peanut butter oatmeal cookies with chocolate and peanuts

I recently spent another weekend home… with a house so crowded that I slept in my sister’s room and two people were on the living room couch. 

This is starting to become my typical weekend home.

To an outsider it may seem crazy. 

Kids are crying at 6 a.m., there are 3 big bunches of bananas on the kitchen counter, and I can get away with doing just about anything because no one notices me in the midst of the commotion.

Plus, there are lots of mouths to feed.

Time to bake something.

One person loves monster cookies… one loves oatmeal chocolate chip…

Most hadn’t had a homemade cookie in a long time.

So I tried to satisfy both kinds of cookie flavors with this one.

I used honey roasted peauts because that is all we had. But, you know what?  I think they made this cookie stand out. 

I thank Martha Stewart and her big "Cookies" cookbook for inspiring this one.  My copy is marked up and dirtied from my teenage years of mishaps and burnt cookies.

But that is exactly why I love to come home and pull it off the shelf. 

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats      
• 1/3 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda      
• 1 teaspoon baking powder      
• ½ teaspoon coarse salt      
• 1 cup packed light-brown sugar      
• 1 cup granulated sugar      
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened      
• ½ cup peanut butter      
• 2 large eggs      
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract      
• 2 cups honey roasted whole peanuts      
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips    
• 1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips  

Directions:

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

- In a medium bowl, stir oats, flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.  Set aside.

- Put sugars, butter, peanut butter in a mixture and beat on medium speed until pale and fluffy. about 5 minutes. MIx in eggs and vanilla.

- Reduce speed and add in the dry mixture until combined. Add in the peanuts and chocolates.

-Drop heaping tablespoons of dough on a cookies sheet and bake for about 10 minutes, rotating halfway through. I always say to take them out just when they are golden on edges and still not done all the way In the middle.  They will finish baking as they set on the sheet ot cool. This is my trick to a crispy cookie that is still soft when you bite in. It makes people have to go in for another one!.

My Baking Tip: I use a mix of chopped bittersweet and semi-sweet chocolate in my cookies.  Maybe it is because I watched Ina Garten do it on the Food Network years ago.  Or because I personally think it adds more depth than simply semi-sweet. 

 

Either way, it works.

 

You can store these in an airtight container for a week or so….

If they last that long.