I am an unabashed cookie monster, hands down. I can’t resist all those Christmas cookie magazines that come out every year. Since I became vegan, those recipes are all about conversions and substitutions – a challenge that I genuinely enjoy. That said, it’s awesome when you come across a great recipe where the work has been done for you. Imagine my glee when I cozied up on the chaise (slowly going blind while insisting I can surf the net on an iPod Touch) and settled on the PPK blog. There I spied a new recipe posted by Isa for basic chocolate chip cookies.

Now I’ve tried several basic chocolate chip cookie recipes of the vegan variety with varing degrees of disappointment. This recipe looked simple enough. I had all the ingredients on hand. I invariably want cookies. Thus the perfect storm of cookie making was set in motion. It was a no-brainer that I’d get going on taking this recipe for a test spin. Like right that second.

Well, there is a reason that it’s easier to follow in the footsteps of giants. Isa, bless her, is one gifted woman. I have complete faith in her culinary prowess. It’s no accident that Veganomicon is the most consistently reliable tome in my kitchen. I am counting the days until her Vegan Brunch book comes out in Spring. Counting the days. But don’t get me started talking about breakfast foods or I’ll never stop.

Back to the cookies. Easy as pie to make. Why do people say ‘easy as pie’ by the way? I find pie to be quite complicated. These cookies, however, are easy peasy lemon squeezy. I had to bake mine for a minute more than suggested in order to get the edges to start to brown. I also used plain rice milk in lieu of Isa’s preferred unsweetened almond milk. I prefer almond milk in baking too, but I wanted to finish off some rice milk that I had on hand. There’s also a distinct possibility that I may have erroneously used half the oil called for (I just can’t remember if I refilled that measuring cup…?). My stupidity aside, these cookies turned out really great. Oh how I wish I wasn’t too lazy to make ice cream to go with it.

But I digress. Back to the cookies…just as Isa promised, they are crisp on the bottom, soft on the inside, and crinkly on the top. When warm, they remind me of a gourmet cookie company that used to set up shop in my neighborhood. Hey, who needs them, now I can make my own. You can too if you get the recipe here.

Now go forth and eat cookies.