Recipe: Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies

It's funny to me that there are days when I have no problem staying at work until 9 pm, or being (semi-)functional on overnight call, but there are just as many days when I can barely keep my eyes open in my own home at 6 pm. Case in point: every evening this week. On Monday I succumbed to a nap, but yesterday managed to convince myself to work out. Even at that, all I could get through was a beginners' yoga video and some walking on the elliptical. Yes, walking. As in, not even breaking a sweat. But I'm okay with that; better any activity than no activity.

This evening the amotivation set in early, but I figured I might as well be quasi-productive while catching the third period of the Oilers-Canucks game, so put my laptop up on the counter bar to watch while baking these cookies. I'm going to say they're the best thing I accomplished today. I've posted peanut butter recipes and oatmeal recipes in the past; this is their perfect union. Soft, chewy, and substantial, they'll be great to pack along for snacks at work (not to mention feed my on-call cookie habit).

Here's the recipe, slightly modified from Michele's at AllRecipes.com:

• 0.5 cup butter or margarine
• 0.5 cup brown sugar
• 0.75 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1.5 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 cups oats (large-flake or quick; I upped this from 1 cup in the original recipe)

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, eggs, and peanut butter. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Stir in the oats. Bake at 350 degrees F for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and leave on the cookie sheet to cool (the cookies will be very soft at first, but will continue to harden and become easy to remove from the tray).

Enjoy!

I'm headed off to bed for some extra rest (and hopefully renewed ambition :S).