These are bog-standard chocolate chip cookies -- except that they are (to a close approximation) vegan. I find that these are 1. very good, and 2. nearly impossible to tell from 'regular' cookies. They are also slightly easier to make than regular cookies, which require eggs. Seriously, who has the time to deal with eggs?
Mix everything together. Eat all the dough you want, nothing here will give you salmonella.
Bake at 350 degrees for about 10-15 minutes. Greasing the pans is optional. Seriously, if you are not sure if your pans need greasing, you should be baking more.
Vegan/Health notes: When serving these, I get two questions. First, many vegans point out that regular sugar is often not vegan, as bone char is used in the processing of much of our sugar supply (this is a big problem in America, less so in the UK). I am not a strict vegan, and use whatever is at hand; I highly recommend that you check with your consumers to find out their sugar preferences. This recipe should work with raw sugar (AKA natural brown sugar or whole cane sugar), but you may need to adjust the recipe slightly; please /msg me if you find that these do not work.
Secondly, a surprising number of people immediately respond that shortening is terribly unhealthy. Well, it is... rather like butter. But in 2007 Crisco switched over to a new low-trans fat recipe for all of their products, and most other brands, including most store brands, have followed suit. Zero trans fat shortening is available, and shortening is generally lower in saturated fat and monounsaturated fat than butter. There are oils that are healthier, but they tend not to work so well in cookies.
Footnotes:
1. Finding vegan chocolate chips can be quite difficult. You may have to look into organic food section, and even then you might not find them. At the time of this writing, I use Guittard Semi-sweet chips or Kirkland brand chips (Kirkland is Costco's brand). These are vegan aside from using standard sugar. Or, as Oolong points out, you can just buy vegan chocolate and break it up.
2. You will notice that the baking soda is listed at the end of the list; this is not usual. This is something that I have learned to do because I am Highly Distractable, and if I walk away from a half-mixed bowl for 10-15 minutes, the only thing that will cause a problem is if the wet ingredients are mingling with the soda. Quite frankly, you can add it whenever you want, but if you are cooking with kids or prone to forgetting to preheat the oven, this is a good habit to get into.