Sweet Melissa Sundays: Twofer

Yup, it's two for one around here this Sunday. You see, I made the Chocolate Chip Cookies with Toasted Almonds in time to post them last Sunday; however, I didn't have time to post them and as I was writing a late post I though, this is silly, I'll just post them next Sunday. You see, my friend Ceci, was visiting last weekend and we were having way too much fun for me to even think about blogging!

Ceci & the Singleton striking a "foxxy" pose at her wedding. You should be hearing Jimi Hendrix in your head . . .

If you read this blog, then you know that I adore chocolate chip cookies. I would have one at my last meal and I think that they're the holy grail of cookies. I'm perpetually on a search to find the "perfect" chocolate chip cookie; that said, I will eat almost any chocolate chip cookie. To date, the New York Times uber chocolate chip is my favorite, but I'm always on the hunt for a better choc chip. In short, I was excited to make the Sweet Melissa Chocolate chip cookie.

Now, the Sweet Melissa Chocolate Chip Cookie is pretty standard, but it includes toasted almonds. This is very interesting . . . I generally abhore nuts in my chocolate chip cookies. BUT, I love almonds. This could be the beginning of a very beautiful friendship. I made the cookie dough, chilled it, rolled it, chilled it, sliced it, baked it, and, finally, ate it! These were so good out of the oven that I really couldn't stop eating them. I think that I ate 5 or 6 before I had to seal them up to make sure that I couldn't eat any more. They don't beat the New York Times recipe but they're available faster and I really liked them. Thanks, Melissa, for hosting and baking last week!

Up next, this week, Pam, of Cookies with Boys, chose Butterscotch Cashew Bars. You can visit her blog if you'd like to check out the recipe. At about this time last year I was doing some Google searches for recipes and I would land on these weird sites that weren't like Epicurious or Allrecipes but they seemed to have all of these wonderful recipes that I'd like to try on them. Turns out that these were food blogs and I got addicted to reading them! Seriously, if I spent half of the time reading food blogs now that I did last summer I don't know what I would be . . . but it would be great. As I started to learn more and more about food blogs and bloggers I started to find food blogs that I really liked. There are a few blogs that really stand out in my mind as some of the first that I got very attached to and Cookies with Boys is one of them. Pam has a wonderful blog, and even better, she's picked a wonderful recipe this week!
Seriously, I dread seeing the 9x13" pan come up in the recipe instructions. I don't have one, and while my kitchen isn't miniscule, it's not huge, and it's certainly full right now! At the present, I am firmly committed to the notion that a singleton such as myself does not need a 9x13" pan (even if I make recipes that call for one!). I pondered splitting the recipe in half, but I decided that I wanted to a) experiment and b) give some away. So, full batch it is -- I made them in two 8x8" pans. This is technically too big for this recipe to work out, but somehow it did. I can't wrap my head around it.

I made one pan of just butterscotch cashew bars. Melissa writes that she created these bars because cashews are underused in baked goods. She's right. But, I don't like cashews very much. So, I made the second pan with a mixture of cashews and peanuts, and I added some semisweet chocolate chips to cut the very sweet butterscotch.

These bars are super rich! I think that the original recipe probably works the best, in my opinion. Something about the cashews and the butterscotch really work together. Don't get me wrong, though. The chocolate and peanuts were a very nice addition. I've been snacking on both of them!