Chocolate Chip Pudding Cookies

A post from Kelli–

EDITED TO SHOW RECIPE CLEARLY!!!

First off–Thanks so much for the freezer meal ideas.  I haven’t gotten through all of the comments, but one of my favorite things about the blog is that they’ll be there when I have time and I’ll always have them as a resource to look back on and reference.

With work and life and things, I feel like I’ve been kind sucking at being the wife lately.  Let me preface this with the fact that I am well aware that I do not need to feel as though I have to do wifely things, but I really enjoy seeing Jason happy and I feel like if I can take the time to make something for him or do something little for him, I try to.  I don’t feel indebted to him or like I have to do these things, but I like seeing him happy.

I’ve decided that on the days that I don’t work, I’m going to try and go out of my way to do something nice for him, whether it be make a dessert, make him a nice meal, or maybe do his laundry.

For ages, he has been begging me to make him a homemade pie.  My response is usually–If I make it at home with premade crusts that counts as homemade right?  His response is–No…like really homemade…like your mom makes homemade.  I’ve always said no and then usually conned my mom into making an extra pie when she makes pie.  I’ve also came home with a homemade pie from a farmer’s market a time or two and told him that while I didn’t make it, I did procure it for him.  We both usually get a good chuckle out of that one…

So I had decided today was the day!  I knew I had bought lard last time I was at the grocery store and with my new refrigerator, I have ice cubes to make sure that the water is really cold like mom does.  I talked to her got my recipes found.  I was ready to make a pie–Until I looked for the lard and remembered that I had used it to fill the deep fat frier.

Jason was in the house so I told him and he was a little bummed, but I told him I’d make his next choice.  That was Lemon Merangue pie.  I quickly explained that pie in general was out because I didn’t have lard.  His next choice?  Chocolate cookies with peanut butter chips just like on the back of the bag.  Downside?  No peanut butter chips.  Next choice?  Bars on the back of the recees peanut butter cup/recees pieces bag.  Got looking around and I had 3 cans of evaporated milk, but no sweetened condensed milk.  So that was a no go!

By then though, he had gone out to bed steers again.  So I took it upon myself to pick something for him.  I ended up remembering a recipe that my mom used to make with chocolate cookies that had pudding mix in them.  I always loved them because they were always so moist.  I headed up to my recipe book cabinet and pulled out one of my favorite cookbooks ever!

I remember when I was little, we were in the checkout line at Fareway.  Mom kept looking at this book and I remember there was a sign up that the cookbooks were for sale for $10.00.  I remember thinking that was kind of a lot of money and was surprised when mom put it in the cart because she usually never bought things for herself.  But boy am I glad she did!  This one has some AMAZING recipies in it.  When I moved out of the house and started doing thing like cooking my meals instead of drinking them or eating at the school cafeteria, I realized the importance of good church cookbooks–This was way before Pinterest and finding any recipe under the sun on the internet.  I told mom that if she found this one I needed it–And to no surprise, she delivered.

I quickly flipped to the pudding cookie recipe–

And a clearer version–

One thing that I find interesting now too is that I know many of the ladies that have recipes in the cookbook through the nursing home.  Often times, I try out the recipes and am able to let the ladies know how much I appreciate a good church cookbook and their recipe they added to it.

Like I said before, these cookies end up really moist.  Another thing that I like about them is that it makes about 3 dozen.  It’s the perfect number for me and Jason–I’ll usually put about half ina bag for us and then half either go with me to work or to a neighbor–And if I burn a pan, there’s still enough for us to eat!

As you can see, I ended up adding in some chocolate chips, recees peanut butter cups and recees pieces.  One of the other great things is that I started writing this post as I put the first pan in the oven and just pulled the last pan out as I am finishing this–That’s another thing I need to work on, using my time efficiently!