Oatmeal Fudgies

Ok, so these are probably nothing too original, but I swear they originated with my family! I remember the first time I had them. Aunt Jodie brought them to our house for Christmas when I was probably around 6. We were spending a lot of time after all the present-opening festivities watching old 8mm home movies on the projector in the living room. I remember getting up over and over to grab another one of these amazing little blobs of deliciousness and being so pleasantly surprised that no one was telling me "that's enough." Maybe they didn't notice or maybe they just figured it was Christmas so I could make myself sick if I wanted to!

One of the reasons I'm convinced this recipe belongs to my family is because even though it seems like a pretty common recipe, I've never been to a potluck or anything where someone else has brought these. The other reason is because Gramma gave me a 1968 fundraiser cook book for the Stonington, Rhode Island Pee Wee Football League that had lots of recipes in it submitted by our family, and what recipe was in it but ... "Peanut Butter No-Bake Cookies!" Ok, so not exactly the same name, but it's really the same hand written recipe from my mom entitled, ... "Boiled Cookies." So what the heck? Where did we get the name Oatmeal Fudgies? That's definitely what they're called, we certainly never called them "Boiled Cookies" for goodness sakes! Gross!

When I moved out I sort of treated these cookies like granola bars. They were quick and easy to make, filled me up, and satisfied the chocolate craving I seem to always have. They're full of oatmeal, so that means they're healthy, right? Because I didn't always have "baking ingredients" on hand, I figured out how to make them using every conceivable substitution. Every time I make these I always think I need to experiment with a new batch using less sugar and/or more oatmeal, but so far I haven't. Someday.

For now they've become the thing that I crave whenever we're going camping, which causes me to procrastinate the actual PACKING so I can make a batch of these to take. Because I will NEED them. For breakfast. And basically all day. I've also found that if I add a lot of nuts to them or use big steel cut oats, the kids pretty much let me have them all. Muah-Hah-Hah-Hah!

Oatmeal Fudgies

Pour 3 cups Oatmeal in a large bowl along with 1/2 - 1 cup nuts (if desired.)

Pre-measure 1/2 cup Peanut Butter (Chunky is great!)

In a saucepan on the stove, combine:
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cube butter (1/4 pound or 4 Tbsp.)
3 Tbsp. (1/4 cup) Cocoa (or 1.5 oz squares) (you can also omit the chocolate and sugar and just use chocolate chips)
Bring these 4 ingredients to a hard boil for 1 minute. Remove from heat. Quickly add Peanut Butter and 1 tsp Vanilla. As soon as it's pretty much mixed up, pour in Oatmeal. Mix it all up and drop by tsp. onto waxed paper. Let stand 1/2 hour until hardened. (Yeah, right.)