Keeping it simple: No-bake Peanut butter, chocolate, and oatmeal cookies

     Well, after the misadventures in my previous post, I admit I was a little bit hesitant to continue my cooking for the day.  However, I had a plan, and I wanted to stick to it.  Luckily this next recipe I tried proved simple, produced no errors, and tasted so amazing I had one, went for a walk, came back, had another, and snuck back down to the fridge five minutes ago to break off a chunk of yet a third.  I've noticed I tend to write novels with every post, which isn't necessarily what you all come for, so in keeping with a simple recipe, I'm going to keep the verbosity in the rest of this post to a minimum, pretty much, and just make everyone's mouths water with a series of photos of some delicious no-bake cookies. 

Starting line-up...

Confession: I really wanted to just stick a spoonful of peanut butter in my mouth.

Double, double, toil and trouble...

Fire burn and cauldron of DELICIOUS chocolate mixture bubble!

You know you want to dive through the screen right now and eat this.

Finishing line up! (I did, indeed, eat the awkwardly placed two. They were messing up the tidiness...)

     So, long story short (by which I mean, little story whatsoever) these cookies satisfy just about any craving you could get during a day. Chewy, peanut butter-y, chocolate-y goodness, and a snap to make. While these don't necessarily go with the big lasagna dinner I've been going on about, my better half happens to be a big fan, so I thought I'd at least give him ONE food he's sure to like rather than a whole evening of hit-or-miss.  Personally I'm hooked now too, and plan to make them often.  I'm not going to post the recipe here, because I literally copied everything from the original.  Actually, when I looked up recipes for this cookie almost every single one was exactly the same, give or take about a half cup of oats.  However, my version was snagged from Rebecca Crump, blogger behind Ezrapoundcake.com (hint, that link goes to the recipe) and therefore she gets the credit.  So, instead of a recipe, here are a couple of tips just to skip things along.


Tips/ideas:

1. To make measuring peanut butter easier, lightly spray your measuring cup with cooking spray.  While it can't do miracles, it will help a little in sliding/scraping the peanut butter back OUT of the cup and into your bowl.
2. If the cookies aren't setting well or the temperature is warm enough to make them crumble apart, put 'em in the fridge. That's actually where I'm storing the majority of mine right now, with a few in the freezer for more long-term storage. (Still chewy and delicious, I promise!)
3. In the future, I might actually stick another 2 tablespoons or so of peanut butter into this recipe...simply because I love the stuff and would like a bit more of the flavor and filling of it in the cookie, though obviously I'm already a fan...
4. Also potential for future changes:  Not sure how this would affect the cookie's ability to congeal, but I'd love to try this recipe replacing (or even mixing!) the peanut butter with some Nutella. Has anyone tried this?

     And that's all I have for the night, folks!