Rotten Hippie cookies. Don't make me bake these.

I love to bake. 

What the heck is this? A chocoreolate chip cookie?
Blech.

Let me amend that. I love to eat baked goods. Baking itself is more of a challenge but around this time of year I get passive-aggressive invitations to create mounds of cookies and pies for schools in order to help them fatten up the kids buy new pencils for a bake sale. They know not what they do. 

I'll blow the dust off my cookbook(s) and turn to stained cookie recipes that haven't seen the sun since last November and fuss over which cookie I'll try not to turn into a brick with festive sugar sprinkles. The one thing I can make it kickass granola -- but no one touches it here in my rural Virginia town; I've lived in Virginia for 13 years and still get the "damn hippie" vibe when I show up with natural goodness. It must be the Birks. You can take the girl out of Oregon but...

This year I may fancy it up a bit with chocolate-black pepper cookies. Yeah, baby. Imagine the delight of your toddler with a mouthful of that bad boy. Or maybe a snickerdoodle. They have to forgive and forget the snickerdoodle debacle of 2009, right? I heard they still level desks with my cookies, I knew their cement-like texture would come in handy. 

One party I am looking forward to is an annual cookie exchange at a friend's house. It's like Thunderdome in there. A dozen of us will square off with our best recipes and fancy-ass decorating and walk off as a winner while the rest brush crumbs off our chests and vow vengeance (I'm looking at you, McDaniel). I'm tossing around shortbread for that one. How hard could it be? Oh crap, I've just jinxed it. Hmmm, maybe I'll make Damn Hippie cookies: oatmeal, cranberries, carob then rolled in organic herbs with a hint of beer. 

Can you help a woman out? Do you have a great (and easy) cookie recipe to share? Please keep in mind that I have an electric mixer with one beater since the other is currently stuck in spackle. Don't ask.