Friday, March 26, 2010

What to do with instant oatmeal?

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What's cooking What's for Leftovers readers?  This has been a great spring break week, but since we've been so busy, I haven't actually been doing a lot of cooking.  The other day I did make peanut butter cookies for our Community Group.  We did not bring a single one home, so I think everybody liked them.  For breakfast that morning, I had fed Celia and Charlie instant oatmeal.  This was my first time preparing it, but it is like a gold mine.  It is so easy to make and they loved it!  Well, I made Celia's great, but I think I got distracted with Charlie's and did something wrong (I know you're asking yourself, who messes up instant oatmeal!?).  To thicken it up, I had to open another packet.  Instead of making a huge amount of instant oatmeal, I saved the rest of it and added it to the peanut butter cookies.  According to Belinda, it made the cookies look healthy :)

Peanut Butter Cookies
Ingredients:
1 Cup Peanut Butter
2 Eggs
3/4 Cup Pecan Meal (Finely chop pecans in your food processor if you don't have pecan meal)
3/4 Cup Honey
2 TBSP Instant Oatmeal (You can add a whole packet if you don't have one open already)
1 TBSP Baking Powder
1/4 Cup Flour
M&M's (Optional)
Powdered Sugar (Optional)

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 
2.  In a large mixing bowl, mix together peanut butter, eggs, pecan meal, honey, instant oatmeal, baking powder and flour until dough forms into a large lump.
3. Place dough in freezer for fifteen minutes.
4. Spray a baking sheet with non-stick cooking spray.  Take cookie dough out and roll into small balls.  Place several M&Ms on top of balls (optional).  Put remaining dough back in freezer.
5.  Bake in oven for 11 to 13 minutes.  Cookies are finished when they puff up and start to turn light brown.  Take out of oven, sprinkle with powder sugar (optional) and let cool.  Repeat until dough is finished.

**Makes 2 and 1/2 dozen cookies** 

3 comments:

Kathy said...

Do you think I could substitute almond meal for pecan meal in this recipe?

Andrea said...

Definitely! Funny, I was thinking about that last night. Almond meal is a little bit finer, so you'll probably have a smoother dough.

Kathy said...

Okay, so I made them with almond flour and they were awesome! And since they really are good-for-you- food---- I ate them for breakfast a few times. :) YUM!