Fast Candy Chip Bar Cookies

As a kid, I spent what probably added up to months of my life baking cookies.  It was the only indoor activity my best friend and I could suggest that would guarantee parental permission to play inside during nice (read: sweltering, chokingly humid) weather.  For that and other reasons, I baked.  A lot.

I don't bake so much any more as an adult.  Partly because while I can put together entire meals days in advance, I can't seem to remember to soften butter to bake with.  Partly because the mixer takes up too much room in the dishwasher and requires its own wash cycle, either by machine or by hand.  And partly because I no longer find dropping dozens of cookies from a spoon or rolling dozens more into individual balls and flattening them one by one with a water glass relaxing or fun or a nice way to pass the time.  Mostly I just find it tedious.

So I LOVE cookie recipes that eliminate all of those issues.  This is really just the Toll House Chocolate Chip cookie recipe, but tweaked a bit.  I'm going from frozen butter to cookies in less than 30 minutes.  Shazam!  Pretty much all cookie batters freeze well unbaked, and this one is no different so that's extra points!  Freeze it on a baking tray if you have the room, or in a lump to spread into a baking pan after thawing.

My dad always made the Toll House recipe with melted butter rather than softened with the result that the cookies were somehow butterier than usual.  A perk of this method (besides yummy cookies) is that you can start with butter that's still freaking FROZEN and have cookies fast.  With liquid butter, you can also ditch the electric mixer to make the batter.  The texture you get from the melted butter also offsets the slightly tougher texture that can come from using whole wheat flour; as the butter incorporates more smoothly than softened solid butter, minimizing the risk of overmixing the batter which is a greater problem with higher gluten whole wheat flour than regular all purpose flour.

And lastly, by making these as bar cookies, there's no tedious cookie shaping.  Perfect!

Please note: I used cherry-flavored chips in this batch because I was overcome with Holiday Baking Brain Disease at the store when I bought these artificially-flavored droplets of partially hydrogenated Red No. 5 and I had to use them in *something*.  I also added 1/2 tsp of almond extract, which I highly recommend whether you use faux cherry food-like product in your cookies or not.

Pin It

Peanut Butter 'n' Candy cookies

Or, How Prepping Ahead Makes Cooking With Kids Fun Instead of Stressful!

My older son's favorite phrase right now is "Mama, I haf an IDEA!"  Today's IDEA was to make cookies.  We picked out a peanut butter and chocolate kiss cookie recipe, but we didn't have any chocolate kisses.  We did have caramels and bags of Halloween candy (yeah, yeah, I cracked the H-ween candy already, but only for this recipe!) so I give you peanut butter and assorted-candy cookies LOL  This is a great thing to do with any leftover candy bars after Halloween.

It took about 15 minutes to prep while the boys watched a little Sesame Street.  Then Boy #1 helped me combine ingredients and shape cookies while Boy #2 got to play with all the toys that Boy #1 usually snatches away from him...good times all round!  I found the toddler help most useful in rolling formed cookie dough balls in sugar and putting them on a baking tray (I needed to rearrange them for baking ofc).  The finished product is not going to win any pretty food awards, but somehow the cookies are tastier when they're ugly b/c your kids helped you make them.

Pin It

Peanut Butter Oven-Baked French Toast

Another recipe pilfered from my husband's grandma's 1944 home ec cookbook.  Back in the day, this recipe was called "Peanut Chops", another attempt to pass off an alternate protein source as being "just like meat!!".  The virtues of this recipe in 1944 were being inexpensive, offering protein when meat was rationed, and bearing a passing resemblance to actual pork chops.  Today's virtues are that it's inexpensive, freezer-friendly, kid-friendly, easy to cook (think oven-baked French toast), and it does actually feel like an oven-fried pork chop in your mouth...strange, huh?  Actually they remind me of a vegetarian oven-baked chicken nugget.

My husband is still commenting on how filling this meal was...I guess he had expected differently?  But with 18g of protein and 5 grams of fiber (or more, if you use whole wheat crackers and whole grain bread), who is surprised?

The original recipe calls for cutting 6 slices of rye bread into "fingers".  I used 1/2 a loaf of "cocktail rye", you know those tiny 3"x3" loaves you see up by the deli.  The slices are easy to handle and are perfectly sized for the recipe, but feel free to use regular slices of rye, or even pumpernickel. 

You can also substitute any nut or seed butter you wish to make this recipe allergy-friendly to those with peanut sensitivities.

Pin It

Peanut-butter oatmeal slices

My husband and his grandfather are the only two people I have known in real life who didn’t like dessert.  And my husband can be persuaded to eat some.  You need dessert in the freezer arsenal, end of story.  It's are also handy to have something like this in the freezer when you need a quick thank-you gift for a neighbor who keeps snow-blowing your sidewalk for you, ferinstance.

Pin It