And we're back! After a long week involving coffee and gummy bears, I'm finally getting around to posting some recipes. Not my recipes, but rather, recipes that come mostly, if not entirely, from food blogs. I'm torn about this. On one hand, it's always interesting to see the myriad experiences online readers have with the popular online recipe of the week. On the other hand, when you limit what you make to what other people have written about, you leave out so much: Recipes hidden in books, stored in people's memories, or improvised using leftover ingredients.
Especially cookbooks. To be honest, I haven't had much patience or time to work my way through any book in particular, so I can't say I have a favorite cookbook. I know people who probably do, like Celia of Cookbook Archaeology (shout-out to a college classmate!). Me? I have diagnosed myself wtih cooking ADD.
However, a good recipe is a good recipe. One day, I'll start to experiment more on my own. But if you don't know, I still eat better than I can cook. I have a long way to go before feeling at ease on my own in the kitchen. Until then, I'm following instructions.
And on that note, below is my thought process while making these delicious, flourless peanut butter cookies, courtesy of Saveur!
This recipe should be filed under the name "Skeptical." That's how I felt looking at the list of ingredients: sugar, a jar of peanut butter, and more sugar. Oh, and butter and eggs. Really? I imagined a melting, sticky mess.
Did you know there are different types of "brown sugar?" The one you use is probably molasses added to white refined sugar.
Ok, I thought. This has to be some sort of joke. An entire jar of Jif? Ok, 16 oz. to be exact, but every jar of Jif I found was an extra 2 oz. The recipe people "strongly recommend" using Jif, which I didn't question. I didn't grow up eating a lot of peanut butter (thanks, mom, for packing us chicken avocado sandwiches wrapped in butcher paper!), so I can't tell you whether this advice mattered. But I do love peanut butter. The more peanut flavor, the better! I know there's this American-European peanut butter vs. nutella rivalry, but in my world, there's room for both. So yes, peanut butter. That's what this recipe promised. No flour to get in way.
In case you didn't hear me: peanut butter and sugar.
You mix it. You add a little bit of other stuff, like eggs and vanilla extract. But again, no flour.
What? Really? This doesn't look promising.
Not feeing so confident at this point. Look at all that peanut oil oozing out!
But then, wow. Light, buttery, crispy, soft, intense peanut butter flavor. In short, my new favorite peanut butter cookie. This isn't a cookie you scarf down. It's one you can savor. It might even make you think of happy things.
