I’ll be honest … this post is 10% about baking and 90% about blizzard survival. Firstly, I was supposed to have my housewarming party this Saturday. But with Nemo dropping 30 inches of snow in Boston and shutting down the MBTA (still) we had to postpone it. On Friday I had whipped up a batch of this salted chocolate chunk cookies and decided to bake them Saturday morning. I had also made S’more bars on Friday. As much as I was tempted to do some baking experimenting today, I was afraid to be snowed in with anymore baked goods. I didn’t take many pictures making these, because I thought I’d be doing more baking this weekend, so this blog post is a little bit of a cop out.

We’ll do a quick cookie recipe … then I’ll get into my photo documentary of surviving the blizzard.

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 2  60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Baking Bars
• Coarse sea salt

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cream together the butter and sugars. Add in vanilla and eggs and mix well.

Step 2: In a separate bowl sift together the dry ingredients, then incorporate them into the wet mixture.

Step 3: Coarsely chop the bittersweet chocolate and fold in (or if you’re like me, just chuck it in the mixer and let the mixer do the work). I recommend chilling the dough for at least an hour.

Step 4: Using a cookie-scoop, drop even-size balls of dough onto a parchment or sil-pat lined baking sheet. Top with a dash of coarse sea salt. Bake at 375 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes.

So on to the blizzard survival. I’m glad that the blizzard happened late on Friday when everyone could be home from work and stay off the roads.

We did a little shoveling Friday night before bed. There were about 6 inches on the ground. The wind was whipping, but we thought maybe a foot max. So we started a Friday Night Lights marathon starting with season one, and went to bed with Clear Eyes and a Full Heart. And then we woke up…. to this. My roommate’s car is right across the street … you can see it right?

So the two of us and the girl who lives upstairs tried to attack the snow. But here’s the tricky part in South Boston … you are required to clear the sidewalk in front of your house … but you can’t put the snow in the street … so where do you put it? This is where the chocolate chunk cookies came in handy. We saw one of our neighbors recruit 3 teenage boys to shovel out her car. So Colleen paid those boys in cash and chocolate chunk cookies to dig out her car.

Another shot of just how high the snow was. Francesca was clearing a path to safety.

This is a shot of our street.

So obviously after all of that shoveling … we decided we needed to reward ourselves with a trip out of the house and walked down to the bars on East Broadway, so we warmed up with Blue Moons instead of drinking the 80 beers we had in our house.

So on the way back from the bar last night, we decided we were going to have a productive Sunday and cook a healthy dinner. So we picked up this chicken and made this delicious lemon pepper roasted chicken.

With …. rosemary roasted potatoes and cranberry apple sausage stuffing and homemade chicken gravy. Think maybe I should start blogging about more than just cookies?

So now we are sitting here comfortably warm and in a Sunday dinner food coma, watching Friday Night Lights and getting ready for Downton Abbey. Still no clue what the deal is for work tomorrow since the MBTA is running on a very limited delayed schedule. Hopefully I can make it to work because I need someone else to eat these baked goods. Cookie Monday won’t stop because of a blizzard. Although, it might be delayed since the head of my kitchen faucet came shooting off at me today and every time I try to put it back on, the water shoots it back at me. I don’t even know how it happened. I’ve soaked through 3 sweatshirts now before I’ve decided to just not turn the sink on. Hopefully my handyman or someone can fix this since my attempts have just left me soggy.