another chocolate chunk day

yesterday was a day for dilemmas. we've had a span of "warm days" (er... high 40s?), and yesterday marked the first day in a few that actually dropped back into the 20s. do i walk these dogs like i promised? do they understand me when i make these long-winded promises? they were curled in tight balls on the sofa, twitching and snoring in direct aim of the apartment heater. so no. i spared them their winter jackets and left them to their dreams. after all, i did take them running to the beach the day before, when it was "warm" and they splashed in the ice water of lake michigan. a frigid breeze is enough to leave them shivering, but water that was frozen solid just 2 days before is no match for their macho 20-pound selves. they were still exhausted, so i left them to hunt squirrels in their sleep.

so now what to do? do i venture out to get coffee? nah. not when i have coffee and fresh milk at home. do i watch the st. paddy's day parade on tv? ugh. my attention span is not developed enough to watch people in green wave and "woo!" at a camera for more than 40 seconds. what to do, what to do.

make cookies. that's what to do.

i stretched my arm into the way behind of my teeny little pantry cupboard, and came out with a metalic bag of chocolate chunk cookie mix by the cravings place. this would be a first. i've never before bought anything by this company, but seeing that their mix was simple enough to transform into baked goodies... they couldn't be all bad, right?

right.

i realize that i have no point of reference in this photo --
i made the cookies quite tiny, and so in person that chip is of enormous proportions.

the mix made many more cookies than i was expecting (pamela's is my main point of comparison). the cookies were also quite a bit more fluffy and cake-like once baked, unlike the pamela's variety which tends to be much more dense, flat and buttery. i am not the biggest fan of chocolate (gasp!), and so the gigondo size of the chunks in this new mix were a little much for me, but most likely a hit with the majority.

i usually leave room for hyperbole when it comes to product names and descriptions, and this was the first time i have encountered packaging that did not do the product justice. i could have waxed one of these chocolate "chunks" and gone surfing. they were so big that a few cookies wound up with none just because the chips would become loose from the pre-cookie tablespoon of dough and find their way into the occasional chip-laden cookie -- resulting in a mass of oozing chocolate held together with the absolute minimum of cookie material as determined by baking physics.

they were good. (it's got to be pretty tough to make a bad chocolate chip cookie, no?) i have to admit that my personal scale is tipped just a touch more in pamela's favor, but these are pretty dang tasty if you're looking for a cakier, crazy-chocolaty cookie. plus, they're egg, dairy, nut, and bean free as well, so if you're baking for the allergy club they're a pretty safe bet.

enjoy!