Rob & Val and the Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake Cookies

Rob & Val Nugent are my cousins, well technically Rob is my cousin and Val is my cousin-in-law but I don't like that in-law stuff- we are all family... anyway I guess I just felt the I needed to make the distinction that they were not related before they were married hahaha. Rob and Val met at Canisius College and fell madly in love. Whenever you are with them you can just tell that they were meant to be together, they compliment each other so well. A couple years ago I was lucky enough to be one of the guests at their wedding... and it was hands down the BEST WEDDING EVER!!! I am not exaggerating and every person at that wedding would agree! We all had sooooooooooo much fun and no wedding before or since then has compared to it. Thanks Rob and Val for one of the most amazing nights ever!!! Now they have a home in Tonawanda and are both doing very well in their careers. Val works at Canisius as an admissions counselor and Rob is a Sabres "business pimp" aka an account executive. I really like visiting Rob at work!!!! Rob and Val are also amazing parents to their three children Lola, Rocco, and Wilson (dog, cat, and cat) ;) and I know when they decide to make their family even larger they will be amazing parents then too!!!! As for now they can sit back and enjoy some hopefully delicious cookies.

Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake Cookies
Makes about 3 dozen cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
Zest of 1 lemon
3 tbsp lemon juice
2 eggs
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3 cup flour
1 cup blueberries
1/2 pkg cream cheese, cut into 1 tsp cubes

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and position a rack in the center. Line your baking sheets with parchment paper and set them aside.

In a large bowl with an electric mixer cream together the butter and sugar until it's light and fluffy. Blend in the lemon zest, juice and eggs. Make sure to scrape off any bits of zest that stick to the mixer paddle.

In a separate bowl whisk together the baking soda, baking powder, salt and flour then mix it into the wet ingredients. Gently fold in the blueberries so as not to burst any. Refrigerate the dough for about 15 – 20 minutes to make it stiff enough to roll.

For each cookie, roll 1 heaping tbsp of dough into a ball then flatten it slightly into a disc shape. Place a 1 tsp cream cheese cube into the center and form the dough around it creating a ball again. Bake them for about 10 - 14 minutes until the edges brown slightly. Transfer them to a cooling rack and enjoy!

***I would probably change 1 cup blueberries to 1 1/2 cup blueberries, just seems like there are not enough blueberries per cookie... oh and in typical Laura fashion I made the cookies a little on the bigger side so I ended up with about 26 not 36***