Once a year the Girl Scouts are unleashed on the world and ask us if we want to buy some of their cookies. As if we could even try to exist without their shortbread and minty chocolate wafers.

My favorite has always been the Samoa. Chocolate and caramel and coconut...wow, I used to eat an entire box in one sitting. But then like all addicts I'd want more and want to sell anything I could just to get a few more in my mouth. What can a person do if they love Samoas and they vanish for another year?

Little Debbie to the rescue!

I supposed I should confess this now: during the 1990s, I had serious addiction.

Luckily, it wasn't to heroin, crack, or even cigarettes. But it was just as insidious. I had an addiction to Samoas. Those are the round-ish Girl Scout cookies that have toasted coconut and caramel, covered in chocolate (they're called Caramel deLites in some areas). Oh, I could easily - easily - polish off a whole box of these while watching TV. They're spectacular. I found a version that's pretty similar, from Little Debbie, called German Chocolate Rings, but my local supermarkets haven't carried them in months.

But now you can find out all about the cookies online! You can find out about the Girl Scout Cookie Program, visit the Girl Scout Cookie MySpace page (of course), and check for troops that sell the cookies by zip code.

We've seen PimpMySnack make enormous re-creations of some popular store-bought snacks and candies, but now CHOW online magazine, which officially launched to the public this week, has provided recipes for their version of Twinkies, Ding Dongs, and Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies. Of course, they call them Twinks, Ding-alings, and Little Ditsy Cream Pies. The dessert/snack cakes even have real vanilla cream fillings. For the Twinks, you'll need a Twinkie-shaped pan, and Diedre pointed us to a source last fall. And of course, once you make your Twinks, you can use them for any of the recipes in the Hostess Twinkies Cookbook.

We must be obsessed with these "make the store-bought products at home" since we've also seen recipes for homemade Oreos and Pepperidge Farm Milano Cookies.

Just because it's homemade doesn't necessarily mean it's any heathier or better for you, but still, the novelty of re-creating things that we normally buy at the store is fun. Then again, I've always thought that storebought items were originally made in the home kitchen, and were made "convenient" by mass producing them for stores. After that, we just forgot how to make macaroni and cheese and soup at home, right?

Nonetheless, if your kitchen isn't too hot to fire up the oven, try your hand at these recipes for: Hostess Cupcakes, Almost Oreos (faux-reos?!), Pepperidge Farm's Orange Milano Cookies, and Little Debbie's Oatmeal Creme Pies. We've seen a giant homemade sno-ball before, and I'm sure I've seen a recipe for Twinkies somewhere, too.

Have you ever ingeniusly re-created a storebought food at home? Let us know!