One-bowl {Gluten-Fee} Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

If you read this blog on the reg, you know we don't do peanuts, as the hubs has a (non-life-threatening) sensitivity to them. If you knew me in college, you'd have thought I survived merely on a diet of pretzel twists, honey-roasted peanut butter, and Common Grounds coffee. Seriously. But love makes you do crazy things, like switch to almond butter (who could never steal my heart, dear PB).

However, the hubs has been in Sydney for work for the last month, and you better believe I have been going through a jar of Trader Joe's natural, creamy, no salt added peanut butter a week. He comes back in a couple of days (hooray!) so I'm winding down the PB habit and clearing it out of the house. This afternoon, rather than my typical snack of apple slices slathered with nut butter, I felt the urge to make a small batch of cookies: to re-live the college days of baking with the roomies (one of whom is now a pediatrician and rightly chides our undergraduate sugar consumption levels). The cookies needed to be quick, easy, and have that ideal crispy outside, gooey inside finish.

One bowl clean-up for these chewy, chocolatey, peanut butter oatmeal cookies.

These turned out perfectly. Use one bowl to mix up the peanut butter, sugar, vanilla and egg, then add oats and leavening, chocolate chips for good measure, and you're set. Don't have peanut butter? Use any nut butter. Don't do sugar? Use the equivalent measure of mashed banana. Don't have chocolate chips? Don't use them, or add some chopped pecans, walnuts, etc. Make a few for a snack, and save the rest of the dough in the fridge or freezer for later. But since it's only a small batch, you won't be tempted to go overboard on the sugar splurge. Enjoy!

Easy to make, tasty to eat.

One-bowl {gluten-free} Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes 8-9 cookies

1/2 cup peanut butter (I used natural, no sugar or salt added; can use any nut butter)
1/3 cup brown sugar (or a mix of brown sugar, cane sugar, coconut sugar, whatever you have)
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup rolled oats (old fashioned, not instant; gluten-free if you're cooking g-f)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/3 cup chocolate chips
pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 350F/ 177C.

In one medium-sized bowl, mix together thoroughly with a spoon or with an electric mixer the peanut butter, sugar, egg, and vanilla. Add the oats, baking soda, chocolate chips, and salt, and stir to thoroughly combine.

Drop cookie dough by rounded tablespoons onto a non-stick or pre-greased cookie sheet, spacing them about 2 inches apart. Bake at 350F/ 177C for 8-10 minutes, until golden on the bottom but still not completely set in the middle. Remove from oven, and let stand on cookie sheet for 2 minutes before removing.

Cookies will keep at room temperature in an air-tight container for 3 days.