Random Acts of Kindness

I recently read a blog post about a woman named Marsha who spent her 40^th birthday doing 40 random acts of kindness. I think what she did was amazing and of course, I was inspired to do something, but on a much smaller scale (perhaps when I turn 40 I’ll steal her list and do them all!). A few weeks ago our grill caught on fire and I, to my husband’s embarrassment, overreacted and called 911. The fire department was here in a jiffy and while our dinner was ruined, our house was thankfully not.  

   

One of the random acts of kindness performed by Marsha was by taking cookies to her local fire department, so I thought I would start there. I had been meaning to try a new cookie recipe, and figured this was the best time to do it. M didn’t have school on Columbus Day so we set to work baking and later on, the boys (dressed up in their cute firemen outfits) accompanied me to the fire station to drop off our cookies.

The fire fighters were very excited to see the boys, gave us a tour of the fire house and even allowed them to climb onto the fire truck and the ambulance. We hope they enjoyed the cookies as much as we enjoyed baking them. To all the fire fighters and other emergency workers out there we say, in M’s words, “thank you for keeping us safe!”

Chewy Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour

½ cup butter, softened

1 cup smooth-style peanut butter

1 ½ cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup packed brown sugar

½ cup white sugar

2 tablespoons corn syrup

2 tablespoons water

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside.  Cream butter, peanut butter, brown and white sugars together until smooth.  Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in corn syrup, water, and vanilla. Stir flour mixture into the peanut butter mixture and fold in chocolate chips. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets, about an inch apart. Bake for 9-10 minutes in preheated oven, or until edges are golden brown. Let cookies cool for 1 minute on cookie sheet before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

Recipe yields 5 dozen cookies.

Original recipe from Allrecipes.com, with modifications