So, I know I promised to mostly make healthy recipes. I will *mostly* stick to that, but I had been eating pretty wholesomely the last week or so, so I feel like I can treat myself and my friends to some homemade no-bake cookies without too many consequences. This recipe has been passed down for at least two generations on my mom’s side of the family, and I’m not sure entirely where this specific recipe originated. You can find tons of no-bake cookie recipes online since they have mainly the same ingredients, but there’s something different about these cookies that makes you feel like you have your own piece of heaven. I’ve attempted some other recipes and they don’t come close to what these ones taste like.
Stress level: 5/10
Yield: 20ish cookies
Time: 30 minutes
Here’s the recipe before I become a typical food blog poster and tell my entire life story:
2 cups granulated sugar
½ cup dry cocoa powder
½ cup milk
1 stick butter
¾ cup peanut butter (or ½ HEAPING cup)
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 ½ cups of dry quick oats
Directions:
Stress level: 5/10
Yield: 20ish cookies
Time: 30 minutes
Here’s the recipe before I become a typical food blog poster and tell my entire life story:
2 cups granulated sugar
½ cup dry cocoa powder
½ cup milk
1 stick butter
¾ cup peanut butter (or ½ HEAPING cup)
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 ½ cups of dry quick oats
Directions:
- Lay out about 3 feet of wax paper on a counter or table
- Combine sugar, dry cocoa powder, and milk into a large saucepan and stir constantly until it reaches a “rolling boil” for 60 seconds (AKA lots of giant bubbles bubbling up everywhere and expanding the liquid so that after a minute, it looks like you have double what you started with)
- Remove from heat and stir in the stick of butter until it is fully combined
- Stir in the peanut butter and the vanilla extract
- Stir in the quick oats until well incorporated
- Drop by tablespoonful’s (or how ever big you’d like) onto the wax paper
- Let dry at room temperature for an hour to solidify
This is actually a very easy and quick recipe, yet effective in its ability to take your mind off of other things that are going on. Pretty much all you’re doing in this recipe is constantly stirring and watching for the liquid to boil, but it is what I like to consider a mindful task. It is a very simple thing that you can easily forget about, but by focusing on all aspects of what you are doing, you feel stress dissipate. In this recipe, I focused on the subtle ways the chocolate was changing, how it smelled different, how it felt when I stirred it, and how I constantly had to be moving the sugar to prevent it from burning. Mindfulness is a great relaxation technique, and I have found it apply to cooking very nicely. By practicing mindfulness often, you can become more aware of your surroundings and tend to have a decreased level of stress.
This past week, our professors dove into the details of our classes and started teaching some content already. Syllabus week is always stressful because the professors like to tell you every single thing that we will accomplish this semester, but that is always overwhelming to me. I’ve especially been dreading my capstone class because I hate research projects and group projects in general. Because capstone is literally just those two things together, I knew it wasn’t going to be my favorite class in the world.
Luckily, I have a group that stays on top of deadlines and is proactive and thorough in our content. Still, though, hearing about the fact that we have to find time to do all the research, create an education project, present said education project, write a paper about our research and education, and then create a poster presentation is stressful. I do not consider myself a stress eater, but I definitely needed some cookies in my life.
After I made the cookies, I knew that class the next day was going to be fine. My professors have never flung us into any situation we were unprepared for, nor have they been unfair and secretive about deadlines. I have a hard-working group, and I am a very capable individual who has never had a problem accomplishing tasks or seeking help when I need it. I especially need to remember to be mindful of the whole picture and not worry too much over a project that is due far into the future. Everything always gets done, and life goes on. New stress level: 2/10.
This past week, our professors dove into the details of our classes and started teaching some content already. Syllabus week is always stressful because the professors like to tell you every single thing that we will accomplish this semester, but that is always overwhelming to me. I’ve especially been dreading my capstone class because I hate research projects and group projects in general. Because capstone is literally just those two things together, I knew it wasn’t going to be my favorite class in the world.
Luckily, I have a group that stays on top of deadlines and is proactive and thorough in our content. Still, though, hearing about the fact that we have to find time to do all the research, create an education project, present said education project, write a paper about our research and education, and then create a poster presentation is stressful. I do not consider myself a stress eater, but I definitely needed some cookies in my life.
After I made the cookies, I knew that class the next day was going to be fine. My professors have never flung us into any situation we were unprepared for, nor have they been unfair and secretive about deadlines. I have a hard-working group, and I am a very capable individual who has never had a problem accomplishing tasks or seeking help when I need it. I especially need to remember to be mindful of the whole picture and not worry too much over a project that is due far into the future. Everything always gets done, and life goes on. New stress level: 2/10.