Happy Mothers Day--No-Bake Cookies

My five-year-old is dramatic. Sometimes it drives me up the wall and other times I just have to laugh. Because he says the funniest darn things when he's mad. Here are a few of my favorites:
"I want you to give up, Mommy. Just give up!"
"I'm doooomed! Doooomed!"
"When I have kids I'm not going to treat them like this."
"I don't want to spend the rest of my life in this puny little room!"
"Mommy, put the rear-view mirror down. I want you to see how sad you've made me."
Good grief. And then there are the good days, when he says the most beautiful things. Like when I was watching Julia Roberts and Javier Bardem in Eat, Pray, Love and he said, "Is that you and Daddy?" Why, yes. Yes, it is.

I've baked with Linc since he was a baby. I propped his little vibrating seat up on the counter (sans vibrations) and talked to him while I worked. As he got older he moved to a chair or stool and got his own apron and chef's hat. But lately he's lost interest. He's moving on to big boy things I guess, like soccer and science and video games. Then the other day he looked at me and said, "Mommy, can we bake cookies together again?" We spent the next half hour, side-by-side, talking while we worked. He's big enough now to help measure out the ingredients and stir the pot under my careful watch.

While we waited for the cookies to cool on the parchment paper, we played a game of Trouble and washed the dishes in the sink together. These are the times when I remember that cooking is about more than nutrition and calories and dirty dishes. Cooking is about shared memories and spending time with the ones we love.

Happy Mother's Day, ya'll!

No-Bake Cookies

Makes 2 dozen

3 Tb cocoa

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

1 Tb vanilla

3 cups oats

1.) In a saucepan on low to medium heat, combine the cocoa, sugar, milk and butter. Stir until cooked and the sugar disolves. It won't sound or feel gritty anymore and all the butter will be melted. This is probably the most important part of this simple process. If you don't let the sugar cook long enough you'll have gritty, sugary cookies instead of chocolate peanut butter fudge coated oat cookies.

2.)Remove from heat. Add in the peanut butter and vanilla and stir until the peanut butter is melted.

3.) Stir in the oats until well coated. We use whole oats instead of the quick oats but both will probably work well.

4.) Spoon out the dough onto wax or parchment paper and let cool at room temperature for about half an hour. Cookies will set and be easy to remove from the paper without crumbling when they're ready.