Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Cookies

Peanut butter cookies are a classic! They can be soft and chewy or crisp, but definitely rich and peanut-y! They are one of my favorites!

For some people however, peanut butter isn't enough and would need to be augmented with other things peanut - whole peanuts, peanut butter chips, etc. Throw in some oats and it makes for a healthy cookie!

I got this recipe from the marthastewart web site and the original recipe called for chocolate chips to be added to the dough. I thought of using peanut butter chips instead. But it seems local groceries have stopped selling these! So I just upped the quantities of peanuts and oats to compensate for the lack of peanut butter chips. (I really did not want to use chocolate chips as I wanted a really very peanut-y cookie.)





On another visit to the grocery, I chanced upon some Reese's peanut butter bits (sort of like M&Ms). They were perfect for the cookies!

These cookies are now one of my favorites!

Let's Go GREEN

I just LOVE green tea! I think it is refreshing and sweet, unlike regular black or oolong teas which may often taste bitter. And the fruit infusions taste like car fresheners (not that i've tried some). Green tea, just like any natural drink or food is rich in vitamins and minerals and antioxidants. People in Japan believe drinking it everyday helps keep colon cancer away. Of course, studies have shown that you need to drink industrial quantities daily for it to have this effect. Then again, drinking it is way more nutritious than plain water and definitely healthier than other bottled or canned drinks (yes, teas come prepared in soda bottles and cans in other countries!).

You either like it or you hate it. I have a lot of friends who always order all things green tea in restaurants. On the other hand, my aunt who spent two years of her life as a missionary in Japan swears that green tea tastes and feels like warm horse saliva. I do not want to imagine how she came up with that comparison.

With the green tea theme in mind, I am posting two recipes I made previously with green tea. I used green tea powder I bought some time ago in Hong Kong. I know a lot of the local Japanese stores have it. This green tea is the one used in the ceremonies and is called 'matcha.' I am not quite sure if regular dired green tea leaves pulverized in a spice blender would work quite as well.


I got this recipe for Green Tea Layer Cake online. I did not have yogurt at that time so I used sour cream. The cake came out quite dense, but still soft and very flavorful. The combination of vanilla and green tea gave a flavor reminiscent of Green Tea Frappucino!

For the frosting, I reduced the amount of sugar by half, as I do not like my desserts too sweet. I divided the frosting into two. One part I mixed with some mashed azuki (boiled mashed red mung beans) and used it for filling. The other half I used to frost the cake.



With some matcha leftover, I then made some green tea butter cookies (sable). I think my oven temperature wasn't right as the edges have already browned and the centers were still a bit puffy. (My oven isn't calibrated.) But they tasted good! The cookies were buttery, as are all sables, and had the perfuminess of green tea.

More Chocolate Cookies!

Having successfully made Martha Stewart's chekerboard cookies, I was inspired to experiment with more of her cookie recipes from her site. So I was basically making cookies for the whole month of December - another batch as soon as the previous had been completely devoured.


I came upon this recipe for Mocha Slice cookies. The technique was simple. It was a dough cookie, so it was similar the the checkerboard cookies I made. However, I did not have cocoa nibs, so I used some toasted walnuts instead.

I skipped rolling the cookies in sugar.

Then I simply could not resist making a cookie with the classic combination of dark chocolate and mint. The original recipe was reminiscent of after-dinner mints. But I could not resist being generous with the filling.

I added pepermint oil to both the dough and filling, by the way
to offset the bitterness of the dark chocolate (instead of sweetening the filling.)

Checkerboard Cookies

I made these cookies some time before Christmas, intending them as giveaways. They never made it to the packaging!

The dough is actually quite simple, and the process of assembling seems complex, but it is actually quite easy.

Check out the recipe at this site. Enjoy!