Paula Deen I Ain't!

...let me just start by saying, I love to cook. I love vegetables, I love appetizers, I love to cook anything and everything. I HATE HATE HATE to bake. So, when I heard that we were having a cookie exchange at church I decided I'd better try my hand at baking cookies since it's been ages since I did that.

I started the week by DVRing any Paula Deen episode that had any reference to cookie baking, then scouring foodnetwork.com for cookie recipes....EASY cookie recipes. Now, I have this one old standby, but I was thinking I was up for trying something new and exciting. (which was my first mistake) So, I gather up all my ingredients for the 2 recipes I decide to try, we had a couple of Christmas things this weekend anyway so I figured I'd just take my cookie masterpieces as my contribution. I failed, however, to take into consideration that my morning sickness might make a comeback this weekend, and maybe I wouldn't feel like creating a "masterpiece" when I didn't buy anything for a backup plan, just in case my cookie plan failed.

I followed that recipe to the letter. "Cream butter and sugars (brown and white) together,...blah, blah, blah....well, by the time I put in the white chocolate, macadamia nuts, and candied cherries, I knew I was in trouble. The recipe said the "dough" should be thick. My dough was like sand....chunky sand. I decided that since I'd invested so much in this stupid mess I'd see how one batch turned out. And, I must say, they didn't look so bad, but they tasted like sand. Chunky, chocolatey, sand. The second batch I decided to add a little water so that maybe they'd stay together a little better. They did, but it didn't help the taste much.

I finally gave up on that recipe and tried my second one. It actually came out pretty good. Not great, definitely not Paula Deen good, but okay. At this point, I decided to cut my losses ( I had to get rid of the cookies anyway, right?..I'm sure not taking these to church!) and just mix the two batches up in my prettiest cookie tin and take them as my "dessert". (It is now 5pm, and we have to be somewhere at 6pm,.....no time to make anything else!) So, I mixed the two in my prettiest cookie tin and off we went.

If you happened to be at the DCCA meeting last night and had a nasty sandy cookie, I apologize, I promise to dazzle you at the next meeting, K? And for my family, I didn't feel like making anything else today, or going to the store, so I apologize if you saw the pretty tin of cookies and took a sample. In defense of my sandy cookies, I actually heard one lady tonight say they were good. I don't know if she was just saying that or trying to mask a look of disgust, but she said it! For my fellow church ladies, I will be bringing my good old tried and true standby cookies tomorrow, there are none of the nasty ones left!

I will also be writing a letter of complaint to Paula Deen. She must have left something out of her recipe. I can't possibly be THAT bad at baking........right?

Or maybe I didn't giggle enough and use enough southern slang as she does.....or maybe, she just isn't really a good cook after all, I mean, have you ever eaten her cooking personally?

(I'm getting catty now, I'm going to bed....)