valentimes

ok, so valentines day was super fun. but it started out with me feeling like a loaf because i wasn't able to do for joe what i had been planning for a month - long, beautiful love letter written with feather pen on old parchment sealed with wax and dropped conveniently onto the front seat of his car. oh, and a creme brulee butane torch. i've been sick for the last three weeks, and never got it together.

well, joe makes time in his insanely busy day to come knocking on my office door with gifts. then, he plans an elegant picnic on the rec field near our house. it first made me feel more like a loaf, but then i thought "forget it!" and embraced the luv, man. we had almost no food in the house, but the man got creative. heart-shaped chicken salad sandwhiches and cranberry spritzer.

later, my guilt crept up again. so i spent the evening cleaning the kitchen (that's a huge gift for joe...any dishes in the sink drives him batty) and made some pretty awesome chocolate chip cookies, if i do say so myself. i have been wanting to make this kind of cookie since i've known how to bake, and i've tried a ton of recipes. we happen to like ours fluffy and soft, not overly sweet, and carrying some sort of healthy bonus. so finally last night, i figured it out and concocted my own recipe. it's perfect. you should try it (recipe below). but then again, each to his own.

jen's chocolate chip cookie

wet ingredients:

1 c. butter

3/4 c. unbleached natural sugar

3/4 c. brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

dry ingredients:

3 c. unbleached flour

1 1/4 tsp. baking powder

2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

2 Tbl. ground flax seed (you won't even know it's in there, i promise!)

3/4 c. walnuts, finely chopped

1 c. semisweet or dark chocolate chips

beat butter by itself until super fluffy (this is important). add sugars, and beat well. add eggs and vanilla and beat until just incorporated. in a seperate bowl, sift together all dry ingredients. add dry ingredients to wet, beat for a few rotations, then add nuts and chocolate. finish beating till everything is just incorporated. form good size balls with hands (12 per baking sheet) and bake for 15 minutes or so. they should be golden on the edges and soft and fluffy inside.

makes 30-ish