Cookies ~ Zoo ~ Cookies

Mint Chocolate CrinklesThese turned out nicely. Next time I'm going to add chocolate chunks so they'll be nice and melty and make the cookies 3 inches across (instead of one inch).

I used this recipe but added a teaspoon of peppermint extract, and found they didn't really need to sit in the fridge- I tried it both ways and both resulted in the same amount of tastiness.


My recent trip to the ZOO
My friend Jon and I went to the zoo. Before we even walked in the gate I made him help me come up with a contingency plan in case any of the lions or tigers were able to escape from their enclosures. This quickly became the how to escape a gorilla attack when an obnoxious child threw a stick into the gorilla enclosure, waking a sleeping gorilla who leapt to his feet and starred at the stick that entered his domain. I thought that gorilla was gonna jump out of the enclosure. Scary! The funny part is, we actually were involved in an animal attack of sorts at the zoo. Jon himself got a little too close to a flat billed pink bird that came up to our knees. The bird had free reign of the Amazon house, and when Jon tried to pet it, it tried to eat Jon.

Here is Jon with the bird, before things got dicey...

Honey Peanut Butter Oatmeal Zoo Cookies
Named Zoo Cookies in honor of my recent Zoo trip, these cookies were more along the lines of Shopping Mall cookie bars than anything else, as I threw in several random ingredients. It was about 9pm when I decided to make these cookies, and I just wasn't feeling super inclined to using measuring devices with the sticky ingredients. Therefore, I mostly just guessed with my eyeballs and tossed stuff into the Kitchen-Aid Mixer that belongs to my roommate (the fastest way to mix anything and saves you from a tired arm). I sort of followed this recipe but made several changes, here are the ingredients I used:

• 3/4 cup shortening
• 3/4 cup butter
• 1/4 cup honey
  
• 1 1/2 cups peanut butter
• 2 cups packed brown sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 cups quick cooking oats
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  

I couldn't really taste the cinammon in the finished product... Next time, I'll half the honey and double the cinnamon. These cookies turned out super moist- with the perfect filling, they'd make an ideal oatmeal cream pie cookie. :)