Mom's Chocolate Chip Cookies--the long version

I'm a little late for the chocolate chip cookie challenge posted by others, but I still wanted to get this recipe out there because it's just so darn good. I guess when my mother initially moved to Indiana, she went to a party where someone brought these. They were so good, she begged for the recipe. And now that's the only recipe we use (er, so I thought).

Here are the steps I took to make these....

1. Call and wake mother up at 8:30 on a Sunday because can't find that blasted recipe. Talk to step-father for 45 minutes about miscellaneous while she tries to wake up. Finally get Mom--and get cut off. After 15 minutes, call her home line instead of cell phone. Sure enough, her phone lost it's charge. Ask for cookie recipe. Mom says, "just use the one on the back of the bag." Um--NO. YOUR recipe is the best, darn it, and is the only one I'll use. She finally agrees to email it. NO! I want to start it now! She begrudgingly reads it to me over the phone.

2. Get kids in kitchen to "help" make the cookies. Pull out huge mixer.

3. Start to cream the 1 cup of shortening (I always use butter-flavored). Hmmm....shortening is sticking to beater and not acting right. Add sugars and mix some more. Realize using wrong attachment on ultra-mega mixer. Reach for the other attachment and try again.

4. Add eggs and vanilla. About to start mixer--realize grabbed OTHER wrong attachment. Grab right one this time, and batter is now starting to go smoothly.

5. Kids have already lost interest and are running amok in house in chaos. What was the point of all the cleaning I did yesterday? Add soda mixture. Then flour.

6. Mom suggested add more chocolate chips to recipe (already changed in recipe below). She always uses one bag of chips for the half recipe. But I bought a mega-bag. Guess I'll add half of it. Hmmm...still doesn't seem enough. Add another quarter of the bag. Perfect!

(Take a few minutes to put Izzy on the potty and then run yet ANOTHER load of laundry. When go back upstairs, realize Izzy had grabbed glasses and contorted them into a shape not "quite" right for my face. *sigh*)

7. Re-write recipe more neatly. Realize as writing, forgot to add the salt! Throw it in and mix real quick--wow, that mega-huge mixer is GREAT for that!

8. Clean up kitchen, put dough in fridge, take shower, go to work 1/2 hour late to enter @#$% early payroll due to @#$% holiday (remind self that it IS double-time.)

9. Come home three hours later, clean more of the house due to impending visit, start charcoal AND oven at same time.

10. Proceed to bake cookies at the same time as cooking hamburgers and corn-on-the-cob on the grill.

11. Remember why although I LOVE to bake I hardly ever do it--and can only manage HALF a cookie recipe. Too many kids running around, too much housework to do, and I am the WORST multitasker ever (well, while cooking, anyway).

Gotta give myself SOME credit. The cookies AND the hamburgers turned out GREAT.

I'm already late posting this, so no pics. I have to go and paint yet ANOTHER coat of paint in that eternally blue-paint-sucking room of Keith's.

Mom's Chocolate Chip Cookies--the short version

Chocolate Chip Cookies (1/2 recipe)
1 Cup shortening (I use butter-flavored)
1 Cup sugar
1/2 Cup brown sugar
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 Tablespoons warm water
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 Cups flour
1 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips

Cream shortening, add sugars. Stir in beaten eggs and vanilla. Add soda to water; add to first mixture. Add flour, salt, chips.

Bake in 350* oven for 10-12 minutes.