====== Chocolate Chip Cookies ======


When I was a kid, we used to make Toll House Cookies, but with a variation of the recipe that was then on the back of each package of Toll House chocolate chips.  I was never able to find that recipe, but this is a close reconstruction.

  * 3 cups all-purpose flour
  * 1 teaspoon baking soda with 1 teaspoon warm water
  * 1 teaspoon salt
  * 1 1/2 sticks of butter, softened
  * 3/4 cups granulated (white) sugar
  * 3/4 cups brown sugar, packed
  * 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  * 2 eggs
  * 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (when I was a kid, we used Nestle's, but I've recently tried Ghirardelli; I think 3/4 cups may be sufficient
  * 1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Combine softened butter, sugars, salt, and vanilla in bowl.  Stir until creamy.  Add the baking soda solution near the end of the stirring (why we prepared it like yeast, I cannot explain).

Add the eggs, and stir until mixed.

Now layer a cup of flour, sifted; the chocolated; another cup of flour, sifted; the nuts; and the last cup of flour.  Stir all this until you can't see the flour any more.

Get a bunch on a teaspoon and drop onto ungreased baking sheets.  And by teaspoon, I mean a big heaping teaspoon -- the goal is to make big thick cookies -- thicker than any normal chocolate chip cookie you've had in the past.  I could get about 15 on the large cookie sheet and 12 on the smaller insulated sheet.

Bake 14-16 minutes on the uninsulated sheet on the middle shelf, and 2 minutes longer for the insulated sheet on the lower shelf.  The goal here is to get them brown all over and on the bottom, and have them look cake-like and not moist when you break them in half.