Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

For me, one of the best things about having a toddler is that he now has the ability to keep himself occupied for longer periods of time which allows me to play in the kitchen more often. Granted, a lot of times him keeping himself busy includes emptying kitchen cupboards or devising a plan to get up on to the counters, but that is a story for a different day. During one of our more recent "kitchen play days" I decided to satiate my peanut butter and chocolate craving with some cookies!

If ever there was a "healthy cookie" these would be it. On my quest to make cookies, I discovered we had very little flour, sugar, and butter. All of which are pretty standard to a typical cookie. Since we live a good distance from our grocery store now, I made do with what I had. Enter in a plan for some flour free, egg free, peanut butter cookies.

So I talked about what these cookies don't have, but lets talk about what they do have. For these, I turned to old fashioned peanut butter and oats! I have a mixture of rolled oats, and oats ground into a flour. I chose this mixture to achieve more of a cookie texture as opposed to a no bake bar.

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies
ingredients

• 1 cup chunky natural peanut butter
• 2/3 cup packed dark brown sugar 
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla 
• 2 large eggs 
• 3/4 cup rolled oats (gluten-free if desired) 
• 1 teaspoon baking soda 
• 2/3 cup chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350*F. Place 1/2 cup of oats in food processor and pulse until just barely ground. 
2. In small bowl mix together the ground oats, remaining rolled oats and baking soda; set aside.
3. In a larger bowl mix peanut butter, brown sugar, eggs and vanilla with an electric mixer until smooth. 
4. Mix in dry ingredients and then gently fold in chocolate chips. 
5. Roll dough into 2 inch balls. Place onto cookie sheet 2 inches apart. The cookies may not be as round in shape or flatten to a typical cookie shape while baking but that's okay. 
6. Bake cookies for 9-11 minutes and remove when edges barely begin to turn a golden brown. Gently, flatten the tops of the cookies with a fork. They may look slightly underdone but will continue cooking as they cool. 
7. Cool for 2 minutes on the cookie sheet then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with remaining cookie dough.