i came across this post on Foodgawker over the weekend that instantly caught my eye that i knew i had to get in touch with whoever was responsible for putting this all together! the goal of the group? to bake for the troops! how often do we take for granted all the little things we’ve become accustomed to? that cupcake for dessert, or the handful of jellybeans after lunch? all the while forgetting that there are thousands of men and women who have given up these little luxuries for OUR COUNTRY. the least any of us can do is send them a little love right?

there are about 9 teams so far (and from the looks of it, dozens of members in each team!) i knew i was a little late in joining in on this round (they send cookies out once a month), but luckily a new team was formed and the shipment of cookies could be sent out as late as Sept 4, so of course, i jumped on joining!

i am part of Team DoughMessTic Squared. the soldier for this team is based in Iraq and oversees a group of Junior Soldiers (i can only imagine…)

so what did i send them?

since it was a long weekend, and i still had some of custom orders to finish up, i didn’t quite get too fancy on the cookies i made! just some simple sugar cookies- i was bad and didn’t bake these from scratch (hanging my head in shame…) but  i also packed a large tub of frosting, because really, sometimes sugar cookies just taste better that way- whether or not the frosting gets there in the condition it should be in is another story! and i also threw in some peanut butter cookies. ( i don’t know why but i’ve been craving peanut butter in a bad way!! i’ve made at least two other batches of some sort of peanut butter cookie.  hopefully these will be some good ol’ classics the troops will enjoy!  i’ve never sent anything oversees so i really didn’t know how long it would take, and hopefully these cookies will make it there in edible condition! i also threw in some ESPN magazines that my husband subscribes to but hardly ever has the time to read! figured it’d be better use for the soldiers than the magazine basket under our coffee table!

i’m excited for next month when i’ll actually have more time to prepare for my shipment!! if you’re interested in joining in check out Operation Baking Gals!

the recipe for the peanut butter cookies was taken from allrecipes.com.

Peanut Butter Cookies:

• 1 cup butter (2 sticks)
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup crunchy peanut butter
• 2 eggs

• preheat oven to 375 degrees
• combine all ingredients with a hand mixer
• refrigerate batter for about one hour
• roll into 1 inch balls and place on cookie sheet, you can flatten them somewhat with a fork to make a criss-cross pattern if you want
• bake for about 10 minutes