Chocolate Chip Cookies

Wanted to make chocolate Chip cookies a few days ago. Went into the pantry to grab the bag of chocolate chips I'd purchased about a month ago, and it was feeling a little....light. Sure enough, there was a small cut across one corner. It wasn't that way when I bought it :s I show it to the Cyberchaun - we know exactly which heathen is responsible. Heathen number 1, who was gone to camp at that time and somewhat safe from my wrath. So today, I decide again to make chocolate chip cookies. I haven't forgotten that the bag of chocolate chips is now half empty (I'd like to point out that it was NOT half empty when I first discovered the pilfering deeds of my oldest child - she's been busy since she got home.) No, I just decided that she deserved to eat chocolate chips that were decidedly less chocolate-chippy.

Problem is, that doesn't really work. See, I've used this recipe many times. It's not the one on any package. It's the recipe of my all-time favorite Food Network personality. I know it makes wonderful cookies just the way my family likes them. So today, when the first batch came out decidedly less fluffy, and extremely flat - yet chewy, I knew something was wrong. Did I use the wrong ingredients? No - I remembered to use bread flour instead of All Purpose or Self-Rising. Well, I did use regular salt instead of Kosher - it's just hard to measure that Kosher salt once the container starts getting low....... But really - can the difference between regular iodized and Kosher salt be all that great? No, I firmly believe that the difference - the cause of these blasphemous versions of cookies - is the lack of sufficient numbers of delectable little chocolate chips! Which can be laid firmly at the feet of a VERY un-penitent (is that even a word?) 13-year old! I'm not happy. I'll still eat the cookies. I mean, they're COOKIES. But I will know with every bite what they might have been! And I'll be a little more sad each time..........