Hello....

Sorry, I haven't been on here for a long time again... no reason in particular why, just haven't been.  Well, I guess I am going to have knee replacement surgery in Jan. on my left knee.  Hopefully after it heals I will be able to get around better and maybe I can get more exercise and just maybe it will help me to get some relief from the pinched nerve in my back and the horrible pains I have been having in my right lower back, hip and leg.  Well, enough whining and complaining, and on to a recipe....

Last week I bought  2 little cookbooks.  One is all cookie recipes.  One recipe "Pudding Cookies"  caught my eye.  My grandson, Torsten, was visiting me for a few days, so we decided to try it out.  I had just bought some Pumpkin Spice instant pudding mix, and wanted to make something with it, so we made our own variation of it.  It turned out so yummy!!  So here is the original recipe and our variation::

Pudding Cookies
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
one of the variations listed below

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a larger bowl, cream butter and sugars until fluffy.  Add eggs and vanilla.  Beat until smooth.  In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt and ingredients from one of the variations.  Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture, stir to form a soft dough.  Drop by tablespoonfuls onto a lightly greased baking sheet.  Bake 9-11 minutes or until bottoms are lightly browned.  Cool on a wire rack. Store in an air-tight container.  Yields about 4 dozen cookies.

Variation #1 -- Chocolate --  3.9 oz. pkg. chocolate instant pudding mix and a 6 oz. pkg. semi-sweet chocolate chips.

Variation  #2 -- Butterscotch -- a 3.4 oz.pkg. Butterscotch instant pudding mix and a 7 1/2 oz. package almond brickle bits.

Variation #3 --Lemon --  a 3.4 oz. pkg. lemon instant pudding mix and a 10 oz. pkg. semi-sweet chocolate chips.

Grammy and Torstens Variation. -- a 3.4 oz. pkg. Pumpkin Spice instant pudding mix and 1/2  of a 10 oz. pkg. white baking chips.  The chips can be stirred in, but on ours we used them to make Pumpkin faces on our cookies.  We used a glass dipped in sugar to flatten our cookies and pinched a "stem" on the top side of the cookies.  We pushed the chips into the cookies Immediately after taking them from the oven.  The Pumpkin Spice pudding mix can usually only be found in stores this time of year.  I got mine at Giant Eagle.