Over time, some of the dry goods in the pantry will expire, from Bisquick to canned cranberry jelly. Most of these things will still be safe to eat in the weeks immediately following their “best by” date, but it is best to try and use them up before reaching that point. Spring cleaning is a great time to sort through all those cans and mixes and figure out what to do with them. Soups and chili recipes are a good start for most pantry favorites.

Another prevalent pantry item is chocolate chips. The Tollhouse recipe is a classic and one of the best, most reliable recipes there is, so keeping a bag or two of chocolate morsels on hand is common. All of these chips have a “best by” date on them, after which point they will still be usable, but their flavor will begin to decrease. I happen to have a lot of seasonal chips around – red and green white chocolate chips for Christmas and red and pink white chocolate chips for Valentine’s day – in addition to the specialty Milk Chocolate and Caramel Swirl Chips pictured above. Just use them in place of the regular chips in the Tollhouse recipe, or one of the other recipe on the back of the bags. It sounds obvious to say it here, but would we ever have leftover chips if we just disregarded the holiday that they are “supposed” to be for and used them whenever we wanted a batch of cookies?

Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 1/4 cups ap flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup butter, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups ANY kind of chocolate chips
1 cup toasted nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 375F. Line a baking sheet (or two) with parchment paper.
Whisk together flour, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl. Cream together butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla in large bowl with an electric mixer. Add eggs in one by one, beating well after each addition. Stirring by hand, gradually stir in flour mixture followed by chocolate chips and nuts (if using). Drop by rounded tablespoons onto prepared baking sheets.
Bake for 9-11 minutes, until golden.
Cool on a wire rack.

Makes 5 dozen.

[Photo by Nicole Weston]