Peanut Butter No-Bake Cookies

These are some of my favorite cookies, and it's so hard to find a recipe that doesn't include chocolate!  I hope you enjoy them.

Marsha's Peanut Butter No-Bake Cookies

Ingredients:

• 2 cups sugar
• 1/4 cup butter (not margarine)
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 3 cups quick-cooking oats 

Directions:

1. In a heavy sauce pan over medium-high heat, constantly stir and combine sugar, butter, milk and salt.  
2. Bring to a rolling boil and boil for one minute.  
3. Turn off heat and add peanut butter and vanilla.  Finally stir in the oats.  
4. Working quickly, drop by spoonfuls onto wax paper lined cookies sheets and place in the fridge to set-up.  Makes two cookies sheets full.

Marsha's Notes:

I like to break mine up into little pieces and sprinkle over yogurt instead of granola. Also, I find the cookies have a better consistency with real butter, as opposed to margarine. Margarine doesn't harden right and makes the cookies oily.

Alternatively, I have also used this recipe:

Marsha's Peanut Butter No-Bake Cookies (Take Two)

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup butter (not margarine)
• 3/4 cup flour
• 2/3 cup evaporated milk
• 2 or 2 1/2 cups quick-cooking oats
• 2/3 cup peanut butter (creamy or chunky)
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/4 tsp salt

Directions:

1. In a saucepan, combine sugar, butter, flour, and milk. 
2. Bring to a full rolling boil and cook for 3 minutes, stirring constantly! 
3. Remove from heat and add remaining ingredients all at once. Blend well. 
4. Drop by spoonfuls onto wax paper. Cool completely before serving or storing. Makes 24 cookies.

Marsha's Notes:
One 12 oz can of evaporated milk makes a double batch if you want to use the whole can (i.e. 48 cookies). I also like to add my oats during the last minute of the boiling process to help them soften up just a bit. Sometimes the oats can be a little crunchy if you don't cook them for just a minute or so. When I don't have evaporated milk on hand, I prefer to use the first recipe listed in this post.

These cookies are also great with a drizzle of melted chocolate on top, as you can't really add chocolate chips very well without them melting.

Using my 2-inch cookie scoop made quick work of scooping out equal-sized cookies.