Leaving Being Betty Crocker to Betty Crocker (plus a giveaway!!)

I'm a really lazy cook.  I think that's why Steve doesn't really allow me to cook anything.  I'm impatient and can't be bothered to follow directions or measure out ingredients for a recipe.  So maybe I'm not really lazy, but just subscribe more to that old-fashioned practice of just a pinch of this and a pinch of that.  Yeah, that's it.  What I said.

The older Samantha gets, the easier and more fun it is to get her involved in helping out with things, like baking.  She loves to stir and pour, but has my own patience deficiency (oh, you say it's the nature of a 5-year old, I say she gets it from me...), and I often lose her halfway through.  

Betty Crocker has just come out with this fantastic cookie mix, perfect for short attention spans and the need for near-immediate gratification.  And even more perfect for involving little ones.  First of all, who can resist molasses cookies?  Second, who can resist a 20-minute-start-to-finish recipe for freshly-baked cookies?  Not us!

Samantha and I set to the task, and she was only too happy to help.  And me, being the impatient cook that I am, didn't let the butter soften quite enough, and knew that I'd really be putting this mix to the test.  If it could still turn out right when I didn't follow the instructions, then it was definitely the right thing for me!

Spinning, spinning...

Don't worry, this isn't all it made...this is the nearly-empty bowl after the first batch was already on the sheet.  

The recipe makes 3 dozen cookies if you use a teaspoon.  We used a teaspoon, but perhaps rounded them a bit too much.  Besides, I prefer bigger cookies anyway!

I was shocked, Samantha actually sat in front of the oven and patiently waited the entire 10 minutes they took to bake!

We demolished a fair number of them right out of the oven.  

Omg, sooooooo good...

And now for the giveaway part!  For all of you, here's a .75 coupon for the purchase of Betty Crocker's Molasses Cookie Mix.  Also, Betty Crocker has teamed up with MyBlogSpark to provide me and one of my readers the gift pack in the photo below.  Let me just tell you, these are awesome items, all used in the making of the cookies above (I was wearing the red apron, so there are no photos of that) not the least of which is that pack of cookie mix. 

There are 2 chances for each of you to win - first, please tell me what you plan to do with the time you save by making Betty Crocker's Molasses Cookies this fall.  Second, please "like" Betty Crocker's Facebook page and let me know in a separate comment.  I will select the winner randomly on Wednesday.

Good luck, and enjoy!  These are seriously yummy.