Granny’s Peanut Butter Chocolate No Bake Cookies
By Alison Wright
Granny’s Peanut Butter Chocolate No Bake Cookies
I love being in the kitchen making no bake cookies because it’s a recipe from my grandmother and when I make them I feel like she is still with me. Because of her I know how to make casseroles with “Cream of Anything” soup that I can find on my shelves. Like her, I love when my house smells clean. Thanksgiving dinner is my Super Bowl. Cooking, cleaning and taking care of my family is my happy place.
But some days I find myself wondering if I did enough, am enough. Shouldn’t I do more with my life, be more?
At what point did enough stop being enough?
One of the most influential people in my life was my grandmother. She didn’t make a ton of money, write novels or invent anything. She was never admired for her collections of jewelry or her large home. She worked a few different jobs to help support her family even though she never had a driver’s license, yet she was admired by me and almost everyone who met her.
My grandmother always wanted to feed you. Her house smelled of cinnamon and pinto beans, spaghetti and casseroles baking in her crisp, white, double wall oven. And her home, well it was spotless. She would read scriptures aloud and pray each night. She took great pride in her home and in her cooking and in her caring for those she most cared about.
She watched you eat and waited for you to tell her it was good. She asked what your “order” was as soon as you entered her home then she spent the next 45 minutes completing it and serving it and cleaning up afterwards. We came to expect this type of service at her house and she happily delivered.
My grandfather had a stroke early in life and it prevented his mobility. She loved and she cared and she cleaned and she loved some more. She closed her eyes when she laughed and she kept dirty dish rags hanging from her shoulder which she used frequently to wipe her food stained hands. She not only accepted her life as mother, wife, grandmother, sister and friend, she loved it.
If we were happy, she was happy. Enough was enough.
Today, I get to cook for my family and make cookies on nights when our favorite show is on. I decorate Christmas trees and would be mortified if you peeked under my couch (which probably needs to be cleaned again) I like the smell of detergent on my kid’s clothes and the feel of my husband’s ties as I lay them across the bed. I want my kids to grow up and know that their mom’s life was enough.
In fact, it’s more than enough.
It’s the single best gift I can be given to know that you think I melted the marshmallows just right on the sweet potato casserole or that my kids were the best behaved at the slumber party. Those things, those simple every day words are a direct result of me living a life I only once dreamed about while sitting in my grandmother’s kitchen watching her make chicken and dumplings and thinking about how she was more than enough. And hoping that one day I would be just like her.
Alison at her Grandmother’s house.
Granny’s Peanut Butter Chocolate No Bake Cookies
1.5 cups sugar
1/2 cup milk
¼ cup butter
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
2/3 cup smooth peanut butter
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
Bring the sugar, milk, butter and cocoa to a boil in a medium saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally, then let boil for 1 minute. Remove from the heat. Add the oats, peanut butter, vanilla and salt, and stir to combine
Drop by teaspoonful onto the prepared baking sheet, and let sit at room temperature until cooled and hardened, about 30 minutes.
Bio-Alison Wright is a work from home educator, wife and mom of two daughters. She has been in the education field since she was 18 and currently works as an online English teacher. Born in Tennessee she has grit mixed with smarts and sass. She hopes you enjoy her thoughts about life, wife, mom and being southern.
You can find Alison on Facebook.
