For February 18

The curse of the chocolate cookie has been broken! Hurrah! This week's cookies:

My Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies

Cafe Volcano Cookies

both from Dorie Greenspan, Baking: From My Home To Yours

While it is Dorie Greenspan who calls these her favorite chocolate chip cookie, they are awfully good. I like this cookie a lot - it tends to be very crispy/crunch at the edge, and a bit chewy at the center. As usual, I hand cut the chocolate instead of using store bought chocolate chips. This time I am using a mixture of Ghirardelli 60% Bittersweet and Green & Black Organic 72% Bittersweet chocolate bars for my "chips." And while the recipe calls for walnuts, tonight I substituted pecans, because I am already using walnuts in the other cookies.

Ah, yes, the other...cookies. OK, I am very narrow minded, I admit it, but given that the Cafe Volcano cookies have no flour and no dairy in them, I have some trouble calling them cookies. But they are cookies, and they are both gluten- and dairy-free. Indeed, these have a very small number of ingredients but make a very interesting cookie that is basically an interesting variation on a meringue. The main ingredients is roasted nuts - almonds and walnuts. The only other significant ingredients are sugar, espresso powder, and some egg whites. They are all mixed together, and then plopped on the baking sheet to cook for 20 minutes. Then voila! Cookies. (Andy says the look like dog poop, but it didn't stop him from eating one.)

OK, time for sleep. Night night!