Not meant to be

Kurt tells me that I have no business being in the kitchen, and he's probably right. For a few days now I have been craving chocolate chip cookies. I tried to get one at Starbucks on Thursday but they were all out. I didn't have anything to do this afternoon, so I thought I'd take a shot at baking. I asked my chef-extraordinaire friend Misty for a recipe and she recommended this one from Martha Stewart. The ingredient list was short and it looked pretty simple, just what I needed. I didn't have unsalted butter, flour, or chocolate so I stopped by the store after picking Micaela up from a birthday party and got those things. I laid all the ingredients out on the counter and after dinner Micaela and I started baking. All seemed to be going well. The recipe didn't say whether or not to grease the pan, so I asked Shellie who recommended parchment paper (what is that?) and then just told me that I wouldn't hurt to lightly grease them. I had 6 cookies on one sheet and 9 on the other ready to go in the oven. Expecting something to go wrong, I put the sheet with 6 cookies in first and set the timer. While waiting for the cookies to bake I started to clean up. When I got to the unopened package of butter I knew I had done something wrong. I held it up and said, "I think I was supposed to use this" to Micaela. I didn't remember it being in the recipe so I went back and looked. I didn't see it, but then Micaela read the first line to me - melt the chocolate AND BUTTER.... oops. Too late now. It said to bake the cookies for 12-15 minutes, but I set the timer for 10 just to be safe. I ended up checking after 7 and the cookies were already burned on the bottom. I didn't know that the oven here cooks 50 degrees hotter than what you set it. There is a separate thermometer in the oven which I could have looked at, but I'm still claiming that this one is not my fault. I turned the temperature down 100 degrees (to be safe) and put the next batch in. I only let this batch go 10 minutes and then I took them out thinking they might be done. The recipe says to let them cool for 10 minutes on the pan and then move to a cooling rack to cool even more. That's B.S. What person with a sweet tooth can sit and watch cookies cool?!?! I waited about 10 seconds, moved them to a plate, waited 10 more seconds and then tried the first batch. The chocolate taste overwhelmed the burned bottom so they weren't completely ruined. I waited and waited for the second batch to cool and harden so that we could take some of these cookies down to Bob and Shellie. When they didn't harden I got impatient and just stacked them on a plate and walked down. I told Bob I slightly burnt the first batch, but I though the second batch was alright. That's when he said, well they're not cooked in the middle. Ah, so that's why they wouldn't harden... I'm a moron. All in all, they weren't great, but they satisfied my chocolate craving and I won't feel guilty the next time I buy cookies from the bakery (much less of a hassle). Here are pictures of Martha's cookies and my cow-pie look-alike cookies:

And, my new favorite picture (I caught them both by surprise):