April Fools.

As a cruel April fools joke on us all the powers that be have caused a small spring snow storm to white out all of the wonderful dirty-ness of spring on April first here in Northern Vermont and I'm not what you might call thrilled.  April is about warm rains, mud puddles, and my doggies finally being able to play in the river again without fear of being swept away under ice.  Snow is not included, nor is it welcome, in that description.  In an effort to cheer myself up in the few remaining hours before I have to go to work and sort sale tags for 5 hours I have decided to visit my favorite website and make a list of some new recipes to try for spring.  Recently I have been in a chocolate chip cookie rut, baking a batch every week or so with a few different recipes but always fairly consistent results.  Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with chocolate chip cookies, but I feel that it's time for a bit of a change.  Last week I went for oatmeal cookies using an old fashioned cranberry oatmeal cookie recipe from one of my mothers cranberry cookbooks and I was VERY disappointed.   My cookies came out way too cakey for my liking, not nearly chewy enough, annnddd the first batch cooked faster than anticipated and set off our mind-blowingly annoying smoke detector system when the bottoms got only ever so slightly burned.

No pictures of those because they were a great disappointment for me.

The day before yesterday I set about making cookies to bring to lunch with my Grandma and again, in an effort to stray from my chocolate chip cookie rut, I attempted a new recipe.  This time butter cookies with a thumb-print full of blackberry jam or chocolate in the center.  These came from an old Betty Crocker cookbook and turned out much better, but still not as satisfying as I might have hoped.  Pictures below, but no recipe because to be honest, they just weren't that special.

Now onward, to new and exciting things.  I have realized that I am going to need to work a little harder to get out of my plain old chocolate chip cookie rut and so I will be branching out much further than simply other varieties of cookies.  The possibilities are endless, but here are some of my favorites thus far:

Peabody's Really Bad Day Fix-It-All Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake - A new and cheesier way to enjoy chocolate chip cookies!
Homemade Samoas - Yep, thats right, make your own Girl Scout Cookies.  I'm there.  Samoa's are my favorite so naturally making my own is the next logical step...unless I decide to make these instead:
Samoa Truffles - So everyone knows I love truffles.  Love to make them, love to share them, love to eat them myself, play with new flavors, coatings, fillings.  Samoa truffles?  Yep, this is definitely going to have to happen.
Cinnamon Raisin Brown Rice Pudding - This just looked all warm and delicious and it is snowing out so naturally warm cinnamony-raisin things would have to make the list.
Bri's Sweet Pretzel Cookies - A super twist on traditional chocolate chip cookies, these pretzel and berry and chocolate chip cookies look to be anything but boring.  Still in the cookie comfort zone, but with all kinds of new flavors.  I'm intrigued...

So there you have it, my "I spent 5 minutes on tastespotting and already have more recipes than I could possibly need so I have to stop now before this gets out of hand" baking wish list.  Now if only I could find people to share with...

Eventually I will most likely try them all but if anyone has a preference for which one I should try first, like if you're planning on stopping by my house and would like to find some Samoa Truffles all ready for you, just let me know.  I would be happy to take requests.

There, that brightened up my April Fool's Day!