A Quick Treat: Peanut Butter Chocolate No-Bake Cookies

Remember these?

Blobs of chocolate and peanut butter and oatmeal... Who would have thought that something soooo good would take less than ten minutes to make? I have this vague memory of one of my brothers making these when I was a small one.

Now, something you should know- even through the difficult sibling rivalry of childhood, I've always had a bit of hero worship for my brothers. My oldest brother was seven (almost eight) when I was born, and my other brother was 5. They were both boy scouts, they both played soccer, they both eventually decided on a life of public service. Oldest Brother has worked in emergency dispatch for something like 20 years and has been trained as a hostage negotiator, along with some other pretty cool stuff. Youngest Brother has been in the volunteer fire department since high school, and has risen to the rank of Lieutenant. They've always been super-cool in my eyes, and I'm sure that I was the right little pest when I was a little kid, following them about, and swooning over their "ultra-hot" friends with my little girl friends.

Now, with a lifetime between that little girl and me, I wish that my brothers and I were closer, but I am glad that we are a close as we are.

Whenever I feel like I want a little taste of that feeling of being around my heroes, I whip up a batch of these cookies. They're super quick to make, and relatively mess free, and worth their weight in heart-gold.

 And here's how I did it...

Step 1: The assembly of ingredients.* In this picture, I've already combined the sugar and the cocoa in the saucepan. I got ahead of my camera!

*listed below

Step 2:  Pour the butter and the milk into the sauce pan with the sugar and cocoa.

Step 3: Place pan over medium high heat and stir constantly...

Step 4: Until the mixture is smooth and slightly bubbly around the edges. Don't worry too much about that tiny bit of unmelted butter... It'll be fine.

Step 5: Remove the pan from the heat, and just dump the rest of the ingredients right in there.

Step 6: Stir, Stir, Stir. Stir a bit more. Just a little more... There! It's all mixed up!

Step 7: Drop the batter by the spoonful onto a cookie sheet lined with wax paper.

Step 8: Once you've got that done, pop the pan in the fridge for half an hour, lick the spoon, and clean up! Easy peasy, as they say. A delicious treat in less time than it takes to sing "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General". God Bless Gilbert and Sullivan!

Ingredients:

1 C Sugar

1/4 C Cocoa Powder, unsweetened

1/4 C Butter, cut into 3 or 4 bits

1/2 C Milk

1/2 t Vanilla Extract

1/4 C Peanut Butter

1 1/2 C Oatmeal

Rating:

5 outta 5 for ease of preparation, tastiness, and fond memories