Monster Cookies

After a long weekend at home in Boston visiting the fam and such, Josh and I returned to LA to discover the sky was falling.

Well, that's a tremendous over-dramatization. Honestly, we had a great time gallivanting around Massachusetts and were equally delighted to return home. But John Hughes died yesterday, and one of my good friends is having a fairly sucky week involving, amongst other things, a break up. So, you know, there.

Obviously, this was a case for the Recipe Book. I dug in the nearly-depleted cookie section and came up with Monster Cookies, a contribution from Judd & Cassie, two of Josh's oldest friends. Josh has known Cassie for just about ever, and Judd almost as long (he moved to Ames slightly later, but not that much later). At some point Judd & Cassie decided they liked each other and wanted to be an extremely blond and very intelligent couple (I think they both have Ph.Ds., possibly both from Harvard. Can this be right? Good Jesus), who like to completely disprove the myth that nerds can't party. Also they aren't nerds, so maybe that isn't right. But let's just put it this way: from their social skills, you would basically never imagine they were so smart. In short, what I am saying is: Judd and Cassie are fun.

Judd and Cassie are also two of the first of Josh's friends that I met. They were visiting Boston (I think checking it out for the Harvard-stint? Maybe?) right when Josh and I first started dating. We met at a restaurant in Cambridge, and like true Iowans, when I left to go to the bathroom they exclaimed to Josh how they couldn't get over how dark my hair was. I love this detail because it proves every joke I ever make. Also, in their defense, I do have quite dark hair for a white girl, but, well, Hello Iowans, meet Jews.

Later that night, I think, we went to a party with a bunch of Josh's MIT friends (also weirdly social for MIT nerds, but this is the blessing of being an urban planner I guess--it ranks low on the scale of tech school nerd-dom). At the time, I was a little too overwhelmed to really piece together who knew whom. Somehow even though I'm sure I was told that Judd & Cassie were just visiting, I decided they were very 'in' with the clan of Josh's friends at the party--which, looking back, I'm sure they didn't know at all. All I know is that I remember seeing Judd in the kitchen and basically attaching myself to him because I knew him, and possibly informing him of as much. And liking him ever since.

Also, my blue streak goes into total overdrive whenever I see them, and somehow I wind up explaining to them about delightful fads such as anal bleaching or something (not that I'm saying I do this, per se, just, you know, that it is a fad). At this point, Judd's eyes light up with what I can only describe as the glee of suppressed mischief whenever he sees me as he sets about to trading barbs, or rather, naughty comments. Evidently he also always gets into trouble with Cassie after we leave because I am a bad influence.

Obviously I love this.

Judd and Cassie gave us a recipe for Monster Cookies, which is a recipe from Cassie's pre-school, or so she claims. As a good Iowa recipe, it obviously involves serious culinary overkill. Also it involves some insane proportions, both in volume and measurement. The cookies require most standard cookie ingredients, but to such quantity that I had to go to the grocery store to get back up on everything I already had. Four and a half cups of oatmeal? That's crazy.

Crazier is trying to figure out the proportions, such as 1/4 tablespoon of vanilla and 1/2 lb of brown sugar. In fact, nearly all ingredients in this recipe are specified in a quantity that is a challenge to say the least, including a 14 1/2 oz jar of peanut butter and 1/4 lbs ea of M&Ms, peanut M&M's and chocolate chips. Can I tell you something? STORES DO NOT SELL THESE ITEMS IN THESE QUANTITIES. In fact, they do not sell these items in anything near these quantities, or even easy mathematical multiples of these quantities.

I think this must be Cassie's scientist joke on me for being someone who chose her college partially based on the fact that there was no math requirement, and also who did not grow up in Iowa learning how to cook. I'm sure these are all quantities that would make perfect sense if they were translated into something else (like, oh, 1/4 lb turns out to = 6 tablespoons), but I have no idea what those things are.

As a result, I resorted to overbuying and then using my trusty kitchen scale. For example, I thought 1/2 lb of brown sugar was going to be a lot. This, it turns out, was a fallacy. In fact, I had more than 1/2 lb of brown sugar at home. But now I have even more because I bought a second bag in preparation. In case you are wondering, 1/2 lb of brown sugar looks like this:

Naturally

And 1/4 lb of M&Ms looks like this:

Of course it does

I will not show you the picture of the 76 left over bags of ziplocked M&Ms filling the pantry, but I'm sure the moths are very excited for their new snack.

As for the cookies, they were a big hit. Well, at least partially they were. I packed up half of them and dropped them off clandestinely at my friend's work, leaving them with a slightly perplexed but apparently dedicated volunteer-assistant type who hopefully got them to her and cheered her up. I took the remainder with me to my writing class last night and stuffed my fellow UCLA extension students with cookies. I was pleased to report I saw at least one person go for seconds and they were all gone when I collected the basket at the end of the night. So that's something.

MWAHAR. Monster eat cookies.

Cassie & Judd's Monster Cookies for the Lovelorn*

3 eggs (okay, I can handle that)
2 tsp baking soda (sure, sure)
1 cup sugar (fine)
1/4 tbsp vanilla (WHAT? Do you have a 1/4 tbsp measure? No you do not. You have a 1 tbsp measure. That is all you have.)
1/2 lb brown sugar (Here we go)
1 stick butter, softened (well, fine, I can do that)
14 1/2 oz jar peanut butter (mythical creature)
4 1/2 cups oatmeals (not instant or quick)
1/4 lb ea: M&Ms, peanut M&Ms, chocolate chips (hahahahahahahahaa)

Go to grocery store and discover you are unable to find ingredients in specified proportions. Return home and discover that neither are there intelligible other proportions of these things. Determine that this recipe is some sort of sick cosmic joke, but decide that it will not thwart you.

Use noggin (and recipe book with cheat sheet on binding) to determine that since 1 TBSP = 3 tsps, that 1/4 TBSP must therefore be along the lines of slightly less than 1 tsp, which you can do, since you have a tsp measure.

Measure out brown sugar and M&M type ingredients with your marvelous kitchen scale, which has come in quite handy more times than you'd imagined it would. Be pleased you have it.

Swell with pride that you were able to find ONE peanut butter jar that was 15 ozs, which is relatively close to the fabled, nonexistent 14 1/2 oz jar Cassie claims you must use. It was Skippy, chunky for the record. Hope that's ok.

Combine all ingredients. Drop scoops of dough onto grease cookie sheets. Bake at 350 for 12 minutes (or until they seem done). Determine that this is another joke from Cassie, because after 12 minutes they are as far from done as possible, and you preheated that oven, damn it. Bake for another 5 minutes. Have them continue to fall apart in undercooked doughyness as you try to spatula them out. Cook for another 5, maybe more. Have it happen again and again, finally only slightly enough that you can get them out without them falling entirely apart. Let them cool. Come back to find them hard as rocks. Wonder how the hell you can get them out in one piece AND not have them overdone.

Cassie says: This makes 12 HUGE cookies or many smaller ones.

Heather says: By this measure, HUGE obviously = pizza-sized, as the recipe made 36 fairly big-ish cookies. That Cassie, always the joker.

*Featuring new, crazy quantities to drive you insane