Christmas Cookies, Take Two

First, I wanted to share two other recipes I tried in the recent weeks that I didn't blog about but recommend: Rosemary Lime Cocktails and Chai Glazed Muffins. My housemate loves Joy the Baker, and really, how can you not. My housemate swears by her recipes, and one day, while looking for dessert, stumbled upon this. When I came home from work with the ingredients I was incredibly impatient with the rosemary syrup part as it had to cool and I wanted the drinks pronto. But they were worth the wait. I baked the muffins on the night I finished my finals as a form of indulgence and reward after the week of studying and overall dislike. The reason I didn't blog about them was because they didn't taste like chai to me, instead like spice cake, which is also good. So they're tasty, just not as wonderful as I was expecting.

Christmas cookies hold tradition with multiple members of my family. Before my uncle, it was with my mom, and to this day I still make cookies with her. As a child, I loved brown sugar, plain and from the bag. There was something mystical about it to me, like it was this whole other entity from "regular" sugar. It was sticky, it was sweet, and would ball up in the bag but fall apart at a pinch. My mother recently told me a story that when I was very young, she was in the kitchen, baking cookies, and all of a sudden she saw this small hand reach up and grab some brown sugar. So she picked me up and put me on a chair so I could help her with the cookies, all the while sneaking more brown sugar. These cookies however, do not contain brown sugar. The "secret ingredient" is peanut butter, something that my mom loves as much as I love brown sugar. They are by far one of the easiest things to make with the highest expected outcome. The only tricky part is getting the cookies out of the pan and onto wax paper before they harden, because they harden fast.

Chocolate No-Bakes
Ingredients:
1 stick butter
7 tbsp cocoa
1/2 cup milk
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter
3 1/2 cups quick oats

In a sauteuse pan, add the butter, cocoa, milk and sugar. Turn the stove on medium/medium-high, to melt and combine, stirring. Bring to a boil for one minute, then add peanut butter, constantly stirring. Remove from stove and add oats, while still stirring. (It often helps to have the peanut butter and oats pre-measured so you can move quickly.) Spoon onto wax paper and let dry. These cookies tend to stay moist, but can be dry and crumbly on the edges, so be careful with that.