Green Chocolate Chip Cookies (with NO green food coloring!)

That's right. I made green chocolate chip cookies this week - in celebration of St. Patrick's Day (I'm a bit early). But I didn't just want to add green food coloring to a chocolate chip cookie batter - that seems like cheating to me a little so I searched around online and found this recipe online! I was a bit skeptical at first, as I'm sure you'll be too - but if I may say so myself, I think they came out quite tasty and would definitely make this recipe again, even without the St. Patrick's Day justification for green food!

I would also like to point out that as I write this entry I'm sitting on my lovely new couch, while watching cable tv on my beautiful new flat screen tv, and most importantly - I'm using the internet in my own apartment and not at the Starbucks across the street! Things are finally coming together so well!

They don't look as green in this picture unfortunately.

Green Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 stick butter, softened to room temp
1 whole ripe avocado
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed down
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 1/4 cups white whole wheat flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 box of pistachio pudding mix
1 cup chocolate chips

1. In a large mixing bowl, cream together the softened butter, avocado and sugars using a hand mixer until smooth. Add the eggs and vanilla to the batter and mix well again.

2. In a smaller mixing bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda and dry pudding mix.
3. Add the dry ingredients gradually to the green batter, mixing until well blended. Fold in the chocolate chips with a wooden spoon (not the electric mixer).

4. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto a lightly greased cookie sheet. This batter doesn't spread out very much (the cookies stay pretty thick and tall), so you don't need to worry about them being really close together too much. Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes. Remember that the cookies will keep cooking when you take them out, so even if they seem like they need another minute or two, they're probably done!

Cutting an avocado is easy! Use a knife to essentially cut in half all the way around/ lengthwise - twist the two halves, one half will separate with the pit. Putting the half down on the table, dig a knife into the pit and twist out. Now all you have to do is make cut marks both vertical and horizontal (seen to the right) and then when you sort of twist and squeeze the avocado halves, the cubes fall out and you can use a spoon to get any excess avocado out!