assaulted cookie

rather, ‘a salted cookie’. salted peanut butter oatmeal, to be exact. if you have been reading my blog, or understand that the tags on the left are sized according to frequency used, you know that i absolutely love peanut butter (despite knowing that it is not even close to the best nut butter for you), oatmeal, and obviously cookies. typically though, you see me combining peanut butter with another flavor, generally chocolate on here, but i do mix it up a bit in my everyday life. for this recipe though, i used something that you will almost never see me using for the main complimentary flavor, salt…while sweet & salty go well together, these cookies don’t really have a “sweet”, so it is really more savory than my usual.

i went with a peanut butter oatmeal since the combo was so great in the oatmeal cream pies and the, uh, other oatmeal cream pies. i took my first bite expecting somewhere between those and girlscout do-si-dos….and although i wasn’t far off, it took me until the second cookie to decide that i definitely liked them. when i brought them into work, they went very quickly– partly because the first three people to try them couldn’t resist going in for seconds and thirds within milliseconds of finishing their first bite. that’s a sign of a good cookie right there! although all the cookies are gone now, just thinking about them forced me to get a clif mojo peanut butter pretzel bar to recreate the flavor.

(yes, i know that recently my cravings have been out of control… this is a good thing though, finally getting up close to normal weight now!)

recipe, from allrecipes:

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1/2 cup margarine, softened (if you use unsalted butter instead, add an extra 1/4-1/2 tsp salt)
• 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 F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, cream together shortening, margarine, brown sugar, white sugar, and peanut butter until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time until well blended. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt; stir into the creamed mixture. Mix in the oats until just combined. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until just light brown. Don’t over-bake. Cool and store in an airtight container.

i could also see these being good with crushed peanuts mixed in, or chunky peanut butter to make it easier.