My Most Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies

Today my brother and his crew are here pumping the manure pits on our hog farm.  The guys usually pick lunch and dinner up at a local eatery.  When they are at our farm I take them a dinner that can be eaten on the go.  Tonight it will be pork burgers, chips, grapes and homemade cookies.  This is not a fancy meal.  It is certainly hard to be creative when taking a meal out to the field but it should be a notch above store bought dinner. 

This afternoon I am making my favorite Chocolate Chip Cookie. They are a bit different that the ones you find on the back of a package of chips.  The recipe comes from an old family cookbook put together in the1980’s.  The copy I have is from the second printing of 1986.  One of the authors was a Home Economics teacher at Iowa State University.  She was a cousin to my husband’s father.  The Keiser Cookbook is a family cookbook of 54 pages of recipes with a bit of family memories added in the back.  As with most German families the recipes are common but good.  Some like the Cheese and Bacon sandwiches, prune pie, and cottage cheese are recipes I will most likely never try.  Almost all of the recipes sound good.  The ones I have tried have been deemed “keepers”.

Chocolate Chip Cookies                                     

From the files of Edna Gienger Pansegrau

½ cup butter

1/3 cup canola oil

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

3 cups sifted flour

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

¼ cup very hot water

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 12 oz. package semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup chopped nuts – optional

Cream the butter and oil together.  Add sugar and eggs.  Dissolve soda in hot water and mix alternately with the flour sifted with the salt.  Add vanilla.  Lastly add chocolate and nuts.  Drop by spoon on greased cookie sheet.  Bake 10-12 minutes in a 375 degree oven. 

I seldom sift my flour.  I usually add the water and flour mixtures in three batches each.  Also I usually use two cups of regular flour and one cup of whole wheat flour.  The only change I have made to the recipe is the butter and canola oil.  The original recipe calls for 1 cup butter or other shortening.