Mexican Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

I love a good chocolate chip cookie, a little on the crispy side, and not too sweet. I am also not a big fan of nuts in my cookies (although sometimes pecans or peanut butter are just right), so I like to find a little extra flavor in other ingredients. Mexican chocolate, with its addition of cinnamon and a little pepper or chile, is perfect to me. These cookies, adapted from an old Bon Appétit recipe I found on Epicurious, came out wonderfully, with a nice bit of cinnamon spice and a subtle black pepper finish. They also benefited from the unsweetened chocolate to cut the sugar a bit, and the chocolate chips have a softness that juxtaposes the crisp cookies.

• 1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, preferably of high quality such as Scharffen Berger
  
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• Black pepper to taste
  
• 10 ounces of bittersweet chocolate chips, Ghirardelli makes great ones

Cream the butter and sugar in large bowl, beat in the eggs one at a time, then add vanilla.

Sift the dry ingredients directly into the bowl, combine until blended, and add chocolate chips and black pepper to taste.

The dough is very fudgey, so it should be refrigerated for about an hour before baking.

Bake on buttered baking sheets (about 9 cookies per standard sheet) for 12 minutes at 350 degrees. Let stand 3-5 minutes before removing the cookies to cool on a rack.

The recipe should make about 50 2 inch cookies.

Bon Appétit's recipe on Epicurious can be found here: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Mexican-Chocolate-Chip-Cookies-4808#ixzz1f7JggtD2

Recipe - Banana Bread

Banana Bread has always been one of my very favorite things to bake, ever since I was very little. One of my earliest memories of baking it was with our babysitter when I was probably four or five, and she added too much baking powder, giving it a really terrible taste. I learned from that error, and many other subsequent versions I have made since. I'm constantly trying to improve my baking, to make it as delicious and healthy as possible. I've gotten pretty good at the banana bread, my latest recipe goes as follows:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.

Mix the following ingredients in a large bowl until very well blended. You can combine the dry ingredients in a separate bowl first, but I don't think that's necessary for this bread. It's easiest to start with the wet ingredients and then add the dry, following the order in which they're listed.

-2 eggs
-2 bananas
-1 cup applesauce
-1 cup nonfat Greek yogurt
-4 tablespoons butter, melted
-1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
-1 tsp baking soda
-1 tsp baking powder
-1/2 tsp cinnamon
-1/2 tsp nutmeg
-1 tsp vanilla extract
-3 tbs ground flaxseed

Bake for about 40-50 minutes, or until your knife tests clean.

Enjoy!