Pass The Sushi!

Appar­ently sum­mer is half over and that means stores are fill­ing their shelves with Autumn dec­o­ra­tions, school sup­plies and early Christ­mas bar­gains.… Really? Because my cal­en­dar says Sum­mer doesn’t end until late Sep­tem­ber and the heat isn’t going to break until Octo­ber 31st and which point — yes — it will be winter.

I get that the kids go back to school soon and maybe that is the unof­fi­cial end to sum­mer, but Christ­mas deals? WTF? I read a report yes­ter­day that major stores like Tar­get and Best Buy will be adver­tis­ing Christ­mas in July to help “loosen some purse strings.” Sure enough, this morn­ing Ama­zon started their Gold Box deal of the day which is nor­mally reserved for Black Fri­day through the holidays.

Don’t get me wrong, I am fanat­i­cal about Christ­mas, but if its Christ­mas in your face all year long, it wont be as spe­cial when you wake up on that crisp Decem­ber morn­ing. Noth­ing any store can do will take that feel­ing away from me. For now, I’ll put my blind­ers on and get back in the kitchen.

Inspired by Christ­mas in July:

Choco­late Chip Cookies

from the pages of Baked

Ingre­di­ents:

• 2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teas salt
• 1 teas bak­ing soda
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted but­ter, soft but cold
• 1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
• 1/2 gran­u­lated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teas pure vanilla extract
• 2 2/3 cups (16 oz) semi­sweet choco­late chips

Prepa­ra­tion:

In a large bowl, which the flour, salt, and bak­ing soda together and set aside.

In the bowl of an elec­tric mixer fit­ter with the pad­dle attach­ment, beat the but­ter and sug­ars together until smooth and creamy. Scrape down the boal and add the eggs one at a time, bea­t­ung until each is incor­per­ated. The mix­ture will look light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and beat for 5 seconds.

Add half of the flour mix­ture and mix for 15 sec­onds. Add the remain­ing flour mix­ture and beat until just incorperated.

Using a spat­ula or wooden spoon, fold in the choco­late chips.

Cover the bowl tightly and put in the refrig­er­a­tor for 6 hours.

Pre­heat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line two bak­ing sheets with parch­ment paper.

Use an ice cream scoop with a release mech­a­nism to scoop out dough in 2-tablespoon-size balls. Use your hands to shape the dough into per­fect balls and place them on the pre­pared bak­ing sheets, about 1 inch apart. Bake for 12 to 15 min­utes, rotat­ing the pans once dur­ing the cook­ing time, until the edges of the cook­ies are golden brown and the tops just start to darken.

Remove the pan from the oven and cool on a wire rack for 5 min­utes. Use a spat­ula to trans­fer the indi­vid­ual cook­ies to the rack to cool com­pletely (although they are deli­cious warm).

The cook­ies can be stored in an air­tight con­tainer for up to 3 days.

**Baked Note**

You can leave the dough tightly cov­ered, in your refrig­er­a­tor for up to 5 days and bake it off in small batches so you can have warm, fresh-from-the-oven cook­ies and time you like.

Besides the occa­sional gift here and there, what do you guys think? Christ­mas in July a com­mer­cial win for the hol­i­day sea­son or epic fail and attempt to make us all Burger Mis­ter Mis­ter Burgers?