Cookie Monsters

These days we are very busy with things like this

He's getting good y'all! He's been past the goal line carrying the ball two of the three games.

And this

I'm hoping he'll stick with this long enough for the uniform to fit.

And two nights a week the sky looks like this before I'm leaving Orleans parish

But this post is not about any of that. This post is to tell you all about how I got my kids to forget how much I fuss at them for leaving the toilet seat up, making wild noises in my car, not liking to read, singing to the dog at dinner, leaving their books at school, "forgetting" to follow the rules, bringing home notes from the teacher about how they do not follow directions and still having to be reminded to brush their teeth before we come upstairs to tuck them in and cheer for me being a loving genius.

Both of my boys love mint chocolate chip ice cream. I found a recipe for Mint Chocolate Chip cookies on Pinterest and pinned it because I know that I could make them on a day when I am feeling shitty about my parenting styles and be the hero for the hour.

But I did not bake those cookies, because as talented as I am in the kitchen (cooking not cleaning) and as wonderful a cake and pie baker as I am, I cannot bake cookies. They always are hard on the outside and raw in the middle.

My cousin Katie, who was born exactly five years to the day before me and whom I love like my big sister and whose baby I was obsessed with for the first three years of his life, used to make me cookies made of boxed cake mixes. They are the only cookies I can make. So I adjusted them to include the flavors and coloring necessary to make them Mint Chocolate Chip and fed them to my children, who jumped with glee around my kitchen and told me I was wonderful.

Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Cookies

1 box vanilla cake mix

2 eggs

1/2 cup cooking oil

1/2 to 1 whole teaspoon peppermint extract

Green food coloring

1/2 cup milk chocolate chips

1/2 cup Andes peppermint chocolate chips

A note about the cake mix you select: Do not get a butter recipe. Your cookies will not rise. You can also use Funfetti without the sprinkles.

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Spray two baking sheets with non-stick cooking spray.

In a large bowl, mix together the 2 eggs, 1/2 cup cooking oil, 1 teaspoon peppermint extract and green food coloring. Because of the kind I bought (pastel) I had to use about 30 drops. You should start with eight if you are using regular coloring and then add until you get the green that looks like the mint chocolate chip ice cream that you buy. Mixing those wet ingredients will help you not get Tennis Elbow when you try to mix the extract and food coloring evenly in the very thick cookie batter. If you have a husband/boyfriend with nice biceps who likes cookies and you, you can mix it in whatever order you like and then ask him to stir it for you, but my husband was reading and he only comes in the kitchen to feed himself and clean it. So I did it the Wussy-Wet-Ingredients-First way. When the wet ingredients are mixed, add the cake mix and make your very thick batter. Then add your chocolate chips.

I used to roll my cake mix cookies in little one-inch balls, but today I just used this small melon baller/ice cream scoop that it looks like my sister paid a lot of money for, left over here and is never getting back. Worked like a charm. Drop them on the cookie sheet about two inches apart and bake for eight minutes. They will be puffy when you take them out of the oven, but will flatten slightly when you put them on a cooling rack to cool.

It makes about forty cookies.

WARNING: If you do not want your children to make faces at you like this

It's supposed to be his "sexy, food is good" face, but he missed the mark.

Or like this

you should not make these for them.