Now that it’s mid-October, summer might feel like a distant
memory (or possibly not, since temperatures are in the 80s today…). Halloween
decorations are going up, it gets dark early, and the sweaters have been stacked
in the closet. So it’s not so surprising that I’m waxing nostalgic about the
last great hurrah weekend of summer.
Our annual trip to a friend’s cottage in East Tawas is both
the high point and the official end of summer. You might think this makes me
feel ambivalent about the weekend, but it’s one of the best things that happens
all year. And after 80 days of togetherness, the start of the school year is
wholeheartedly embraced around here, I can tell you. We approach the weekend
with varying degrees of ambition; some years we’re gung-ho to canoe and make
fabulous dinners, and other years we eat potato chips for lunch and spend all
our time drinking on the beach. The very best years have elements of both, and
now that the kids are old enough to not want to spend all their time with us we
need to find ways to lure them back to the house often enough to reapply bug
screen and make sure they haven’t floated off to Canada while we weren’t
watching.
S’mores are excellent child bait. Unfortunately, gluten-free
graham crackers are more of a punishment than a treat, and this year wasn’t one
of the let-me-make-homemade-graham-crackers-to-go-with-these-homemade-marshmallows
kinds of years. And so we improvise. One year we used Symphony bars as the
chocolate to compensate for the horror of the graham crackers; but this year we
had plain old chocolate. Using these cookies to corral the melty sugary
goodness was nothing short of inspired, and I highly recommend using them for
your next s’mores adventure.
Many thanks to the fine folks at Trader Joe’s for printing
this recipe on the back of the bag of oatmeal. The recipe is adapted to make
more sense – I’ve listed the ingredients in the order in which they’re used.
Oatmeal Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Graham Crackers Substitute Cookies
- ¼ cup butter (or fake butter or Crisco, if you’re DF)
- ¾ c. sugar
- ¾ c. brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 ¼ tsp baking soda
- 1 c. peanut butter (use the cheap sugary stuff. Natural is way better for eating but this cookie really wants to be a sugar bomb.)
- 3 c. rolled oats
- 6 oz. chocolate chips (OK, call it half a bag or roughly ¾ cup. I don’t know why the original recipe writers put everything else in imperial measurements and then called for ounces here. And I’d go measure out 6 ounces and figure out what size cup it fits into but the Teen Queen has eaten all the chocolate chips in the house so I’m going to ballpark it.)
- ½ c. sunflower seeds or chopped walnuts, if you must
Preheat oven to 350.
In a large bowl, combine the butter, sugar, and brown sugar
and beat until creamy. Add the eggs, vanilla, and baking soda and mix well. Add
the peanut butter and mix well, then add the oats and chocolate chips (and nuts
or seeds, if you must).
Drop the dough by teaspoons onto a lightly greased cookie
sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned around
the edges.
Tasty on their own, but really very marvelous with gooey
toasted marshmallows and a hunk of chocolate sandwiched in between. You’re
welcome.
