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Tomorrow we are having a bake sale in the office. It’s for a good cause. Shut up. I know. I promise I am not snacking like a beast.

I bake cookies with one basic recipe and a bunch of different mix-ins:

One egg
A half cup of brown sugar
A quarter cup of sugar
A stick of softened butter (I use salted butter)
A cup and a half of all purpose flour
A half teaspoon each of baking soda and salt
A cup (and a half if you like it packed like me) of baking chips and nuts

Mix the butter and the sugars together until smooth. Add the egg and beat it! Sift the flour, soda and salt into the creamy mixture and fold into a dough consistency. Add in the chips (chocolate, peanut butter, white chocolate) and/or the nuts (pecans, macadamia nuts, walnuts).

Use a teaspoon and drop onto an aerated cookie sheet. This is important because the air sheets will make sure the cookies do not burn on the bottom. This recipe should make about two dozen cookies, depending on the size you like. I smoosh them a bit cause I like a big, flat cookie.

Bake in a 375 degree oven until the edges are just slightly brown. The cookies will still seem a little doughy in the middle but that’s OK; once they are cool you will have a very soft, moist cookie.

Then I made little banana bread loaves using a slightly modified Tyler Florence recipe from the Food Network Web site. Click here for the recipe.

My slight modification is that I use macadamia nuts instead of pecans.

Tyler: Huge fan here and you could totally cook in my kitchen anytime. But really the macadamia nuts are a total improvement and this is from a woman who LOVES pecans. Seriously, try it sometime. You’re welcome.

Then I made some almond pound cakes from a mix and I know you are all “from a mix???” and you are totally ready to take my Martha Stewart brownie points away but seriously this stuff is awesome. It’s sold by one of those party plan companies, but I don’t really care cause this cake will make you tingle in your happy places because it is full of the awesome. And this company makes a kick-ass beer bread mix, too. Believe me, if it wasn’t fabulucious I would not waste a beer in it.

All this baking is taking my mind off the fact that my husband is gone for three days. I dropped him off at the airport before I strapped on my apron and went all domestic diva up in here.

His mother is having her hip replaced tomorrow so he flew back home to Indiana to be with her and support his dad through this process. I love my husband for a lot of reasons, and his dedication to family is right up there with his sex appeal and his undying devotion to me.

I already miss him. And I won’t be really happy until he comes home on Wednesday.

“Trains, Planes, Automobiles” sound familiar to anyone?

Any old hoo, after I feed the muttskis I might try to make a German chocolate coffee cake. If I can figure out how.