I have a bit of a secret: since I’ve started cooking and baking and actually being successful, I’m starting to have this itch to try new and more difficult things. So when I decided to make cookies this weekend, I consulted my bulging folders of starred recipes in google reader and del.icio.us. See, even though I didn’t really cook until a few months ago, I’ve been reading food blogs for years, saving any recipe that looked tasty or moderately achievable. A lot of these starred recipes are from Smitten Kitchen, which is not only a really interesting food blog, but her photos are a complete inspiration, too. The recipe I decided to try was her modified recipe for Margarita Cookies, because I LOVE margaritas, and I was intrigued about how a cookie with tequila, lime, and salt would actually taste. Although I hit a few very minor speed bumps along the way (I don’t have a stand mixer and thus had to use –gasp!– elbow grease; I couldn’t find sanding sugar and bought organic sugar instead; baking at my mom’s house, I used up all of her all-purpose flour and had to substitute some cake flour thanks to the advice of good ol’ Joy of Cooking; it was so very humid yesterday that the dough was nearly impossible to roll out; I got caught up in the Mets game and nearly forgot about the last batch in the oven), the cookies turned out SO GOOD. I mean, even the warm citrusy smell that filled the kitchen as the cookies baked was delectable. And even though I thought I was attempting something more difficult, they were really quite easy in the end. The cookies were also a big hit at work, so I may have to make these again.