Peanut Butter Kisses

We spent Labor Day weekend in New Mexico with my brother's family and my aunt's family for my sweet niece's blessing.  It was a nice, lazy weekend full of family and food (I know this is a theme with my side of the family) and a trip to the breathtaking Canyon de Shelly. 

For our Sunday picnic, I decided to make cookies to share.  Late Friday night (we left Saturday morning), I began mixing cookie dough, in between the laundry and cleaning and packing.  Mr. Three, as usual, was wide awake and wanting to assist in all the tasks at hand.  Oh how I wish that kid would learn to sleep at normal child times...

In order to keep his little hands busy, and out of a bit of desperation on my part to get things done, I thought to have him help unwrap Hershey's Kisses for the cookies.  As I mixed the peanut butter and sugar, eggs and baking soda, he unwrapped.  I was making good progress with the dough, and Mr. Three was happily at work.  I had him on a chair right next to me, so I felt I was supervising him adeaquately.  Mike was in the other room working on packing.  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the bowl of kisses getting larger.

"Good,"  I thought, "he's not eating all of them."

As the dough came together and my attention turned towards forming the cookies and adding the kisses, I noticed Mr. Three spitting into the garbage can, and I could see a kiss or two entering his mouth.  Then, I started to pay more attention to my little helper.

He had bit the tip off of his kiss and put the rest of it into the bowl.  "That's kind of funny.  Well, there goes one kiss," I thought.

Then I took a closer look into the bowl.

Every. Single. Hershey's Kiss had little tooth marks and no tip.

In his defense, I did tell him not to eat all of the chocolates.  And he didn't eat all of them.

Call it two year old quality control.

Needless to say, we weren't able to bring a whole batch of kiss cookies with us to New Mexico.  Luckily, there were lots of other sweet treats to share.

Now Mr. Three has his own bag of "special chocolates" that he will be eating from for a long time.

Good thing he's so kissably sweet himself and I can't get mad at this face for too long...

Kiss, kiss!

Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 egg
2 Tablespoons milk
1 3/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
48 chocolate kisses

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cream sugars, vanilla, shortening, peanut butter, egg and milk.  Add dry ingredients and mix well. Shape into small balls and roll in sugar.  Place on cookie sheet and bake for approximately 10 minutes, until slightly brown.  Place a kiss immediately in the center of each cookie after taking out of the oven.

Give someone you love a kiss or two today!