M&M Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies

What to do with the leftover Halloween candy? R&D hosted only a single trick-or-treater (perhaps the terrifying decorations on the door scared most of them away) and the tiny ghost could only toddle off with so much candy. Drew of course had filled the bowl of blood to the brim so there was more remaining than R&D could reasonably expect to consume. And chocolate is poison for dogs, so there was to be no help from that corner.

Fortunately Drew had purchased lots of M&Ms and peanut M&Ms in the little packs. Raul diligently empties the packs into the bowl until he has a full cup. Then he follows this recipe found at overtimecook.com with only a few variations, most based on Drew's Mom's old-fashioned oatmeal cookie recipe which Raul notes is the definitive cookie recipe.

Ingredients:

2 sticks (1 cup) butter or margarine

1 cup peanut butter

1 cup dark brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 eggs

2 cups whole wheat flour

2 cups oatmeal (rolled oats, not instant)

2 cups mini M&M’s

1/2 cup pecans

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 375. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer on medium speed, cream together the butter/margarine and peanut butter for about 30 seconds to combine.

Add the brown sugar and sugar and beat until creamy.

Add the vanilla, baking soda and eggs and beat until combined.

Turn the mixer to low, then add the flour, stir to combine. Add the oatmeal, M&M’s and chocolate chips. Stir to combine.

Scoop the dough out using a medium cookie scoop or a heaping tablespoon onto the prepared cookie sheet.

Bake at 375 for 11 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside to cool for a few minutes, then move to a cooling rack to cool completely

The cookies are not allowed to cool completely. And Halloween is going to last long after the decorations are off the door and put away until next year.

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Cookies

There are no cookies left in the cookie jar but Raul is ready to remedy that dire situation. "What kind would you like?" he asks.

"Peanut butter," pipes up Drew. "Or maybe oatmeal."

"What about peanut butter and oatmeal?" asks Raul. "That way we get taste and texture treats. Or . . ."

"Or?"

"Or what about peanut butter oatmeal and chocolate?"

"Do we have chocolate?"

"We do," reassures Raul. "Now that the computer is working again can you google me a recipe. Just so I can make sure that the ratios are correct."

Drew dutifully googles and finds hundreds of recipes for a combo he had never knew existed. "There's tons," he says. "But here is a Martha Stewart one that looks amazing. And it is Martha Stewart. I love her Halloween recipes and ideas. And it is Martha Stewart." 

"That's the one," says Raul. "Print it."

Martha Stewart's peanut butter, oatmeal and chocolate chip recipe, along with some lovely photos and commentary, can be found at marthastewart.com but here are the basics. R&D are out of natural or organic peanut butter  - "It is all natural from Kraft," insists Raul - but that is the only major deviation from the doyenne diva's recipe.

Ingredients:

• • 3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
  • 1/3 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
  • 1 cup packed light-brown sugar
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
  • 1/2 cup natural peanut butter
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 2 cups salted whole peanuts
  • 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Stir together oats, flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.

2. Put sugars, butter, and peanut butter in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Mix in eggs and vanilla.

3. Reduce speed to low. Add oat mixture, and mix until just combined. Mix in peanuts and chocolate chips.

4. Using a 1 1/2-inch ice cream scoop, drop balls of dough 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper.

5. Bake cookies, rotating sheets halfway through, until golden brown and just set, 13 to 15 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks 5 minutes. Transfer cookies to wire racks to cool completely. Cookies can be stored in airtight containers at room temperature up to two days.

"Now those are some fancy schmancy cookies," raves Raul proudly. "Me and Martha are a good team."

Drew agrees but is unable to talk because his mouth is full but gives an enthusiastic, two chocolate-smeared thumbs up.

Pumpkin Cookies from The Danish Pastry Shop

When Drew was a child one of his favourite treats when visiting his grandparents in Thunder Bay was to eat a marzipan from the Current River Bakery. Drew's Mom is a master baker, so the fact that it was such a treat had more to do with the influence of his cousins who would visit at the same time. When Drew's Mom would travel to Thunder Bay she would always go to the Current River Bakery and bring back marzipans - a nice gesture but not a necessary one as a tray of her brownies or some of her gingerbread men are actually more delicious. Unfortunately on the last few visits, Drew's Mom's return flights have fallen on days when the bakery was closed and purchasing the scrumptious petit fours in advance lead to staleness. A dilemma indeed.

Fortunately The Danish Pastry Shop, 1017 Pape Ave is just down the street from R&D's and they make, though differently shaped (tubular rather than square), magnificent marzipans. Drew agrees to pick some up for his Mom to take back for Drew's sister. That way they will be fresh and at their best having only travelled a short distance.

It is pouring rain but Drew has his orders and sets out. On a Saturday morning The Danish Pastry Shop is busy but people wait patiently while individual orders are packaged and paid for. It is an odd but delightful little shop, selling all kinds of pastries, pies and treats, as well as meat pies and pickled herring imported from Denmark. Drew decides to buy a blueberry danish to eat on the walk back but his eye is also caught by the first of their Halloween treats: pumpkin cookies in the shape of jack o'lanterns. At Christmas the store creates massive magnificent gingerbread houses, for Halloween they go all out with spooky cupcakes and cookies in terrifying shapes and styles.

"What do you think of the cookies?" asks Drew.

"They're delicious," says Raul. "You can tell the difference of a master baker."

"Your cookies are great as well," reassures Drew while remembering the hours Raul spend in the kitchen perfecting Drew's Mom's oatmeal cookie recipe. " They've been doing it for so long that they can probably bake perfectly on auto-pilot. The pumpkin makes them really moist and not as sweet as sugar cookies."

"And we did like that Jamaican pumpkin," muses Raul as he heads for the kitchen.

Old Fashioned Oatmeal Cookies

After the less-than-perfect, "A catastrophe!" corrects Raul, texture of the banana bread, Raul, while vowing to solve and correct the problem, retreats to a recipe he has already conquered. Drew's Mom is famous for, among many baking miracles, her oatmeal cookies. Raul was fascinated from the first bite, "Economical, healthy and tasty. Perfect." Drew's Mom sends the recipe via email and Raul works to perfect it (something he should remember before flagellating himself too severely about the banana bread). He discovers the importance of brown sugar (as the recipe calls for) rather than golden or white, whole wheat flour (as the recipe calls for) rather than all-purpose and, his own addition, the use of bargain priced but high quality Chefmaster Margarine (a trick he learned from a chance conversation at No Frills with a woman who claimed Chefmaster was the closest to ghee so ideal for cooking and high temperatures). At one point a tortilla press is pressed into service to create the perfect thickness and at another a giant wooden rolling pin is acquired from the thrift store to roll out the dough.

Raul also deviates from the original recipe by adding in chopped granola (courtesy of Drew's Mom who makes it from scratch) to add a nutty flavour, more fibre and nutrients. For this particular batch Drew casually inquires whether there are any dark chocolate chips left from the disasterous (but still being happily eaten) banana bread. There are and Raul stirs them in and then lives in terror while the cookies bake, "What if the chocolate is the culprit in the banana bread catastrophe?"

Old Fashioned Oatmeal Cookies

1 c butter or margarine

1 1/2 c brown sugar

2 eggs

1 t vanilla

2 c whole wheat flour

1 t baking soda

1 t baking powder

1/2 t salt

4-5 c old fashioned oatmeal (large flake)

or 3 c regular oatmeal

Combine in your amazing Kitchen Aid mixer :)
Roll out, cut in circles, bake at 350'F for 12 minutes.
Enjoy!!!

The cookies turn out perfectly: crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. The dark chocolate is a delicious enhancement but alas renders the cookies poison to the dog. "Another catastrophe!" complains Raul.

"Perfect," purrs Drew as he blithely munches in front of the miffed mutt. "More for me. I mean . . . How tragic! I'll give him some crumbs that are not contaminated with chocolate."

Chocolate-Chip Drop Cookies

"These are the very first cookies I ever made," says Raul as he looks up from the Joy of Cooking that he has been reading. "I was just reading all your mom's notes in the margins and came across this. I must have been seven or eight and I borrowed the school's copy of the Joy of Cooking over the summer. Somewhere I found enough money for chocolate chips and we had the rest of the ingredients in the kitchen. I made them and ate them before anyone else got home that day."

"Just make sure you use real chocolate chips and not those chocolate-flavoured waxy ones," suggests Drew.

"Where do I find real chocolate chips?" asks Raul.

"If they don't have it at Food Basics," suggests Drew. "Just get a dark chocolate bar and I'll break into little chunks."

"Too much work," says Raul skeptically.

Fortunately Basics does carry real dark chocolate trips and no smashing and bashing is required. The only recipes Drew could find online were from the newer editions of the Joy of Cooking and they just are not the same. The edition that R&D have was Drew's mother's treasured copy that she gifted Drew when he was browsing the margin notes, they are fascinating and a mini-family history and they had a bonding nostalgic moment. Or perhaps she was just tired of answering phone calls about basic cooking questions - the original edition does really cover everything and in simple, plain language - the "what does one do with squash?" question being the breaking point.

In the absence of a link here is the recipe though Raul warns that although it states that it makes 45 cookies he was only able to stretch it to 43. Fortunately they are a delicious 43.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Cream:
1/2 cup butter
Add gradually and beat until creamy:
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
Beat in:
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Sift and stir in:
1 cup and 2 tablespoons sifted all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
 1/2 teaspoon soda
Drop the batter from a teaspoon (Raul uses the small ice cream scoop that he acquired to create photo-perfect mashed potato mounds), well apart, on a greased cookie sheet (Raul uses parchment paper to save on washing up). Bake for about 10 minutes.

The cookies - the ones that aren't eaten instantly - cool, and Raul gets to work on Drew's mother's classic oatmeal cookies which are a story for another entry.