No Bake Cookies

I've loved these simple easy to make cookies ever since I could remember. Funny thing is that I have never had them as individual cookies! We've always taken wax paper and placed in in a casserole dish and just poured the mix in like a cake. We let it cool and then just break a chunk off!

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups white sugar

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup butter

4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 cup peanut butter (crunchy or creamy...I prefer creamy)

3 cups quick cooking oats

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix the sugar, milk, butter and cocoa in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Let it boil for 1 1/2 minutes. Yes I said one and a half minutes! Any longer and the consistency is either too soft or too crumbly. Remove from heat and add oats, peanut butter and vanilla. Stir well and then pour onto wax paper or you can actually make it into real cookies by dropping it by the spoonful onto the wax paper. Let it cool and enjoy.

I myself can't help but set aside some of the mixture after I have poured it and eat it warm!! Yumm!

Sunflower Seed Cookies

Its ok to have cookies in the house! Really it is!

Roaming the aisles of the health food dept. of grocery stores is my 'thang'. Ok, maybe not really my 'thang' but I'm really into reading labels and trying new 'healthy' foods. I probably spend more time in that little corner of the store than I do shopping throughout the rest of the store but I've got to know what alternatives there are out there to the normal 'junk' I buy.

I'm slowly trying to wean myself and my family off all the 'junk' that's bad for us. We eat pretty well to begin with. I never fry anything. And we rarely ever have hamburgers and that at home(or anywhere come to think of it). I'de rather make sweets at home than buy already made ones. I never even buy french fries and try to avoid potato chips all together. On occasion I have been known to buy a bag of baked Ruffles and spicy bean dip! Yummy! But those times are pretty far and few between.

I've replaced 2% milk with skim, white bread to wheat(loving Sara Lee's Delightful Wheat), regular OJ for Simply Orange(we go through this like crazy with Felisha), sugar with Splenda(the only Truvia I can find is in packets for coffee....yuck), vegetable oil with natural canola(still trying to find a better replacement), white rice with brown (favorite being Uncle Ben's).....

Next up is the brown sugar(Splenda makes a brown sugar now), and a good wheat flour. I'm open for suggestions! And I'll be giving my two cents on our 'healthier' alternatives.


Back to the cookies! I believe these are local so I don't know where all you can find them. No ones really heard of them as they are found in the healthy side of the store! But they are de-lish! Even my kiddos love em!


















My main grocery store has been Hyvee for some time now. I never go to Walmart! Haven't step foot in one in about 8 months! For real! But I hit Sams Club all the time for milk and bread and fruit and that. I know! Really, I'm a Target girl at heart. But Hyvee is where I have been purchasing these yummies. Hyvee sometimes has little samples out that you can try and one bite of these and my shopping cart had cookies!