No Bake Crispy Peanut Butter Balls

I want to sign up for the cookie exchange at work but it stresses me to make dozens and dozens of cookies. My mother-in-law recommended peanut butter crispy balls-- a 1:1 ratio of rice cereal, peanut butter and powdered sugar rolled into a ball. 

Now I mixed in some Nutella and ended up with 2 parts rice to 1 part peanut butter and 1 part sugar.

And I rolled them lightly in powdered sugar.

And dipped them in chocolate.

Easy. Vegan if you dip in dark chocolate. And gluten-free.

Gluten Free Girl Scout Cookies

My daughter's troop didn't order any of the new gluten free chocolate chip shortbread cookies. As the co-cookie mom of her troop, I made a trade of some caramel delights to secure some if these for friends who requested them.

We had one lonely bag left and because they are chocolate chip, my daughter had to have them. She used her own money to buy them.

They are tasty little things with a good mouth feel and delightful flavor. They really go nicely with a cup of coffee.

Expensive at $5/box but no one ever bought Girl Scout cookies because they were cheap.

Easter leftover cookies

My husband and I wanted chocolate chip cookies so we mixed up a crazy batter of Ghiradelli dark chocolate chips, leftover Easter candy pieces and marshmallow peeps torn limb from limb.

They are awesome.

Cookie exchange

Earlier this month, one of my work colleagues organized a cookie exchange. I volunteered to participate but I never heard any details so I figured it was a bust.

Wrong.

I found out today that I have to make 8 dozen cookies on my day off.

So I made the peanut butter from the child's school fundraiser, then oatmeal-strawberry-raisin, then Algerian cookies that I made the wrong shape.

And I ran out of sesame seeds and used poppy.


The Algerian Sesame Cookies http://www.food.com/recipe/algerian-helouwa-taaba-lemon-or-sesame-cookies-352938

Oatmeal Cookies

The original recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup packed brown sugar (I only used 3/4 cup and I didn't pack, I added about 1/4 cup blackstrap molasses)
  
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (I used 1/2 cup wheat with 3/4 cup white)
  
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups quick cooking oats
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (I used pecans)
• I added: 1 cup dried strawberries in bitesize pieces, 3/4 cup chopped dates and probably 3/4 cup raisins.
  

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, cream together butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon; stir into the creamed mixture. Mix in oats and nuts until just blended. Drop by heaping teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Cookies should be at least 2 inches apart.
3. Bake for about 12 minutes in the preheated oven. Cool cookies on a wire rack.

The original web site:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Excellent-Oatmeal-Cookies/Detail.aspx

Oh! They turned out AWESOME. Now to make them bigger and with a tad more weight to serve as a breakfast bar.

Daddy's pie crust

My husband made a pie crust last night while I was in class. He is responsible for my cookie crusts for certain pies. I believe it started because he didn't approve of the size of my crumbs.

Today I will make a variation of Vegetarian Time's Non-Dairy Pumpkin cheesecake. We favor two types of cookie crusts for pumpkin: either ginger snaps or oreos.

My husband made a gingersnap crust last night. This required:

• About a sleeve and a half of spiced wafers (not quite half the box) reduced to crumbs
  
• Most of a stick of butter, about five tablespoons

Take room temperature butter and mix with the crumbs in the bottom of pie dish. When dish is covered, bake at 350 for about 10 minutes.

Pumpkin Scones

To use up the pumpkin syrup from the crêpes the other day, I made pumpkin scones and used the syrup as icing. This was my first use of this recipe and it didn't include a size for how to scoop the dough onto the cookie sheet, as a consequence, my scone bottoms burned and my top didn't quite cook all the way through because I made them too big. I made them "scone size" forgetting they would rise in the oven.

The syrup did not exactly harden as much as I expected. I thought with the butter it would take on a more solid quality.

I got the recipe from
http://wholesomefeasts.blogspot.com/2008/05/pumpkin-raisin-scones.html

4 C flour
4 tsp. baking powder
1 1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. allspice
4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1 tsp. salt
3/4 C butter, softened
2 1/4 C sugar, plus 4T for the topping
2 eggs, well beaten
1 15 oz. can pumpkin
2 C raisins
Heat the oven to 375 degree F. line 2 baking pans with Silpat liners. In a large bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, ginger, allspice, 1 tsp. of the cinnamon, cloves and salt. Set aside. In a mixer, cream the butter until it is fluffy and then add the sugar. Once the sugar is blended in , add the eggs and pumpkin. Now slowly mix in the dry ingredients. Stir in the raisins. With 2 spoons drop the mixture onto the two baking sheets. With the back of the spoon flatten the scones. In a small bowl, stir together the remaining 3 tsp. of cinnamon and 4T of sugar and sprinkle on top of each. Be sure to leave at least 2" between each scone. Bake for 8-12 minutes, until golden brown. Let cool for 5 minutes then remove to cooling racks. Makes 36.

I modified it in the following ways:
Instead of 2 cups raisins, I used 1.5 cups raisins and 3/4 cups oats. (I ran out of raisins.)
I didn't have enough butter so I used 1/2 cup butter and less than 1/4 cup canola oil.
I used parchment paper, but honestly I have no idea what Silpat liners are.
I reduced the sugar to 1 cup because 2+ seemed like a lot.
And for a topping I didn't mix sugar and cinnamon, I just used a sprinkle of dark brown sugar.

Gayle's fundraising dinner

Last night was Gayle's fundraising dinner. She's walking in two fundraising/awareness events in October to benefit breast cancer research. One weekend she'll walk 40 miles in NYC and 60 miles in Philadelphia the next.

Last night she hosted her Italian dinner: real salad, rolls with garlic butter, cheesy shells, spaghetti with red sauce, spaghetti with meat sauce, sausage meatballs, and ziti with or without meat.

I manned the bake sale table. A difficult position for me.

I spent $54: $30 for our family to eat, $12 on raffle tickets for prizes, and $12 on baked goods. I won a $10 gift card for the Giant Supermarket. I brought home a pumpkin roll and put it in the freezer. We ate some mini cheesecakes while there. I bought a Harvey Wallbanger cake out of curiosity, some cookies for my daughter, and two big old brownies to make sundaes of at some point.

Then Gayle gave us some leftover clam sauce and several pounds of dry spaghetti and some lettuce.

So, today my husband worked from 11-4. So we had a small meal at ten so he would make it through the day. At noon, I ate the leftovers from my daughter's meal when we went out to dinner Thursday.

Creative reuse is half the battle when you're watching the budget.

My daughter had a salad for lunch, with the matchstick carrots and broccoli from her party last week, topped with some ring bologna and colby jack (colby jack also from the party) for protein. Then we had a treat.

I took two smallish cookies... larger than a half dollar but not as big around as a drinking glass, and took some of the Birthday Cake Batter ice cream also leftover from her birthday party and made a little ice cream sandwich. I topped with whipped cream.

I did something similar for myself but I used the Harvey Wallbanger cake.

Petit Écolier cookies

I mentioned that I bought the Petit Écolier cookies, which at $4 for a box of 12 cookies is total splurge... But in the midst of my "the salad greens all look yucky at Wegmans" panic, I added extra items in case the salad course failed. We never served the cookies, but after everything was cleaned up last night I sat down with one and had a cup of decaf.

I had a terrible case of dejà vu (I'm probably spelling that wrong, but it's too early in the morning for my French brain to function). And I swear, I've eaten these before.

Bottom line was: Despite the expensive price, they were good cookies. And I did not feel compelled to eat half the box. Cookies with real chocolate on top. Yum.

My daughter made a good choice.

Mothers Day Oatmeal Cookies (Guest entry)

Uh-oh, the husband's in the kitchen again! In light of Mothers Day my daughter and I gave Angel the morning off. We decided to bake one of her favorites... oatmeal cookies. I had consulted Angel's ancient Betty Crocker cookbook and discovered that the recepie required shortning (which we didn't have) so I scouted around online until I found one that looked appealing and used butter instead of shortning.
http://food.yahoo.com/recipes/martha-stewart/10fecf06cd80f010VgnVCM1000003d370a0aRCRD/jumbo-oatmeal-raisin-cookies

Yep, it came down to good ol' Martha!

Jumbo Oatmeal-Raisin Cookies

Ingredients;

1. 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
2. 1 teaspoon baking soda
3. 1 teaspoon salt
4. 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
5. 3/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
6. 3/4 cup granulated sugar
7. 2 large eggs
8. 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
9. 2 1/2 cups rolled oats
10. 2 cups raisins
11. 1 cup sweetened shredded coconut (I skipped this since we don't like it)
    

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside.
2. With an electric mixer, cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla, scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Add flour mixture; beat just until combined. Add oats, raisins, and coconut; beat just until combined.
3. Drop level 1/4-cup measures of dough, 1 1/2 inches apart, onto baking sheets.
4. Bake until cookies have spread and are golden brown and soft to the touch, 18 to 20 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Cool 5 minutes on sheets; transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. You can also freeze unbaked cookies and bake them later. Place unbaked cookies on baking sheet and freeze until firm, about 30 minutes. Transfer to resealable plastic bags (label and date); keep up to 6 months. Bake as many as you need (without thawing); place 1 1/2 inches apart on a baking sheet. Bake 20 to 25 minutes.

They're a tad on the HUGE side --some wouldn't even fit through the opening in our cookie jar-- but I believe that YUM is an apt description of the finished product!

Almond-Oatmeal-Apple Cookies

My four-year-old devours every drop of batter from the bowl as the oatmeal cookies bake in the oven. I didn't use eggs, so that makes it allowable for me to let her eat the raw sugar, oats and butter.

If you're looking for something with a traditional cookie batter I wouldn't recommend my adaptation... but the standard Betty Crocker Almond Oatmeal Cookie also looks good.

As Betty Crocker intended:

Almond-Oatmeal Cookies

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup butter softened

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 egg

1.5 cups quick cooking oats

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup ground toasted almonds

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup sliced almonds

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Mix sugars, butter, vanilla and egg. Stir in oats, flour, ground almonds, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir in almonds. Drop by rounded teaspoons onto cookie sheet about two inches apart. Bake ten minutes or until light brown. About 3 dozen cookies. 80 calories per cookie.

My variation:

Almond-Oatmeal-Applesauce Cookies

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup butter

about 6 tablespoons applesauce (no sugar added)

1.5 cups oats (measured by a four-year-old)

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup wheat flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon sea salt

a general dash of cinnamon (about one teaspoon)

1/2 + a bit toasted sliced almonds

See directions above and note that applesauce as an egg replacement in a cookie often leads to cookies that burn easily.