A friend mentioned that she loves pine nuts over dinner, and, since I was planning to bake her some cookies for a trip anyway, I plugged "pine nuts" into a Food Network search and baked the first recipe it came up with. It helped that I had all the ingredients on hand.

Ingredients

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup powdered sugar, plus more for dusting
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Pinch salt
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup toasted pine nuts, chopped
• 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chunks or chips

Directions

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

Combine the butter, powdered sugar, cocoa powder, vanilla, and salt in a large bowl. Using a hand mixer, beat the mixture until creamy, about 2 minutes. Add the flour, pine nuts, and chocolate. Stir until just mixed.

Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Scoop out 1-inch balls of dough. Place on the cookie sheet. Bake until the tops look dry, about 18 minutes. Let cool for 15 minutes on the baking sheets. Dust with powdered sugar and transfer to a serving plate.

Recipe Notes:

• No joke: I was once trapped in an airport for eight hours with nothing to eat. Always pack a snack when you travel even if you just shove a granola bar in your carry-on.  
• I don't know what about this recipe I got wrong: over mixing, flour still cold from fridge, wrong attachment on the mixer, but there was nothing scoopable about the dough. I tried scooping out my first cookie, and it crumbled off the spoon. I ended up lightly rolling 1-inch balls of dough in my hands. My last cookie was just a pile of leftover bits.
• Toasting nuts is easy: just throw them in a single layer on a baking tray while the oven heats up or in a pan over low heat. Toss on occasion and remove once you can smell the nuts.
• I know my oven runs a little hot (all ovens have slight variations), so I set my timer for 15 minutes. The first tray was burnt. 12 minutes was all it took for the second. Make sure you keep an eye on these guys.
• I completely forgot to dust with more icing sugar until just now. Oops!
• Still, a respectable cookie. Some room for improvement in my prep.