Cranberry Chocolate Chip Pistachio Pudding Cookies
Today Jon David brought a box of 50 Jack Links Beef Sticks home from school.
The twelve year old in me wants to snicker at the phrase “beef sticks”, but the mom in me knows that this situation is not so funny.
I don’t know what has happened with school fundraisers lately, but catalogs and order forms are a thing of the past, which is a shame. They were so easy to “lose”, or worst case, you’d order a tin of peppermint patties or a roll of wrapping paper and get on with your life.
But NOW my son comes home with a permission slip asking if he can bring home a $50 box of Beef Sticks, which he is NOT allowed to bring back to the school. They will not accept uneaten meat, only money, meaning that we have to make sure it all gets sold.
The problem with this, obviously, is that I only know about FOUR real life people. So best case scenario, I’m spending $46 on dried up meat logs.
I’m sure that some of you are strong enough to forgo the signing of the Beef Stick Permission Slip, but the problem with that is the kids that sell a box get to go to an ice cream party. So of course, I envision my poor son sitting in class doing arithmetic with a lonely tear trailing down his cheek while all his classmates cheer and dive headfirst into banana splits.
For the record, I don’t even know if arithmetic is a thing anymore, but it always exists in my hypothetical torture scenarios. Always.
Our neighbors have several kids, so I sent Jon David over there, hoping they’d buy like 5 so that everyone could have an afternoon snack. But as it turns out, Jon David managed to pull their 7 year old aside and talk him into giving up the $20 he’d been saving, for 20 Beef Sticks. But before Jon David could high-tale it out of there, the dad got wind of what was happening and made my son refund the transaction.
Nothing like your son trying to rip off the neighbor children to make you hold your head high while checking the mail.
Siiiiiiiiiiigh.
I officially hate beef jerky. The end.
Let’s talk about cookies!!
I absolutely love pistachios, and I happened to have a box of pistachio pudding that was about to expire (can instant pudding powder REEEEALLLY expire?) so I decided to try it in some cookies.
I always think that cranberries are a good pairing with pistachios, so I decided to throw some of them in, too.
Don’t they look yumm-eh???
These cookies are nice and soft. The pistachios are a great addition and I loved the tartness of the dried cranberries.
Give them a whirl!!
Anyone want fifty pieces of beef jerky?Cranberry Chocolate Chip Pistachio Pudding Cookies
adapted from Allrecipes.com
INGREDIENTS
- 2 1/4 cups flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 2 sticks butter, softened slightly
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 1 small box (3.4 oz) instant pistachio pudding mix
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
- 3/4 cup dried sweetened cranberries
- 1/2 cup chopped pistachios
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 350. Mix flour and baking soda in a small bowl and set aside.
2. In the bowl of a mixer, cream the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar on medium speed until smooth and fluffy, about a minute. Beat in the pudding mix, then set the speed to low and mix in eggs and vanilla. Slowly beat in the flour mixture and mix until fully mixed in. Stir in chocolate chips, cranberries and pistachios.
3. Drop cookies by spoonfuls on ungreased cookie sheets and flatten slightly with your hand. Bake for about 10 minutes, or until edges start to turn golden brown.
No?
Okay then.
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Omg! thats so funny, on my school they never sent a letter home they just gave us candy to sell and we were four at home so all of us had to sell or pay for the candy!!! I love the cookies!!!!!!!
It sounds as though the school has a very good handle on the fine art of emotional blackmail. $50 worth of beef jerky? Really?! That’s what I call cruel and unusual punishment.
These cookies, on the other hand…good stuff.
looks yummy. I have 1 qustion. What is the use of pistachio pudding mix?
Flavor and softness :)
Pistachios and cranberries are perfect together, these cookies look great.
My boys sell stuff for FFA like cookie dough and pies, but that’ probably because they would eat all of the jerky themselves. Love the cookies, pudding cookies are always yummy and I love pistachios and cranberries together.
Hi Kristan,
i have a few, well, waaaaay more than a few boxes of pumpkin spice pudding mix, do you have a recipe for these, or should i just swap a few things out . and i think mine may be expired but i don’t think they really expire.
thanks, Elaine
Oooo, pumpkin spice would be really good with pecans and butterscotch chips. Or peanuts and carmel chips. Or… I think I’ll just go make some!
Ahahaha “beef sticks”. I’m not a momma yet so I can TOTALLY act like a little boy…no bigs. But these cookies?! Awesome!
I guess you’ve never had the pleasure of selling Blue & Gold Sausage? It’s 5 lb. logs of some of the best stuff you’ve ever eaten but you have to lug it around and delivered frozen bricks that are heat-seeking torpedoes that are particularly fond of your toes!! 4-H is a great program so we did it every year, but my feet are glad it’s over for me! :) These are fantastic looking cookies – I love all three ingredients and have pinned them so I can make them soon!
We haven’t gotten to the box of jerky phase yet in my town, thank goodness. I still officially misplace the Gertrude Hawk catalog every Spring.
I love that you added pistachio pudding! What a fun idea!
These cookies look so delish Kristan!!! These will be great dessert after ya’ll eat that box of beef jerky!!! xoxo
I actually think that’s a mean thing for the school to do – exclude kids from an ice cream party if they don’t sell it all? What if they try their hardest but just can’t get it all sold? I guess the parents end up buying the rest, which is bullsh*t. My oldest is only in kindergarten, so I still have some time to figure out how to deal with these school fundraisers! Send some with your husband to work to sell to his colleagues maybe?
By the time my kids got to the 3rd grade I wised up and refused all of those bs fundraisers. I donate a monetary amount if they allow it or nothing at all. The ice cream party seems like a good day to have a family obligation and just skip school that day or schedule a doctors appointment.
I just had a flashback to school fundraisers. I’m not really ready for that again. Especially if it involves beef jerky. If it involved cookies, I’d be ALL IN.
As a teacher, I found fundraisers to be make-work projects. As a parent, I found myself buying and eating a lot of things that otherwise would have never entered my home or my mouth! Thank goodness I’m retired and can bake all day instead! Can’t wait to try these cookies.
Could they have chosen a more impossible item to sell as a fundraiser? It’s setting the kids up for total failure! What happened to popcorn or bunny-shaped gummies or stuff like that?
Anyhoodle, I love pistachio too. AND I totally used my last box of pistachio pudding mix to make cookies. Great minds. Should’ve added cranberries…and chocolate. Trail mix cookie extraordinaire!
Jon David is just a good salesman, it’s not his fault that the neighbour-kid can’t resist a deal!
This post is fricking hilarious. Sorry for the ‘fricking’, I have no etiquette or proper language. I am tempted to pay you $50 just so you can chop up those beef sticks, bake them into something, and send them all back to the school…
Aren’t there vegetarians at your son’s school? Wouldn’t the act of sending home 50 beef sticks be as mentally scarring as pulling a decapitated animal head out of a box?
These cookies look delicous! And that is crazy of the school to make him do that. I would not sign the permission slip and either have him stay home from school the day of the party or pull him out early and go do something more fun like Chuck E. Cheese. I bet it would be half the price!
My mom used to buy all my girl scout cookies and then we would eat them. ALL. Not that I am complaining or anything, but I guess I understand. Have fun with all that beef jerkey! At least you have some yummy cookies to eat while you figuring out what to do with them :)
I have such a thing for Pistachios!!! I loved beef jerky when I was a kid!
School fundraisers are extortion!! They do this to my oldest all the time and the kids that don’t sell the garbage basically get punished while the other kids get fun days and stuff.
Can I get a bake sale pleeease?
Anyway– pudding cookies are awesome.
Our school just sold $1 chocolate bars for the first time. We had actually voted at a PTO mtg to not do door-to-door fundraisers, but I guess they got a wild hair to try it. Anyway, this started about February 1st, and then Lent rolled around. See, we give up all sweets for Lent, and it’s tough when all you can smell is that darn chocolate. I didn’t care that my kid still had half a box to sell, I wanted them out of the house!
I have never heard of such a thing. We didn’t have fundraisers for our schools back in the dark ages. (1950s.) The schools were insanely overcrowded and lacking in just about everything but somehow we got educated without selling anything! When my son was in school in the 1970s they had a terrific deal. Once a week the moms brought cupcakes (store bought or home made) to school. There were eight grades so each family only had to bake cupcakes once every two months. They’d sell the cupcakes for 25 cents (such a deal plus they could buy as many as they could eat) and all the money would go to the school. Fabulous. None of the “no sell beef sticks, no ice cream day”. Idiot idea. Bet the other moms are fed-up too. What baloney!
You should just call these “Colette Cookies.” :0)
Dried up meat logs. Snicker. In other news, I absolutely love these cookies! Pistachio, cranberry, and chocolate. Perfect!
Oh my word … my son and I just had a conversation yesterday about school fundraisers. Not my favorite thing. Not one single bit. Can you say racket?
Ooh yum, your cookies look so good!
They sent home beef sticks?! Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? That’s Crazy Town right there. Thankfully my son’s only fundraisers this year have been a walk a thon (they walked around the school) and a math a thon. I guess our school district likes Thons, huh?
Beef sticks is a weird thing to sell for a school fundraiser. Is that the least appealing thing they could come up with?? BTW, your cookies look delish!
My husband would be glad to help you out on the beef sticks. I would be willing if you slipped in a few of the cookies :)
Beef Sticks? That is wrong on so many levels.
We do jog-a-thon here. No selling anything. If the kids want to have sponsors, they do. The sponsors sign up for a flat donation or per-lap donation and the kids run for 15 minutes, getting a rubber band on their wrist for each lap. Laps are documented and after one easy day, the school has finished all fundraisers for the year and raised over $30,000. Easy, peasy.
P.S. I think I need 2 dozen of those cookies, stat.
I love cranberries and chocolate together. Pudding cookies are a favorite too. I can’t do pistachio because of allergies but I can make these just subbing vanilla pudding. Chewy and delicious!
not laughing so not laughing, i have never had anyone try to sell me beef sticks. It drives me batty when kids get punished for not being able to sell. I wonder what they make on a box of 50, let me just buy the box at cost
Oh no….they did NOT send home a $50 box of beef sticks. I just want to march right over to that school FOR you!!! Hey…once all of these “healthy” school foods are mandated by the government, he’ll be coming home with a $50 box of endive.
For the last two years, kiddo has come home with an envelope of 25 raffle tickets to sell…for $25 A PIECE!!! There is NO WAY I’m sending him to the neighbors to hock $25 tickets. Each year, we ever so politely dump them in the trash.