No Bake Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies
I love vanilla. I buy vanilla lotions, perfumes, candles. I love to cook with vanilla, putting it in my pancakes, coffee, hot chocolate and other things. Tonight, while making No-Bake Cookies, I put in my teaspoon of vanilla and decided to taste a teaspoon full. My mind was bombarded with memories. (Please bear in mind that this is my memory and my mom might remember it differently.)
As a kid, and by kid I mean any age up to age of 19 or so when I moved out of my parents house, I would make these cookies for my family and friends. I always put a teaspoon of vanilla in the cookies and a teaspoon in my mouth. I thought it was quite tasty. One day my mom came into the kitchen and saw me putting the teaspoon of vanilla in my mouth. I can picture her now in her “full-name mode” with her voice getting louder and gaining a bit of a screech, hands on her hips with elbows akimbo. “SAMANTHA VICTORIA HOBBS WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” I was a bit surprised to get the “full-name” treatment but I responded that I was making cookies. She then proceeded to tell me not to sip on the vanilla flavoring any more, that it is mainly alcohol. I thought she meant rubbing alcohol so I quit doing it even though I was tempted each time.
Back to tonight’s cookies. After sipping the vanilla and getting a burn all the way down, I know it’s not rubbing alcohol she was talking about and the taste isn’t what I remembered it to be; however, the cookies were good.
Here’s the recipe I use from a cookbook my sister gave me a long time ago. She gave the cookbook and wrote in the front of it that she was giving it to me so I would quit borrowing hers!
1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
1/2 cup Pet milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 tablespoons cocoa
1/2 cup peanut butter
3 cups oats
In a medium saucepan, combine all ingredients except peanut butter and oats and cook over medium heat.
Let boil for 1 minute, stirring constantly.
Remove from heat and stir in peanut butter and oats.
Spoon out quickly on wax paper or aluminum foil.
Cookies will harden as they set.
The Cheating Tip is to NOT dilute the Pet or Evaporated milk as suggested. The cookies will have a richer, sweeter taste. For a lower fat version 2% mile does well.
I'd like to say I was somebody special; however, I'm just a regular person with a regular life. I have all the same hopes, fears, and dreams as other people.