One recipe, endless variations. The base of a chocolate chip cookie is just a rich brown sugar butter cookie. 
What makes it a chocolate chip cookie is the chocolate chips. Add what you want to the basic recipe, and make these cookies your own.
What You'll Need
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 2 large eggs,beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• if desired, 1 cup chopped pecans
How to Make It
Make these cookies using The Creaming Method.
Possible modifications are to use butter flavored shortening instead of butter to reduce spread and produce a "puffier" cookie. Conversely, you can melt the butter to achieve a thin, chewy cookie.
You could also substitute some whole wheat flour, or even some rolled oats, for a portion of the all purpose flour.
There is also no reason that you couldn't incorporate toasted coconut, dried fruits, white or milk chocolate or other types of nuts. Consider the first 8 ingredients to be the base recipe. Then, you can mix in up to 3 cups of any combination of tasty mix-ins you can imagine.
