Grandma Elwood's Chocolate Chip Cookies

Source: My grandma, Margaret Elwood

My grandma's own handwriting in a cook
book she made for my dad when he left
on his mission.  A treasure!

Ingredients:
1 cup shortening (if I remember right, she always uses the yellow butter-flavored shortening, but I didn't have that and they turned out just fine)
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla (for some reason this didn't make it in the original posting of this recipe 6 years ago - about time I fixed that error!)
1 teaspoon milk
2 eggs
2 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
6 oz chocolate chips

Directions:
Combine first five ingredients.  Beat until creamy.  Beat in eggs.  Sift together the flour, soda and salt.  Add flour mixture to the shortening mixture; mix well.  Add chocolate chips and mix in.  Roll a tablespoonfuls (I actually used my 1/2 Tablespoon measuring spoon for the perfect cookie ball) of dough into balls.  Bake 9-11 minutes at 350 degrees on a greased cookie sheet.  Don't over-bake if you want a chewy cookie!

Notes:
Pretty much every time we visited my grandma's house (which was nearly every Sunday evening growing up) there would be a big batch of these cookies waiting in the cookie jar for our little (and not-so-little) hands to snag.  If they weren't in the cookie jar, then there were tupperware containers of them stacked in the freezer.  When I made these recently, I decided to leave a few out on the counter to munch on, but froze the rest "for later."  Later actually only meant "the next day" when I was reaching for more.  They're especially good straight out of the freezer - a little bit hard on the first bite, but they slowly warm up and become chewier (if you can wait that long!) and are quite a refreshing, cold treat on a hot summer day.  (Not that it was anywhere near summer when I made and devoured this most recent batch.)

Blanchard note: as with my disclaimer on Jill's Pie Crust recipe, I know not all of you use shortening on a regular basis (or ever) but I just couldn't resist posting this recipe for nostalgia's sake.  Don't hate me.  ;)