I was going through my list of recipes that I’ve collected over the last few years and I’ve realized that I REALLY don’t have any good cookie recipes. Other than Food Network’s website, cookbook.com, or just punching into Google, I figured it’d be good to ask the masses. (At least this way I can trust that the recipes have been sort-of-kind-of tested and I’m not going into the oven blind, so to say.) Unusual suggestions are great, ordinary are welcome. 
I have a fabulous chocolate chip cookie recipie… however it is in my recipie box, which is in a box somewhere in my kitchen (I just moved). I will send it too you when I find it, which will hopefully be soon.
Chocolate spritz cookies. ** No one knows how long they keep, because they disappear in a day and a half. Every time.
See note at end; you don’t need a cookie press.
**INGREDIENTS:
* 1 1/2 cups butter
* 1 cup sugar
* 2 squares (2 ounces) unsweetened chocolate, melted
* 1 egg
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking powder
PREPARATION:
In a mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in chocolate, egg, and vanilla. Beat well. Sift together the flour and baking powder; stir into the creamed mixture, blending well. Do not chill. Force dough through cookie press, forming desired shapes on ungreased baking sheets. Bake at 400° for 8 to 10 minutes. Check after 8 minutes. Makes about 4 dozen chocolate spritz cookies.
**You can also just roll the dough into balls and roll the balls in powdered sugar. When made this way they are “Melting Moments”.
OK, ordinary suggestion: go to Martin’s, look to see what’s on sale, and pick up your favorite. Of course, I only say that because my idea of “baking cookies” is to buy those rolls of refrigerated dough. . .and then see if the dough will actually get into the oven, because unbaked cookie dough is much yummier than baked, imho.
In other news, I know you’re new around here and don’t know this stuff yet, but this is probably better suited to Cafe Society, so I’ve reported it to a mod, and I think they’ll probably move it for you. You’ll get better results over there, I bet.
I’ve made these sweet-and-salty peanut chocolate cookies a few times, and most of the time they’ve disappeared before they even have a chance to cool off.
They’re mostly sweet, but with the occasional burst of salt from the peanuts and the coarse salt. The coarse salt is a MUST - don’t make these using regular table salt, BTW… my MIL tried that, and the end result was a yucky salty cookie. Oh, and if you like your cookies on the chewy side like I do, bake them just a couple minutes less than the recipe calls for.
These are my standby cookies, the ones I can make with my eyes closed. I always have to hide them from myself in the freezer, but oddly, it never works. They’re good frozen too, just slower to eat.
Mocha Chip Cookies
12 oz semisweet chocolate chips
2 T instant coffee powder
2 T boiling water
1 1/2 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup soft butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 egg
Preheat oven to 350˚F. Melt 1/2 cup chocolate chips and cool to room temperature. Mix the instant coffee with the boiling water in a small cup. In a small bowl, mix the flour, salt, and baking soda. In a large bowl, mix the butter, the sugars, and the coffee. Beat until creamy. Add the egg and the melted chocolate. Add the flour mixture gradually. Stir in the chocolate chips.
Cook at 350˚F for 10-12 minutes—take them out while they’re still a little under-done, as these cookies are best chewy.
Buy Nestle’s Toll House Morsels (chocolate chips). The recipe is on the back. If you want to get fancy, add a squirt of food coloring and a tablespoon of mint flavoring along with the vanilla. I like peppermint better than spearmint, but YMMV. The mint chip cookies are the one thing my kids think I do right in the kitchen.
From Good Housekeeping, December 2004:
Makes 2 dozen large or 6 dozen small cookies
2 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. unsweetened cocoa
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 ounces semisweet chocolate
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks, 6 ounces) butter or margarine, softened
3/4 c packed brown sugar
3/4 c granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 c dried tart cherries (don’t use Bing cherries, they’re not tart
enough; I used one 8 ounce bag tart montmorency cherries from Trader
Joe’s)
1 1/2 c. white chocolate chips
-
Preheat oven to 350 F. On waxed paper, combine flour, cocoa, baking
powder, and salt. In microwave-safe small bowl, melt semisweet chocolate
on High 1 minute, stirring once halfway through heating. -
In large bowl, with mixer at medium speed, beat butter and sugars until
creamy, occasionally scraping bowl with rubber spatula. Beat in eggs, one
at a time, beating well after each addition, then melted chocolate and
vanilla. At low speed, gradually add flour mixture; beat just until
blended, occasionally scraping bowl. Stir in cherries and white chocolate
chips. -
Drop cookies by scant 1/4 cups, 2 inches apart, on ungreased large
cookie sheet. Or, for smaller cookies, drop by measuring tablespoons,
about 1 inch apart. Bake large cookies 15 minutes 9small cookies 8 to 10
minutes) or until tops are just firm. Transfer cookies to wire rack to
cool. Repeat with remaining dough. Store in tightly covered container at
room temperature up to 1 week or in freezer up to 3 months.
My comments: I don’t know why they say “on waxed paper” for mixing the dry ingredients. Just use a bowl for heaven’s sake, most of us own a spare bowl!
Test the baking time on the first few trays once you’ve figured out the size your cookies tend to be; too long and the cookies are good. Too short and the cookies are OK but soggy. Just right = “men? who needs 'em. I’ve got COOKIES”. I got one of those cookie dough scoops last winter and that made the job of scooping consistent amounts MUCH easier. And don’t ever (with this or any other cookie recipe) use the “brownulated” sugar because it’s easier to measure than real brown sugar; I’ve tried that a few times with various recipes and the texture simply isn’t as good (the taste is OK though).
Peanut Butter Cookies
1 egg
1 cup sugar
1 cup peanut butter
Mix together. Add a few tablespoons of flour if you want. Or some chocolate chips if you’re into that. Roll into balls and drop onto cookie sheet, then press down with fork to flatten. Bake about 12 minutes at 350 F or so. This makes about a dozen cookies.
And our alternative to Christmas cookie baking:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Cookie-Mix-in-a-Jar-III/Detail.aspx
We make about 40 of these every December and give them out as gifts. The recipients love them. We’ve made the cookies ourselves and they are very good oatmeal cookies; no need to do the jar step, just make them up from scratch.
These are my favorite cookies in the whole wide world, and I have a ginormous sweet tooth. I make a batch of dough, scoop it into balls and freeze them, so I can bake them a few at a time.
If you can, use nutmeg that you grate yourself; it makes a difference with these cookies!
These peanut butter ones are rather yummy:
Ingredients
125g butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon rind
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup peanut butter
1.25 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon bi-carb soda
Method
- Cream the butter, sugars, vanilla, lemon rind and peanut butter.
- Mix in the flour and soda and work to a stiff dough.
- Roll dough into teaspoon rounds and place on trays. Press down with a fork.
- Bake in a moderate oven for about 15 minutes. Makes approx 30 biscuits.
4 cups flour
4 sticks of butter
1 and 1/3 cups of sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
cream butter, sugar and vanilla then mix in flour. roll into small balls and then flatten into cookie shapes, my Mom taught me to masg a fork into the top to decorate a little bit. Bake in medium oven til just browning on the edges.
These are really great cookies, I made a bunch of cookies for a weeken trip with a bunch of friends, the chocolate chip and the oatmeal went first. Most thought these were just regular sugar cookies until they ate one! always use the real butter and real vanilla and they are incredible.
They sound delicious adhemar. How much is a stick of butter i.e. its weight?
quarter pound 
Because if you lift up the edges of the waxed paper you can funnel the flour right into the mixing bowl in a steady stream. A lot easier than trying to get it out of another bowl.
Any cookie recipe by Maida Heatter that I’ve ever tried is great.
Peanut Blossoms are a tasty classic.
My favorite cookies of all time are ones we traditionally make at Christmas, but there is no reason they wouldn’t be just as good any other time of year.
Mace Cookies - they are just amazing. So light and crisp and they have such a unique and amazing flavor… aiiii now I want some. 
Here’s the recipe for my wife’s internationally-famous Carnahan Ginger Drops. They are incredibly good; I’ve been known to request them instead of cake for my birthday.
3/4 cup margarine (for this recipe, it works better than butter)
3/4 cup shortening
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup light molasses
3 1/4 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. cloves
2 tbsp. ginger
Beat margarine, shortening, sugar and eggs until light and fluffy. Add molasses. Add flour sifted with baking soda, cinnamon, cloves and ginger. Drop by teaspoonfuls on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 8-10 mins. at 375 degrees. Makes about 7 doz. cookies.
Enjoy!
Chocolate chip cookies. It’s all fine and good to be one of them fancy lads with the mint and the mocha, but you’ve got to have at least a good chocolate chip recipe at hand.
Look no further!
2 C flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 C butter (a stick and a half) made squidgy in the microwave
1 C packed brown sugar
1/2 C white sugar
1 Tb vanilla extract
1 egg + 1 yolk
2 C chocolate chips and/or walnuts or roasted, salted peanuts
Preheat to 350*, grease sheets or line with parchment paper
Sift together flour, soda, and salt
Cream butter and sugars, then blend in the vanilla, egg, and yolk until creamy. Mix in dry ingredients until just blended. Add chips and/or nuts.
Bake for 15-15 minutes or until edges are lightly toasted.
This recipe is perfect if you’re looking for a big, chewy, dense and rich chocolate chip cookie. It really is the perfect cookie. I have a drawer in the kitchen where I keep all my baking ingredients, and at any given moment I can turn these out and have 'em in the oven in about ten minutes. 
Also, I’ve found the oatmeal cookie recipe on the lid of the Quaker Oats box is the world’s best oatmeal cookie recipe, particularly if you ditch the humiliated grapes and substitute chocolate chips.
I love sugar cookies and shortbread, too–the best recipes I’ve found for these are in the Fanny Farmer cookbook, I think my version is mid-50’s.
A fun cookie I made for some friends going on a long road trip: they’re peanut butter cup fiends, so I found a recipe for a dense and chewy chocolate-chocolate chip cookie, then when the dough was ready, I formed them into little golf balls, poked my thumb into the middle and inserted a little blob of crunchy peanut butter, then sealed the cookie dough around it. My ass definitely does not need me to bake these more than once a decade, but they are incredible.
Alternate method of getting fancy.
Buy M&Ms. Make cookie dough as for chocolate chip cookies, but don’t add chocolate chips or nuts. Roll cookie dough into walnut-sized balls, place on cookie sheet. Get children to stick 5-7 M&M’s in each ball of cookie dough. Bake according to recipe.
(Yes, it works if you just stir the M&Ms into the bowl of dough, but they aren’t as pretty, and it’s just not RIGHT. But it does take less time and fussing.)