Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookies

Last Thursday I mentioned that Daniel had requested a two-week moratorium on desserts at our house {we are both attempting to lost about 7% of our current body weight}. Anyways, I agreed and our house has been basically dessert free.

Last night this backfired on Daniel as he was craving something sweet – even if it was just a handful of chocolate chips. No dice. When I ran out of goodies, I didn't add them to the grocery list because of the moratorium. We even ran out of our frozen yogurt.

So after dinner, Daniel tried to make a bargain with me: Change a diaper or go to Walmart to pick up frozen yogurt {or even better drive the 20 minutes across town for DQ}. If we were going to do a family outing, I was fine with getting out, but I didn't really want to go out by myself. And since Daniel didn't want to get out, we were at a bit of an impasse.

Instead I went downstairs to see what was in our pantry and what recipe might work with the ingredients I happened to have on hand. We ended up with Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookies for dessert. The perfect thing to satisfy our sweet tooth.

 Nutrition Information from CalorieCount

These cookies were a great excuse to use my new KitchenAid Stand Mixer {I have had it for a couple of months, but haven't had a chance to blog about it}. Daniel insisted I get the heavy duty one because the motor was a better quality {i.e. no plastic parts} and the bowl was much bigger {I guess he thinks I might need to be able to whip up batter for 48 cupcakes in one setting}. I do like it. My only complaint is that the crank to lift the bowl up to the mixer cranks opposite of what I would expect. But with time, I am sure that I will get used to it.

Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookies

Recipe Adapted from Smells Like Home

Ingredients

3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
8 tbsp butter
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter {I used natural}
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup quick-cooking oats

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350˚ F.  

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. 

In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Stir together with a fork to blend.  

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter, peanut butter and sugars on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.  

Blend in the egg and vanilla extract.  

Add the dry ingredients and mix on low speed just until incorporated.  

Stir in the oats until evenly blended.

Use a tablespoon to drop the dough on the cookie sheets, a couple inches apart.  

Bake for 10 minutes, rotating the sheet halfway through.  

The cookies should be light golden brown and slightly puffed.  

Let cool on the baking sheet 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cook completely. 

You should get about 2 dozen cookies from this recipe.

Oatmeal-Nutella-Peanut Butter Cookies

Last night I was in the mood for cookies. Since Thursdays are our Fridays and I was making a vegetarian pizza for dinner, I figured cookies would be acceptable.

I scoured my cookie recipes and checked my cupboards for ingredients before settling on these Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies from the Stephanie Cook's blog.

But then I realized that I was out of eggs and Daniel had finished the last of our chocolate chips {to be fair, he said there were only a few left in the bag}.

Not to be deterred, I decided to experiment with substituting applesauce for the egg and Nutella for the chocolate chips.

In the end, we had super flat cookies that were reminiscent of Nutter Butter cookies – which was a win as far as we were concerned.

Oatmeal-Nutella-Peanut Butter Cookies Recipe:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter 
1/2 cup white sugar 
1/3 cup packed brown sugar 
1 cup peanut butter (smooth or crunchy will both work) 
1/3 cup nutella

 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 
1/2 cup applesauce (or 1 egg)
1 cup all-purpose flour 
1 teaspoon baking soda 
1/4 teaspoon salt 
1/2 cup rolled oats 

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350° F.
2. Cream together the butter, white sugar and brown sugar until smooth. 

3. Stir in the peanut butter, nutella, vanilla and egg until well blended. 

4. In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda and salt together.

5. Stir dry ingredients into the batter just until moistened. 

6. Mix in the oats until evenly distributed. 

7. Drop by tablespoonfuls on to lightly greased cookie sheets. 

8. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven, until the edges start to brown.

These cookies turned out great, though they were kind of flat {maybe due to the lack of egg?}. I would try them again with an egg and I would increase the oats to 1 cup and the Nutella to at least 1/2 a cup.