My latest efforts at weight loss have been successful, which is fantastic. I won’t be bikini ready for my trip to Florida in a week, but hey – I’m in law school, I deserve cookies. Tonight after eating my healthy leftover soup I wanted a sweet treat. After perusing my Pinterest board, I decided that no bake cookies sounded perfect.
I’ve actually never made no bake cookies before, which is silly because they’re so easy. I was a little short on some of the ingredients that most recipes call for – I had no milk or chocolate chips. But I couldn’t resist the chance to improvise, so I looked at a few recipes and decided to wing it myself.
Chocolate Peanut Butter No Bake Cookies
What you’ll need:
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup half and half
1 cup Splenda or regular sugar
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups of quick oats
Prep time: less than 10 minutes Set time: 30 minutes
Calories: 217 per cookie*
What to do:
Melt the butter in a pot over medium heat. Add the half and half, cocoa powder, and the Splenda and mix well. Turn the heat up and let the mixture boil for 3 minutes. After 3 minutes, turn the heat off and add the peanut butter and vanilla, letting the peanut butter melt in, mixing well. Add the quick oats and stir well. Drop two tablespoons at a time onto wax paper, and put them in the fridge for 30 minutes.
* A note on the calorie count – I am not a nutritionist, a doctor, or even a super sophisticated foodie. I wanted to know the calorie count for my own purposes, so I calculated it all out based on the labels of my ingredients and the 2 tablespoon serving size per cookie that I used. So, know that this is an estimate, and may vary depending on what brand of ingredients you’re using. But, it’s an accurate ball-park for your informational purposes.
After seeing the calorie count per cookie, next time I will be cutting down the butter and maybe putting in less cocoa powder and peanut butter. But this evening, while I have about 40 pages to read for International Financial Regulation, I’ve decided that one 217 calorie cookie is fine by me.
Happy snacking!
the reasonable cook 