies is to not over bake them. Pull out when they first start to crack on top or start to barely turn golden brown.

Notes: I had the worlds biggest milk chocolate chips when I made the garage sale cookies. For reals, they were like Hershey's kisses. So I am not sure if that is what happened or if the recipe just calls too many,but I would say that you would be good to just add a cup of chocolate chips there in that first recipe. Enjoy!