I just wanted traditional chocolate chip cookies!!

You know when you have one of those not-so-good days and you just want to feel better, or get your roommate to cheer up from her terrible students in middle school, and you just want to make great chocolate chip cookies?! Yes, yesterday I was craving a simple traditional chocolate chip cookie.. so I went on the internet and google "CCC recipe" and up came a recipe from AllRecipes. I like this site so I trusted it.. and it had good reviews.

... so my roommate and I decided to try this. The recipe called for the following ingredients (you can google it yourself)

and here we go, just baking... la la la la la... added the sugars (2 CUPS) with melted butter, later the eggs (2 EGGS) , and you know.. throw in some 2 TSP of vanilla extract.. with some 3 c of flour. All right, well we must not have been on our guard because when we finished our cookie batter was very liquidy. BUT we went along with it anyways.. I mean the recipe called for us to "dissolve baking soda in hot water" and we figured it was just a nice trick since we had never really come across that before. Here's what came out!

 It's difficult to tell, but the cookies came out LOOKING like big, thick toasty cookies, and when you tapped them, they would crumble and fall because there was absolutely nothing inside. It was very deceiving.

deceiving cookie >_<

Seriously, there was nothing inside. I know they look huge. And they were way too sugary. Anyways, I had to throw it all away because (1) it was extremely sweet, and (2) you weren't actually eating anything...

After this (being the engineer that I am..) I compared the ingredients from this recipe with Nestle's.

Okay, they're not THAT different..so why were my cookies so empty inside? Nestle's recipe results in about a dozen more cookies with less granulated and brown sugar, 1 less egg, and no water, and less flour (of course, because of the less sugar amount). Hmm.. what went wrong?

This made me upset, especially because I love to bake and I "thought" I was a good baker! So, the next day (today) I decided to try a new recipe from a book I own, In the Small Kitchen by Cara Eisenpress and Phoebe Lapine. Its a great book, I love it. Anyways, they have a "classic chocolate chip cookies" recipe (p.180). So, I had to try one more time...

So here are the ingredient differences. Notice that this recipe doesn't require any vanilla extract :) even better.. we had to borrow some from our neighbors yesterday, and since we couldn't 'pay' them back with cookies we didn't have to use more of their vanilla this time. hehe.

So I added the sugars and the butter together....

After mixing it with a beater I added the ONE egg :) ooo yeah, looks good...

Kept mixing... look at how creamy it looks! :) yes, I like this..

And after all of the solid ingredients... just mixed some more... See the chocolates?

Yes, this is the stuff.

So we finally got to enjoy those classic, traditional chocolate chip cookies.

The world was right yet again.
-Allie

Johnny Football wins the Heisman = Gig 'Em Aggies!

By now the whole football-loving nation knows who Johnny Manziel (a.k.a Johnny Football) is. If you don't, at least watch this before reading my article:

Johnny Manziel. Well, he's been a football star all semester long. As an Aggie and a grad student who studied my undergrad at A&M I have to say that Johnny Football has been one of my favorite parts of college. I don't know him personally, I don't know how much of a gentleman he really is, or how well he does in his classes (although I do know a friend who really didn't want him to win because he's not a hard worker in class at all...), but I do know that he has such confidence on the field. This semester has been by far a set of amazing and CRAZY plays. That last drive against LSU ... although yes, it was a desperate "1 minute" .. it made me think of how our football team wanted to give it all.

AGGIELAND -- while the Aggie Band forms "SEC" on the field (TAMU-Florida game)

I'm glad I only missed one game this semester. Watching Johnny football live -- among thousands of other Aggies cheering our boys on -- has been incredible. ESPN compared it to a video game once, because his stats are unbelievable. Well, he gave us a scare more than once. But in the end, it was always "let's just trust him because most of the time it'll work." And, yes he's a redshirt freshman and he has so much still to give to Aggieland, but for now I do think his talent should be rewarded. After all, TAMU was supposed to be awful since we had a new coach, were in a new conference, and had a new freshman quarterback to begin the season. But all in all, Texas A&M came out strong, with a win against the Crimson Tide (Alabama), a ticket to the Cottonbowl against Oklahoma, and now a Heisman winner as our quarterback.

The only thing I have to say is... let's celebrate with his wide receiver, Ryan Swope! :)

My roommates and Ryan Swope at O'bannons