Nourish

The first thing I ever baked was a batch of Bisquick™ chocolate chip cookies. The recipe was my mom’s go-to chocolate chip recipe. It was in a yellow cookbook, sold as a way to market Bisquick™ . The cookbook was cheaply made and already falling apart when I got my hands on it, the cardboard dangling off the metal spiral binding. Obviously, it was a well-loved cookbook. (Excerpt from The Bisquick™ Diaries by Laura Bray)

So many of my memories come from food. Family traditions, smells, and tastes are like gateways into my childhood and now, the childhood of my daughter. It was with this thought in mind that I chose the word NOURISH for my Word of the Year for 2022.

Nourish will be the anchor for my days. I will explore NOURISH in all it's meanings: both in it's relationship to food as well as how I nourish the people I love and even myself, through acts of kindness and sustenance (food or otherwise).

With that in mind, I thought I wanted to share the Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe I got out of that old Bisquick™ cookbook, fortyish years ago. I hope you will use it to bring some nourishment to yourself or someone you love. While it may not be the healthiest sort of nourishment for our bodies, these cookies are good for the soul.

Bisquick Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes approximately 2-3 dozen cookies

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of room temperature, unsalted butter
1 cup brown sugar, tightly packed
1 egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups Bisquick™ baking mix
1 package chocolate chip cookies. My favorite brand is Guittard. (I'm not an affiliate, just a fan.)

Instructions:

Heat oven to 375 degrees
Beat butter and brown sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer until light and fluffy.
Beat in the egg and vanilla.
Add baking mix and mix on low speed until just combined. Over-beating any batter, after adding the flour mixture makes for tough cookies. If you keep the beating down to a minimum, you will be rewarded with a delicate, melt in the mouth texture.
Mix in chocolate chips with a wood spoon.
Drop teaspoon size cookies onto a baking sheet. To get uniform-sized cookies, use a melon ball scoop.
Bake for 10 minutes. The cookies will be light in color with a slightly browned bottom.
Eat a few of them warm, careful not to burn your tongue! If you are my dad, you will put a few in the refrigerator and eat them ice cold, dipped in milk,

Also: Just for fun, I put together I video of inspiring photos for my Word of the Year. You can view it here.

What's your word of the year?

Comments

Dana BarbieriFebruary 2, 2022 at 6:46 AM
Interesting. I've never used Bisquick for cookies. I've only ever used it for drop biscuits and pancakes on occasion. I will have to try your recipe sometime. Thanks for sharing. I'm baking Toll House ones later today. :)
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NicoleNovember 18, 2022 at 1:01 PM
I feel like every time I leave a comment here, that comment is "I love this, you are such a great writer." So, that. I have an old cookbook my mom gave me when I moved out, and it is one of those cookbooks made out of recipes compiled by a whole lot of church ladies. It's called The Lutheran Ladies' Cookbook and it is just what you might think. Most of the baked goods are really good, like stuff our grandmas made, and most of the main courses are casseroles made from ground beef and canned soup. There is an "ethnic" section which is horrifying and hilarious all at once, and really shows what Lutheran ladies on the prairies thought were kicky, edgy recipes. There is something called African Chow Mein and Laura, I can't even. I don't think even the loosest of definitions could not be used here. Also there is a recipe called Vera's Weiner Pie which is a pie crust filled with cut up weiners and onion. I MEAN. However, the chocolate zucchini bread is not to be messed with, same with the banana muffins.
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