How-To: Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Here's a little something about me: I am a baked goods fanatic.  Seriously, I could scarf down one of everything behind the Panera counter any day of the week.  So, since my obsession du jour this week has been homemade chocolate chip cookies, I finally caved and satisfied my craving this weekend.  The only thing is that our fridge is pretty bare right now and I realized after pulling all of my ingredients out that I did not have any eggs.  Not to worry! A quick Google search and a few recipe modifications later and I had the perfect recipe for eggless chocolate chip cookies. The substitute: yogurt! The best part is that without even trying, I think I managed to bake the best tasting, healthiest, chocolate chip cookies I've ever had.  Starchy, chocolatey, and healthy? I think I'm in love.

Domestic Goddess

I've never really been what you would consider saavy when it comes to anything dealing with a kitchen.  I mean, we are talking about a person who not once, not twice, but three (or more) times has left the cardboard on the bottom of a frozen pizza when placing it in the oven.  However, since my husband and I got married almost three months ago we have come to possess A LOT of cool gadgets for the kitchen.  As a result, I find myself wanting to bake, cook and entertain more now than I did previously.  Take for example this very cool Kitchen Aid stand mixer we received as a wedding gift that I LOVE. 

With a cool gismo like this, how could I not help but want to better refine my domestic skills?  So, with Christmas being right around the corner I decided that tonight I would break out my new gadget and try my hand at a little baking.  My first stop was Food Network.com where I found a biscotti recipe that looked too good to pass up.  With a few modifications I whipped up a pretty tasty little treat.  See for yourself!

While the recipe calls only for anise extract, I incorporated a few goodies of my own. In addition to almond slices and semi-sweet chocolate chips I also used a splash of vanilla extract.

And, for my own finishing touch I decided to melt some of the extra chocolate chips and dip the edges of the biscottis into the chocolate.  YUM!

This was so much fun that I'm thinking I could do this more often!  Within no time I will become a domestic goddess for sure ;)