Ok, let me preface this by saying that I don’t normally put dark chocolate in these guys, but I saw it today when I went to Wally world. And I thought, ‘dark chocolate is healthier?!, right? So this needs to happen’. And in the buggy it went.

I’ve heard these cookies called cow patties, no-bake cookies and oatmeal cookies. Round here we just call em Chocolate oatmeal cookies. This is the recipe that my mom always cooked and gave me. My whole family grew up with mom cooking these on a regular basis. She’d get mad if they didn’t turn out right. Many nights we just scooped em up on a spoon and ate em like a chocolate popsicle. That’s ok. They ate fine. She doesn’t cook in the peanut butter like I do but it just turns out better to let the peanut butter stew awhile.

I made a batch a few weeks ago and took 3 to mom in the nursing home. I’m not sure she was as impressed with my first born child as she was those 3 chocolate oatmeal cookies. She kept raving and giving samples away to people declaring that these were the best that she’d ever had.

But then again, mom is nearly 84 and sometimes she’s not exactly which end to put her wig on. So, there’s that.

Enough tongue wagging…here’s the recipe!

*Spread wax paper out before you do anything because this is a timed situation and you gotta be ready to plop em out, like STAT. Or they’ll set up in the pan and then you and the family all have to eat out the big cooking pot like heathens.

The ingredients are below but this is how this southern concotion goes down:

  • In a large pan melt the butta over low heat while you’re gathering your other ingredients. Once it’s melted add the sugar, cocoa and milk. Let all of that mix and then turn the heat up to boil.
  • I set a timer for 2 minutes once it starts to boil. STIR THAT STUFF while it boils or it’ll stick. True story. Dun it. Had to throw it all out.
  • Just before the 2 minutes are up, stir in your peanut butter and let it boil. Maybe 15 to 20 seconds.
  • At EXACTLY 2 minutes take it off the eye, stir in the oats and vanilla.
  • Then quick like you’re clamping an artery, run with your pot of greatness to the wax paper and spoon the boys out like you want em.
  • Let them set up.
  • Get a big glass of milk.
  • Draw up your insulin.

—-EAT COOKIES!

 

(note the cool orange measuring cups that my wife got from a Tupperware party in the early 1980s when we first got married).

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INGREDIENTS:

  • Wax paper
  • 2 cups sugar (some people use brown sugar)
  • 1/2 cup cocoa. (I used 1/4 dark and 1/4 regular on this one)
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1/2 cup butter (one stick)
  • 3/4 cup peanut butter
  • 3 cups oats. I like the big manly ‘old fashioned’ oats, not the puny little ‘minute oats’.
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla.

 

I know that these cookies are made a lot of places, but in the south, you’d be hard pressed to find a family reunion, a dinner on the ground or a funeral home visit that doesn’t have a tray of these regional favorites.

Hope they cook up well for you. See you at the gym in this week! Gotta work these guys off!

That’s the best that I can tell about it.

~Mark