Cookie Monster

The monkey socks have been done for days now, and are finished blocking. I haven't had a free moment to really properly try them on or take a picture, but that should happen tomorrow. I'll talk more about them in the morning.

Now that my socks are done, I'm having sock longing. I really liked knitting them. They were a fast knit, and the pattern was interesting, totally unlike my sweater. I fear that I chose a sweater pattern that was too easy and boring, and now it's just difficult to finish. I keep telling myself that I need to work on it, and not to buy anymore yarn before it's finished, but new patterns I want to try are piling up. This weekend hopefully I'll finished the sweater, so I can move on to something with a bit more flavor.

In other news, today at work we held our 2nd annual cookie contest. Despite the fact I had a midterm today, and should probably have been studying, I decided to make some of my favorite andes mints cookies. AND I WON! Awesome. I don't think that I've ever won anything before, so it was extra thrilling. Out of 30+ cookies, mine were the best! Sweet. All of them got eaten up, and even beat the fancy smancy ice cream sandwich cookies. I won 37 dollars (random, I know), some cookie cutters, and a couple coupons from my bosses to get out of assignments I don't like at work or steal an extra desk hour for myself. Proof of win:


Who knew I could be competitive? Here is the recipe just in case you want to make some delicious cookies. I pretty much think that andes mints are delicious in anything though, so just replacing chocolate chips with chilled, chopped up andes mints in cookies is also awesome. The version I made for the contest though is chocolate. Anyway...


Ingredients

3/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons water
1 bag (12oz) chocolate chips (I used milk chocolate, but semi-sweet might be better)
2 eggs
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt (omit if using salted butter)
36 chocolate mint wafer candies (ANDESSSS)


Instructions
1. In a large pan over low heat, cook butter, sugar and water until butter is melted. Add chocolate chips and stir until partially melted. Remove from heat and continue to stir until chocolate is completely melted. Don't burn it! Pour into a large bowl and let stand 10 minutes to cool off slightly.



2. Sift dry ingredients together. Add eggs to chocolate mixture until fully mixed. Then add the dry ingredients to the chocolate mixture. Be careful not to over mix, dough will be thick. I mix by hand. Chill dough at least 1 hour.



3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).



4. Roll dough into balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake 8-9 minutes. While cookies are baking unwrap mints and divide each in half. When cookies are brought out of the oven, put 1/2 mint on top of each cookie. Let the mint sit until melted, then spread the mint on top of the cookie.


Yum!

(Picture from the web (http://allrecipes.com/Cook/Photo.aspx?photoID=28075) ...but mine pretty much looked the same)