We're having a heatwave, what's a girl to do?

Turn on the oven, of course! I know it sounds awful, but truly, it's not too terrible. Much better than what's going on outside- The current temp is 101 today- which is HUGE here in Southern RI. Our town has an outdoor water ban, which means I can't even send the kids out into the sprinkler to play.

So we have closed the blinds, turned up the AC and decided to bake some cookies. I was craving almond something or another but since I have no almonds in the house aside from extract, I thought I'd work something out with that and some "whatever I can find" ingredients. I guess that makes this a Use What You've Got Challenge!

I started singing "We're having a heatwave! A tropical heatwave!"- which made me think of coconuts. Gosh, don't you wish you lived in my house? my kids must think their mother is insane! So anyway, coconuts lead to rummaging through my cupboards to see if I had any shoved in the recesses tucked away somewhere.

When I emerged from my search, I came bearing brown sugar, dried cranberries and shredded coconut.

Add 2 cute little helpers
and with that, I present to you my recipe for:

Cranberry Coconut Almond Cookies

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened at room temp
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 large egg, slightly beaten
1 1/2 tsp pure almond extract
3/4 cup dried cranberries
3/4 cup sweetened shredded coconut

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Sift together flour, salt, baking powder and soda. Set aside.
(I don't own a sifter, so I use a fine mesh strainer- dumping all ingredients in at once then sifting it through to combine)

Cream together butter, brown sugar, egg and almond extract.


Slowly add flour to the butter mixture until well combined.


Fold the cranberries and coconut into the batter.


Spoon drop onto an ungreased cookie sheet about 2 inches apart.

Mmm, the best part:

For softer cookies, bake for 8-9 minutes. For crispy cookies, bake for 10-11 minutes.

Cool completely on wire racks before serving.

Enjoy!