Cooking for the cause...

This evening I find myself in the kitchen baking for the second after-hours work function in two weeks for which no money has been allotted in our budget. Aah, the joys of non-profitness. We've opted to fund cancer research and support rather than buy quality refreshments for our participants, for better or worse. So what, pray tell will our poor participants be dining on tomorrow, courtesy of me? CAKE MIX COOKIES. That's right, cookies made from a cake mix. Here I am back in 2005, again, scrambling for an easy treat. Enter cherry chocolate chip cake mix cookies.

Upon discovering that I didn't have enough butter for something as sophisticated as banana bread or real cookies, and refusing to make a special trip to acquire said butter, I recalled my roommate's recipe for cookies from a cake mix. It changed my life. (1/2 cup oil, 2 eggs & cake mix - it will be pretty stoggy, but don't fear - ball them up and bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes). Genius. I even had the foresight to make them from a chocolate cake mix, so you can't tell whether or not they're burnt. Dangerously low on chocolate chips, I proceeded to chop a giant Hershey bar I'd won at a recent church activity and made my own chocolate chunks. Last week I spent my Friday night chopping various vegetables to make my own vegetable trays and had Buddy arranging cracker trays for a Saturday event, as the pre-made ones were outside the confines of our allowances. You're probably thinking I'm pretty low budget. No, ladies and gentlemen. I'm NO budget. But don't start feeling too badly for these people; my manager went to culinary school, so her treats should be more impressive.
**If you'd like to learn more about what I do, please click here, and/or here. Saving lives, one mile (and homemade cookie) at a time.