Peanut butter & chocolate chip cookies and when diets go bad

Everything in moderation.  Including moderation. ~ Unknown

Maybe it's something to do with eating really healthily for the last little bit to fit into my wedding dress or maybe it's to do with the self restraint required for not eating cookies for the whole of Lent but in the last week I've been back up in Auckland, I've basically eaten my weight in food.  I'm eating like it's going out of fashion.

A mere 3 weeks before my wedding and I've gone from a Wedding Diet to a See Food And Eat It Diet.

I kid you not, in the last week we've eaten at Sri Mahkota, Sun World, Canton Cafe, and Muse and at each and every meal I've eaten until it hurt to move: slow braised pork belly, steamed garlic prawns, beef brisket noodle soup, crispy fried chicken, soy honey lamb chops, shallots chicken, four seasons beans.  While the rest of the table are already clutching their bellies in fullness, I'd still be shoveling food in my mouth.  Need a dish finished off? No worries, pass it to Nessie.

Not to mention the pies-ing I've been doing at home: I've single-handedly demolished a whole 1.5 kilograms of greek yoghurt with a whole bottle of kithul treacle from Sri Lanka, made and eaten a whole stack of cinnamon oat pancakes smothered in golden syrup and then a massive batch of butter chicken and hoovered up almost half a batch of these Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Cookies.  They're gluten free, so simple to make you could make them with one hand tied behind your back and SO addictive you too will have trouble not eating all the dough even before it hits the oven.

Who ate all the cookies in the cookie jar? Nessie ate all the cookies in the cookie jar.

Oh self restraint, why have you abandoned me???

The wedding diet really didn't stand a chance against these cookies.  Someone once said just give Nessie a jar of peanut butter and she'll be happy.  They were totally right - I am nuts about peanut butter.  Sweet and salty and peanutty. I could eat it by the spoonful.

The lack of self control was also not helped by the fact that these cookies are so darn simple to make: 5 ingredients: peanut butter, sugar, vanilla, an egg and choc chips, just mix in a bowl, bake and BOOM you have cookies.  That's it.  Blink and you've missed me making them.  

I've been making these cookies for ages, it was love at first sight when I saw them wee treats by tammy who in turn got the recipe from the legendary Bakerella.  They've become my go-to cookie recipe when I need to whip baking up in a hurry.  Or just when I'm craving cookies.  These puppies are dangerously delicious and so addictive I'm making my second batch this week.

Wedding diet will have to start next week.

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes around 30 mini cookies and around 18 - 20 normal sized cookies

recipe tweaked from Bakerella

250g (~1 cup) peanut butter (you can use smooth or crunchy but I prefer crunchy for the peanutty bits)
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 cup chocolate drops/chocolate chips

1.  Preheat oven to 160oC.  Line two baking trays.  In a large bowl, beat the peanut butter, vanilla, sugar and egg.  Stir in the chocolate chips.

2.  Roll giant gobstopper sized balls of dough and flatten ever so slightly.  Bake for 16 -18 minutes until lightly golden.  Refrigerate the rest of the dough while you are baking each tray. 

3. Cool on the tray for 2 minutes before cooling completely on a wire rack. Store in an airtight container for up to 3-4 days.  You will be lucky if there are any left by day 1.