Chocolate Chip, of course

I made cookies today. I was rummaging through our cupboards and not finding anything for a little between-meals pick-me-up, wait, let me qualify that: nothing containing chocolate, and since Daniel was still napping, I thought I'd try to get a batch of cookies in the oven before he woke up. Not only did I get the cookies in, but I got the kitchen cleaned up and the cookies back out before I heard a peep from the bedroom. That little boy took a 3 hour nap after lunch! Those three hours are the only reason I was sane when C came home from work. It was so bad this morning that I sent an email to him at 11:43am that simply read "today sucks. that is all." I wrote it on my phone during lunch while holding D with one arm because I couldn't stand his fussing any longer, snatching bites of my sandwich with the other hand in between telling Zachary that he needed to stop whining and if he would just let me finish my lunch I would be able to take care of his pressing need to pick up the tomato he had dropped on the floor for the umpteenth time. This wonderful lunch followed a morning that had gone much the same way. Which is why, at 11:43, I had only just gotten out of pj's, the laundry had not progressed, the kitchen was still a mess from the night before, the cat box reeked, and the floor was covered in toys. But then D went down for a nap that lasted three hours and by the time C came home, all my chores were done and I even had a plate of cookies waiting for him. Amazing how much I can accomplish when one child is sleeping! The other one (the older one) is pretty good at entertaining himself as long as I'm busy doing something (read: if I sit down, he's all over me, hence the reason I don't blog much.)

But back to the cookies. Since we only have one cookie sheet, I couldn't bake up all the dough at once. We probably don't need them all baked up anyway, but I didn't cut the recipe down, so after putting a few in the oven, I had a lot of dough left over. What to do? I froze it. I portioned it out, rolled it into balls, and froze it on parchment paper. Once frozen, I transferred the balls to a ziploc freezer bag and voilà! do-it-yourself break-n-bake cookie dough! I feel very clever ;-) (Gotta give credit where it's due: I had a little help from the The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook for the recipe, freezing instructions, and revised baking instructions. Love that book.)