Recipe: Best Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies

John and I decided that this year we are going to learn about and use our food storage. This came up with a plan that every paycheck (which for me is 2 weeks since right now with John in school I am the main income earner) I can purchase one food storage item. I'm trying to keep it on the cheap, less than $20 a purchase, and so far most purchases have been less than $7 so it is working out nicely. With each purchase, I need to find a recipe and use that item within that 2 weeks to try it out, and hopefully find a good use of the product. I'm only going to buy things that we can actually eat/use (no food allergies, and trying to keep it low sugar - that one went out the window this week but what can I say, trying to introduce a new food, always start with a dessert!) and that I can store without it going rancid before we can use it. I had heard so many good things about the first product I wanted to buy, that I was so excited to go out and buy it. First, I'll give you the recipe, tell you how yummy it was, then get into the nitty gritty about what I used and how I used it.

Best Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies
(using food storage)

Ingredients:
1 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs (2T dehydrated egg powder + 1/2 cup water)
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking soda
2 cups chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream together butter, sugars, eggs and vanilla. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, salt and baking soda. Add to creamed mixture and beat well. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop onto a greased baking sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes until lightly browned. makes 3 dozen

What I did:

I wanted to try a new recipe showcasing one particular food storage ingredient (this one just happened to have 2, but I was focusing on the eggs for this one. I did end up using dehydrated whole eggs, (which may sound gross, but have a lot of benefits, I'll touch on that in a bit). I like my cookies very soft and chewy, so I baked the cookies for 10 minutes (everything takes a bit longer up here in this high altitude) and then pulled them out of the oven and let them sit on the hot baking sheets on top of the hot oven for another 10 minutes, THEN I put them onto a cooling rack to finish cooling all the way. That way I got the most perfect chewy center and no crunchy outsides either. They have this hint of nutty flavor from the whole wheat flour, which gave it a dimension of flavor that I had not anticipated, but was AMAZING! Kind of like how salt can bring out flavors in foods, the flour totally did it in this recipe.

These were so delicious I wanted to eat them all right then and there! I'm glad I didn't though, they are surprisingly filling because they are made with whole wheat. Usually I feel like I need to eat 2-3 cookies to get my sweet tooth satisfied, but these actually get the job done with 1. With trying to eat better, and be a little more healthy, I have learned that when I want something sweet and tasty, I'd rather have the real thing instead of trying to make something fit into the healthy category (by using artificial sweeteners or something, which usually fails miserably) but to just eat less of it in moderation. It is actually doable with this recipe. I'd definitely recommend this to anyone trying out their food storage, especially with whole wheat flour. This is one of the best recipes that is super easy to follow and a great way to introduce whole wheat to your family.

For a little spotlight on one of my new favorite storage items:
Dried Whole Eggs

What I consider to be the best thing about using dried eggs is that it's not gross (it just looks like yellow flour) and it's already pasteurized. That means that YES, you can eat cookie dough and not get sick from it! (When I learned this, I was fantasizing about making my own cookie-dough blizzard treats because they're my favorite ice cream dessert but could never figure out how they got those little dough balls that wouldn't make you sick!) The other two perks, is that it is cheaper than using regular eggs (as long as you can get a #10 can for less than $17.99, which my local WalMart carries for that exact price, it comes out to about 90 cents a dozen when re-constituted) and they're VERY easy to put into baking recipes. you simply put the dry powder in with your dry ingredients, and the water to re-constitute it in with the wet ingredients. There wasn't any tough thinking to actually use this product which was the main selling point to me (I only want storage items that I can actually USE and not just throw away in a couple of years feeling like I wasted time and money on it). I would never use this to make scrambled eggs or anything (well, maybe as an experiment I would...) but only plan on using this in baking and/or cooking. I am totally sold on this product and plan on having it in my pantry as a STAPLE in my baking items from now on!




PS with friends and co-workers, these 3 dozen cookies didn't even make it 3 days before they were gone! Guess it's time to make more!