Tried & True Tuesday: Kitchen Sink Cookies

. Whew, what a whirlwind [but faaaaantastic] weekend!  You know those weekends that you just don't want to end?  It was one of those...

Let me start from the beginning.  Bacon-loving friend and I decided quite a while ago that we wanted to make a trip up to Minne to shop our little hearts out visit my family and maybe see an attraction or two [MOA, MOA, MOA!].  So this last Friday after work, we packed up my car and made the seemingly endless car ride through Iowa and up to the Twin Cities.  We wandered on in to the darkness of Woodbury around 11 P.M. where my parents welcomed us with [of course] food, food, and more food!  Always a wonderful way to end a long day of work and driving ☺

The next morning, Saturday, we woke up at the crack of dawn to make it to our hair appointments (yes, I made hair appointments for us.  We were getting everything out of this trip that we could!).  I ended up not changing much [surprise, surprise] but Bacon-loving friend added some bangs and a wonderfully rich chocolate brown tint to her hair.  Fortunately, she loved the new do and I have to add that it's super cute!  Great choice, my dear.

Then, we traveled on over to the cities so I could show off the infamous Salty Tart.  Remember this place?  It's where I interned a few summers back and really found my love and passion for great baking.  I'd already had a huge interest but seeing Michelle work her magic, yet still remaining ridiculously modest, was awe-inspiring.  I really can't say enough about this woman, she's touched my life in a way that she'll probably never know.  But anywho, I took some pictures of our experience there so I'll be posting those later on.  Now back to our Minne adventures!

After a little treat for Bacon-loving friend [I had to make her try something so she could know first hand the delight that is the Salty Tart], we finally made our way to the Mall of America (a.k.a. MOA, as mentioned above).  And boy was that place a sight to see!  I realized I hadn't been back to Minne, as well as the mall, since last November!  Geesh, that's just weird.  So needless to say some of the stores had changed but it was still the same ol' mall I know and love.  We spent the rest of the day there, walking around every floor and hitting some of the stores on our list.  Eventually fatigue got the best of us so we headed home to hang out with the family for the rest of the night.

But don't worry, after a teensy bit of sleep, we were up again on Sunday and out at the mall by 10:30 A.M., prepared to shop 'till we drop!  We made our way to some of the stores that we skipped over the previous day and then geared ourselves up to travel across the street to Ikea.  If you've ever been to an Ikea store, you know how unbelievably large they are!  But that didn't phase us, we walked through the entire building looking at every piece of furniture and knick-knack they made.  Bacon-loving friend made a great coffee table purchase and I found a few baking supplies and house decorations.  All in all...success!

After a great dinner at a restaurant in Woodbury with my parents, pure exhaustion settled in and we didn't move from the couch the rest of the night.  I've always felt like I can hold up pretty well, but Bacon-loving friend definitely showed me up in this department.  While sometimes I felt like I couldn't go on, she was raring to go.  In the end though I'm glad, we were there for such a short time so there was no room for my baby-ness.  No mercy!

Then on Monday, we made the lame-o drive back to Omaha and back to reality.  It's always a bummer, that return trip, but I guess I'd rather have a great weekend and suffer through that drive back then not have those couple of days at all.  Agreed?

So now let's get to this recipe.  I chose Kitchen Sink Cookies, from A Passion for Baking, not only for their addictive nature.  No, not the entire reason.  But you know that feeling when you may be leaving for the weekend or perhaps returning from a trip, and you have all kinds of left over ingredients in your kitchen?  What to do, what to do?!  Well, this is a great recipe to use up that odd array of ingredients.  I mean really, there's everything in these but the kitchen sink!  And what you get from this recipe is MmMmm, goodness!  These cookies are soooft, yet chewy, with a crunchiness from the rice cereal, chocolatey yumminess, and caramelized marshmallows.  Umm, not one of those things sounds bad to me so there's next to no reason that these cookies aren't ridiculously delish.  Yes, delish.

Hope everyone had a lovely Memorial Weekend, by the way!  Enjoy these little guys! .

Kitchen Sink Cookies

from A Passion for Baking

Ingredients:

1/2 c. unsalted butter, softened

1/2 c. unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1-1/2 c. firmly packed light brown sugar

1/4 c. sugar

1-1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 eggs

2 c. all purpose flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1-1/2 c. rolled oats

2 c. crisp rice cereal

1-1/2 c. miniature marshmallows

1/2 c. butterscotch chips

1 c. semisweet chocolate chips

3/4 c. chopped milk chocolate bar

1 c. sweetened shredded coconut

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350°F.  Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. In mixer bowl, cream softened and melted butter with brown sugar, sugar and vanilla extract.  Add eggs, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and blend well.  Stir in oats, rice cereal, marshmallows, butterscotch chips, semisweet chocolate chips, milk chocolate pieces, and coconut, to make well blended cookie dough.
3. For each cookie, scoop 2 to 3 tablespoons dough and place on baking sheets 2 inches apart.
4. Bake 12 to 14 minutes or until set all over (crisp edges and some marshmallows leaking out).  

Yield: 36 cookies

*My Notes:

• I used 2 heaping tablespoons of dough for each cookie and packed them together into a cylinder, like I've previously done with other cookies.  This made 3 dozen cookies for me, but you can get more or less depending on how much dough is used for each cookie.
• While the cookies are baking, I kept the dough in the fridge so the batter wouldn't get too warm.  This prevents the dough from spreading too thin while in the oven and gives you a more plump cookie.