No Bake Cookies: Your Butt Will Hate You

The other day I got a craving for a little gem of a cookie that I hadn't made for years. I see them at The Market where I work and I endure a fierce battle in my mind every time a customer comes through with a pack of them. Because I've lost 15+ pounds in the last few months and those cookies are The Devil.

But then I got sick and had my girly time (sorry boy readers) at the same time and well, my defenses were down. I made the cookies. In fact, I made them twice. Only the second time, I did remember to take pictures so the 2% of you who have never made these can see how it's done.

The beauty/evil of these cookies is that they are super quick: to make and to eat mass quantities. And most of us have the stuff in our cupboards already. DRAT! It's too easy!! You can find the recipe I used here. But I have to say I was bummed because I used to have one from my grandmother for these and it's now in the same wormhole as a couple remotes I lost and one of my favorite striped socks from last winter.

Here you can see you'll need milk, butter/margarine, peanut butter, chocolate chips, quick oats, vanilla, and SUGAR.

I do this the lazy way. I use one big pot and mix it all in there. I hate washing dishes,so it's not likely I would use another bowl unless someone was holding a knife to my throat. Anyway, throw the stick of butter in there, along with the milk...

...and the massive amount of sugar.

Then stir it a little and bring it to a rolling boil. That means boil the heck out of it. This is VERY important: once it really starts boiling hard, set your timer for one minute. You absolutely MUST boil it hard for one minute. No less. Or else they won't set until the next day and everyone will be eating goopy cookies from a plate with a fork. Not that I would know anything about that.

After a full minute has passed, quickly add the other stuff in. The recipe I used says peanut butter is optional. They blaspheme. Peanut butter is NEVER optional. I spit on you Optional Peanut Butter Fools! Unless you are someone who will suffocate from peanut allergies, then I guess that would be cool to leave it out. We don't want any of that going on.

Add the oats. Which are the only healthy thing going for this cookie. It's because of the oats that I am duped into eating mass quantities every time I make them.

You'll want to finish stirring the rest of the stuff in there quickly because if you boiled properly, this stuff will already begin to harden a bit. So don't mess around. No texting or twittering or Facebooking or plucking chin hairs in between the steps.

Get some wax paper and plop some globs onto it. Don't make them too big or they'll set slower. Then you have to wait to eat them. That stinks.

I've had varied results with the setting time. Sometimes they set within 15 minutes. Sometimes they don't set until the next day. They say that has to do with the boiling thing. I say it has to do with the economy. Why not? Everyone blames everything else on that.

One should really work out after eating these. I'm just saying. But I've been sick, so I haven't worked out. And I ate a lot of them. I have a feeling you will too. They were totally worth it.

Love in Him,