Bacon-wrapped Dates

Anything is better with bacon wrapped around it, right? Right. This is one of the simplest recipes you'll ever see, but is very tasty, makes a great appetizer or snack.

Ingredients

• 1 lb bacon, sliced
• 2-3 dozen dates, pitted
• Toothpicks

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 F (190 C).
2. Cut bacon slices into about 3 inch long pieces (long enough to wrap around a date with some overlap).
3. Wrap once 3 inch piece of bacon around each date, and stick a toothpick through to secure the bacon to the date. You can break the toothpicks in in half to use fewer of them if you want.
4. Place the bacon-wrapped dates in a single layer in a baking dish, and bake in the oven until the bacon is a bit crispy.
5. Remove dates from the baking dish and arrange on serving plate - allow to cool a bit before serving.

Salted Chocolate Chunk Cookies

This comes from this recipe, with very few modifications - and is really our perfect ideal chocolate chip cookie. Easy too. This recipe makes about 3 dozen cookies. Enjoy!

Ingredients

• 1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 3/4 cups (12 oz) all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. smallish-medium coarse sea salt (if you only have table salt, use about 3/4 tsp)
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 150 grams baking chocolate, smashed to bits

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 360 F (182 C).
2. With a hand mixer, cream together the butter, sugar, and brown sugar until somewhat fluffy.
3. Add eggs and vanilla extract and beat for another minute or two.
4. Add baking soda, baking powder, salt, and flour, and incorporate with a fork (it's easier with a fork, as the mixer will tend to fling powder all over the place).
5. Once the dry ingredients are fully absorbed into the dough, add the bits of chocolate, and mix them by hand into the dough so they are well-distributed.
6. The dough should be fairly thick at this point.
7. Take a baking sheet and line it with parchment paper, or a silpat mat
8. Make 1 1/2-2 inch balls of dough, placing them about 2-3 inches apart on the baking sheet.
9. Pop the cookies in the oven, and let them bake about 12 minutes, until just starting to brown, then remove from oven and let them sit on the baking sheet for 2 minutes before moving them to a cooling rack.
10. Repeat steps 8 and 9 until the dough is all used up.
11. Make sure to have some good milk on hand :)