Peanut Butter Cookie Wars

Peanut Butter just may be its own food group at the Gatchel house.  Remember National Peanut Butter Day?  Couple that with cookies and there is no doubt it was one good day (except for one very sour note which I will get to) around here.

I decided peanut butter cookies would be a great dish for Kid Kitchen so my favorite twosome and I set out to make two different kinds of peanut butter cookies; a more traditional peanut butter cookie and an oatmeal peanut butter cookie with carrots.  We decided to have a taste-off when they were all baked and declare our favorite.

But before I get to that, a couple of fun peanut butter cookie facts.  The peanut butter cookie actually originated in the US in the 1910's and was first seen in a published recipe belonging to George Washington Carver.  It was originally a drop cookie, not the more traditional rolled in a ball and then patted down version we most commonly see today.  The first mention of the criss cross pattern that is distinct to a peanut butter cookie was seen in the 1940's and it was added to the tradition recipe to flatten the cookie to allow for even baking given how dense a peanut butter cookie is.  And now you know :)

So we had a lot of fun creating our two types of cookies and the great peanut butter cookie taste off of 2013 actually ended in a draw; Kayla like the carrot ones better, Grant liked the traditional ones better and Noah and I just couldn't decide.  To me any type of a peanut butter cookie is a good one.

If anything messed up the day it was the fact that the Tigers lost this afternoon.  And I could have handled a loss, not a biggie.  But yet another loss at the hands of Jose Valverde, really dude?  Can someone please explain to me how you possibly get into the 9th inning without allowing a single base runner to reach second base until then, and then you LOSE THE GAME?!?!?  Oh wait, I know how.  You put in "papa grande" to give up a 2 run homer, that'd be how.  Dude has to go.  Are you listening to me yet Tigers management?  I have been saying this since you hired him back AFTER he screwed up so badly last year you FIRED him then.  My kids are learning some very colorful phrases that are spewing from my mouth when the guy pitches - he's got to go.  Soon.

OK, off my soapbox.

So that was super crummy but my day ended on a much better note when we got to skype with my bestie in Maryland :)  I am so excited that three weeks from now we will be there!  I can't wait to catch up with them, snuggle the most beautiful 7 month old I know (who'll be the most beautiful 8 month old I know by the time I finally get my hands on her!) and just have a great time.  While I do love living in Michigan if I could change one thing, our distance from the Kunkle's would be it.

So "Kitchen Klutzes of America" is the rather ambiguous day tomorrow, check in and see my interpretation.  Until then...

PS - In honor of National Peanut Butter cookie day, I wanted to share one of my favorite go to recipes ever.  Need cookies in 15 mins with ingredients you're pretty much guaranteed to have on hand, here ya go.  Couldn't be easier!

Easiest Peanut Butter Cookies Ever

1 cup peanut butter

1 egg

1 cup sugar

Mix ingredients together.  Form into roughly walnut size balls.  Press down with fork in traditional peanut butter cookie style.  Bake at 350 8-10 minutes.  (Yep, really that easy)

Feel free to tweak the recipe to your liking - add chopped peanuts, chocolate chips, whatever.  You can roll the balls in sugar before baking if you like.  The recipe is your oyster ;-)