Chewy Chocolate Coconut Cookies with Crushed Peppermint...what happens when Patrick NEEDS a cookie!

"No cookies in the house?  Aww.  I'm sorry, honey, but after Christmas, everything sweet is gone."  These were my "trite" words of "faux" concern about Patrick's dilemma last weekend.

I know my husband quite well, you see.

It must be the engineer in him.  But this man can keep cookie recipes and ingredient quantities filed away in his brain without the necessity of any... silly cookbooks.  

Basically, he needed something sweet.  He needed something now.  I snickered to myself as I swept through the kitchen with feigned sorrow on my furled brows and eyes full of disingenuous concern.

I knew what would transpire next.  Some shuffling took place in the pantry.  Patrick's muffled voice could be heard. "We have chocolate!  Oh, here is a bag of coconut.  Great, and here are some leftover peppermints from Christmas"  were the muttered sounds that I picked up as items were pushed aside and treasures that might turn into cookies were stacked in his arms.

My role in this pretense is to disappear somewhere in the depths of the house...out of sight...out of the kitchen.

A quick, "fresh cookies coming soon-wink" was signaled to my son, Riley.  We knew the smell of freshly baked cookies will fill the house within the next hour.

And...it did.  Mmmmm.  And...it was gooooood.

Deep chocolate notes filled the air floating to me in my hiding place.  Sweet coconut mingled together with  the milk chocolate notes that soon whispered, "Time to come out...cookies must be just out of the oven!"

The results were:  
1.  one batch of chewy chocolate coconut cookies.  
2.  one batch of chewy chocolate coconut cookies with crushed peppermint!
3.  the third batch was raised up a notch because he found a jar of cream cheese frosting...so those became a decadent batch of chewy chocolate coconut cookies with a swipe of cream cheese frosting on top.

It works. every. time.  I think I have the helpless "No, honey, I don't think there are any cookies in the pantry" look down pretty well.

In fact, I'm sitting at my kitchen table.  I am having a chocolate coconut cookie, a chocolate coconut/crushed peppermint cookie, and a decadent chocolate coconut cookie with swipe of cream cheese frosting-on-top

...right now.

Oh, the sweet power that is wielded in this house when for some unforeseen miscalculation...we just don't have any cookies in the house.  





Chewy Chocolate Coconut Cookies with Crushed Peppermint

1 cup butter
1 egg
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 cups flour
3 teaspoons vanilla
5 tablespoons cocoa
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups sweetened coconut
Crushed peppermint (if desired, optional)

Heat oven to 325˚ F

Cream the butter, egg, vanilla, and sugar together.  Sift and mix in the dry ingredients - cocoa, salt and baking soda.  Add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture.

Add coconut and (crushed peppermint, if using) and mix until incorporated. Roll dough into 1 - 2 inch balls and place on cookie sheets.

Place cookie sheets (if more than one sheet) into the oven and bake 8 minutes - rotate the sheets and bake 8 minutes more. Total baking time - 16 min.