There is just something about a macaroon. Not those fancy French macarons. (Although my friend brought me back some from Paris that were amazing. That little caramel one…) But an almost overly sweet, slightly gooey coconut cookie. There is a truck stop we know that has the most amazing chocolate dipped macaroons. They are beautiful dense balls of coconut robed in dark chocolate. All of their baked goods are amazing, but the macaroon is my favorite. (This sounds like it should be on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives.)
So what do you do when you are craving one of those cookies, but are not going to drive 45 minutes just to get one? You scour all of great-grandma’s recipes because you know you saw a macaroon recipe in there somewhere. (It was in the cookbook I made for my grandma of her mom’s recipes).
These ingredients do not seem like they would make a cookie. They kind of don’t. The end result is a lightly held together ball of coconut and chocolate. I’d recommend using mini chocolate chips instead of the chopped chocolate. And definitely use a Silpat or whatever sort of non-stick cooking mat you have. 
I’m not going to lie. These are not as good as the macaroons at the truck stop, but that didn’t stop me from eating at least my share of them. I doubt these store well. It’s probably best not to even try. Kind of like kringla. 
Chocolate Coconut Macaroons
1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
2 cups shredded coconut
1/3 cup chopped semi-sweet chocolate
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
Combine milk and coconut. Add chocolate, vanilla, and almond extract. Mix well. Drop by teaspoons on greased baking sheets 1 inch apart. Bake in moderate oven, 350°, 10-12 minutes. Remove from pan immediately cool. Makes 24.
And now I have an idea for a roasted pineapple and toasted coconut something…cocktail? Bread? Meringue Pie? This is an ongoing problem. I start out doing something and then get majorly inspired by something completely different and get too excited to start that and want to forget about what it was I was doing in the first place. I am working harder at trying to finish things before I start something new. It’s killing me in my knitting right now. The biggest problem I have is that I have too many ideas and there is only me that can carry them out. It’s all just time and money, right?
Ok, back on track. A couple of things to note. Pineapple tidbits or crushed pineapple probably works better than pineapple chunks. And if you haven’t read the Jell-O package (and these are small ones, not big ones in this recipe), do not attempt to use fresh pineapple. Most tropical fruits contain enzymes which counteract the gelling property of gelatin. If you want something like a slimy soup, that’s probably fine, but even despite my protests of not caring for Jell-O, I still prefer it to be gelled. The enzymes are useful for other things, though, like tenderizing meat (mmmm…al pastor). But this is also the same thing that makes some people very sensitive to eating too much raw fruit. 
Also…The topping of the Tropical Delight Salad is really good. Don’t skip that step. Even if you decide you want to change the flavor of the Jell-O, or decide not to use bananas, or oranges, do not change the topping. 
A few years ago, I bought a double drink dispenser for the kids’ birthday party. I served both iced tea and lemonade with flavored simple syrups so that party guests could have whatever combination they wanted to drink. The only reason I bring this up is because the dispenser works equally well for holding a single beverage, like Lime Punch. I hesitate to even refer to this as a recipe. It’s something small children can make easily and probably have made a version of it at a soda fountain at some point. Heck, these days, there are those dispensers that will do it for you. It’s limeade and lemon-lime soda. I suppose someone could get all fancy and use ginger ale, except as my mom experienced, ginger ale is not available in all parts of Iowa. Use ginger beer and you have the non-alcoholic version of a Moscow Mule. You could even serve it in fancy copper mugs. (We didn’t. I think we used red solo cups.) (We also didn’t use ginger beer.)
Ok, about those cookies. When the boys were little we took them out to a restaurant on a Friday night. The kids meals came with a choice of dessert. One boy ordered a chocolate chip cookie before he was told the options and the other chose an M&M cookie after listening to his choices. In order to prevent a jealous fight (which was more common in those days than it is now) we asked if the waitress could please just bring us 2 M&M cookies. She did as we asked and the younger boy started crying. “I don’t like M&M cookies.” We struggled to console him. “I thought you did.” “I don’t…except on Fridays” he wailed. “It is Friday,” we told him gently. Immediately the tears dried up. “Ok,” he said and happily munched his M&M cookie as we looked on bewildered. You’d think after that sort of quick mood shift I’d be more ready for their preteen hormones.
Whether it’s Friday night or Sunday afternoon, dry your tears and make these cookies. If you buy a big bag of M&M’s you may be able to pick out your team colors for the cookies. (which means you also get to snack on all those other colors.) For those of you who are aware of such things, I made this recipe some time before “our” team was eliminated from the Super Bowl. (You can probably even guess which team we cheer for). 
From a very early age, I loved a good mystery. More often than not, the books I have checked out in Overdrive are mysteries. The really good ones have twists that you never see coming. The silly ones are fairly obvious from early on and I spend most of the book waiting for the characters to catch up to where I already am.There was one book I read a few years back where the main character knew who the killer was by asking for them for an answer to a cryptic crossword. I was confounded at the time, but have since learned to do cryptics. Not nearly as well as my friend that takes existing crossword puzzles and then writes his own clues to the answers. Also, not nearly as well, as our other friend who just has the sort of brain that overthinks everything (Yes, mom, even worse than I do.) I do best when I have someone else with whom I can discuss the possibilities. 
I am usually pretty good at sussing out secrets. Not always to my benefit. Occasionally, though, there are things that I just never see coming. Like when my half-brother became my half-sister. Never saw that coming.
This recipe was an easy one. It just didn’t have a title. Or instructions. It’s probably a good thing that the thing I like to read best after mysteries is cookbooks. Yep. Just read them like novels. It’s a great way to see how ingredients are supposed to go together and which foods pair well with other foods. It gives you an idea of the culture and values of populations. Shows you how much time people have to cook or bake. It’s an anthropological study (read: mystery). 
The practical people that named some of these recipes were not nearly as eloquent as the writers which is why we have recipes named things like “
The second time I made it, I had much better results in a smaller 8×8 pan. I neglected to let the cake cool completely before adding the whipped cream to the top. The results were a bit runny and messy, but nonetheless incredible.
10 Cents Worth of Dates 