Oatmeal Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

One of the many many food gifts our family had received for the holidays is a jar of Skippy Peanut Butter. It was actually given to my cousins family then her turning out to give the jar to us because she couldn't find any use of it since the little kids don't like its taste. It's more salty than sweet which is not very appealing to the Filipino palate when it comes to peanut butter. Well that's per observation though I don't mean to generalize. 

And so I make use of it by pairing it with jelly as in PB&J sandwich. They mix together so well that I end up gobbling up not just one but a few more sandwiches. I have also thought of making cookies out of them. And so I browsed through Tastespotting again [my go to site] for a good peanut butter cookie recipe. I decided on this one from Confabulation in the kitchen because of the rave reviews. The only little tweak I did was adding a cup of chocolate chips. I then teamed up with my cousin and her kiddos so we could bake in the new oven of their new house since her mom keeps asking me to 'baptize' her oven. hihi :D

Here's one of my neices with the waiting batch of cookie doughs

Us patiently waiting...

...for these babies to cook. 

And Voila! Beautiful and uberly tasty cookies!!! 

The perfect blend of Peanut butter, Oatmeal and Chocolate. 

Mmmmmmmmmmm :P

Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookies

Adapted from AllRecipes

Ingredients
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup margarine, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
1 cup peanut butter
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup quick-cooking oats

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. In a large bowl, beat shortening, butter, sugars and peanut butter until smooth, about three minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda and salt. Add to peanut butter mixture and mix well. Fold in oats, stirring until just combined.
4. Drop by teaspoon-fulls onto cookie sheets. Bake 10 to 15 minutes, or until cookies are just brown on the edges. Cool for a couple of minutes on sheets before moving to wire racks to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

Thanks,  Abby of Confabulation in the Kitchen for sharing this recipe. This sure is a keeper! 

Oatmeal Choc Chunk Cookies

We have a big bag of oatmeal gifted to us during the holiday season and I swear it begs to be noticed. The holidays never seem to stop for us. I guess that's because some of our cousins who don't actually live here[they're from the US] are still here and my Lola[grandmother]'s dining table is never empty. Meat mostly and sweet sweets[know what I mean?], foods like these make me miss the good stuff. I mean those that are really good for the body like veggies and fruits, and maybe oatmeal. :)

I was browsing through Tastespotting days ago and found this Oatmeal Kiss Cookie Recipe from Within the Kitchen Blog. Like her, I am looking for a good oatmeal cookie recipe. Hers looked really appetizing so I decided to try it. I found the chocolate addition interesting as it wasn't mixed with the batter like the ones with chocolate chips, just placed on top. I didn't have 'mini-kisses' but I still had about two thirds of a bar of dark swiss chocolate sitting in the fridge [one of the many chocolate gifts last Christmas.] Please forgive me if I didn't get the name. I found it wrapped in foil when I decided to use it for the recipe. I then used a knife to cut it into small bits and topped them on each cookie. 

So here they are.

Wish i took better photographs. 

Guess I'm just not a pro in that aspect. 

The Verdict? Right after baking it, I said to my mom that I want to just give them away because they're not sweet. I didn't like them. She grabbed a bite and so did my sister. They both disagreed with me and my ranting. I then decided to pack them and keep 'em in the fridge. Yesterday, we went to an island and I gulped up considerable amounts of salt water like more than three times! So when I got home, I needed a quick sweet fix. I opened the fridge and looked for my cookies. I grabbed one, then another, until I finished what were left in the bag. [Don't look at me with accusing eyes yet. There were only about five left and I gave one to my sister so I ate the four. haha] In short, I loved them and I'm going to make more of them soon. :) 

Thanks, Within the Kitchen Blog for the recipe. [I'm sorry I can't find the name of the writer].

If you need the recipe, head over to her blog entry. 

Mocha Chip Oatmeal Bars

I super love the Apple Cinnamon Cookies from Quaker Oats and I was inspired to make my own version.[though not Apple Cinnamon.] I made use of the ingredients I had in stock. I tried baking the mixture I made as cookies but with the size of my oven, I never found a cookie sheet that fits in it perfectly. So I used aluminum foil instead and end up having imperfectly shaped but still good tasting cookies. This one though, didn't work with the foil as the cookies were gooey and sticky thus making them hard to remove. I ended up baking them as bars in a loaf pan.

Here they are.







Mocha Chip Oatmeal Bars

1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cup flour
1 1/4 cup rolled oats
a pinch of baking soda
a pinch of baking powder
1 tbsp milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup mocha chips

1. Preheat oven at 350F.
2. Sift together all dry ingredients.
3. Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
4. Add egg and beat well.
5. Add vanilla and milk
6. Mix in the dry ingredients and the mocha chips.
7. Chill the dough for about 30 minutes.
8. Bake for 13-15 minutes.
9. Cool for about 10 minutes then cut into desired sizes.

Enjoy! :)