Guest Post: Hubby's No-Bake Cookies

Greetings, everyone!  The wife and I are celebrating our one-month anniversary this weekend, and in honor of the event I volunteereed to write today's post.  She and I both love dessert, but after cooking a full meal we usually either forget or are out of time and energy.  These are very easy to make, use one pot, need zero oven time and can cool while you're eating dinner.  Here's what you need:

2 cups sugar
4 tablespoons cocoa (I use unsweetened)
1 stick butter
1/2 cup milk
1 cup peanut butter
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 cups oatmeal (original, not quick-cook or instant)
Wax or parchment paper

Get a saucepan (3 quart will be large enough) mix the sugar, cocoa and milk.  Add the butter and heat to a boil.  Stir the butter in as it melts and frequently scrape the bottom so nothing scorches.  Let it boil for 60 seconds and then turn off the heat.

Add the vanilla, oatmeal and peanut butter.  Use a spatula to stir all the ingredients together; the residual heat will soften the peanut butter and make it easy to mix.


On a countertop or table, lay out 2-3 feet of your wax or parchment paper.  Get a cereal spoon and take a big, oversized swipe out of the pot.  Drop the "dough" on the wax paper in a contained pile.


These are not pretty or perfectly round cookies, so don't worry about roundness or evenness.  Continuing placing cookies on the sheet until you run out.  I made 20 cookies this round, but might make 18 or 22 next time depending on my scoop.

Now throw your utensils in the pot and let them soak in hot soapy water while you let the cookies cool and eat dinner.  Come back in 20 minutes and they'll be cool and firm but not hard or crunchy.  These will go quickly so make sure to get some before they're all gone!