We share a modest but scrumptious family recipe this week: no-bake cookies made of peanut butter, oatmeal and cocoa.
The cookies were originally called "Oatmeal Candy" but that's a lame name that doesn't accurately describe what you are making. Sometime many years ago, our family renamed the cookies. We call them "Glop". Why glop? Because that's kind of what it looks like.
Grandma cooked glop for Mom in the early 1960s in Florida. Mom cooked glop for my brother and sister and me in the '80s in Orange County. And tonight you, too, can give glop a try.
Ingredients
1 stick butter (or margarine)
3 C instant oatmeal
2 C sugar
1/2 C peanut butter
1/2 C milk
1 t vanilla
4 T cocoa
Directions: "Place butter and milk in a saucepan. Add sugar and cocoa. Bring to a rolling boil. Keep stirring and add oatmeal. Remove from heat. Add peanut butter and vanilla. Mix well. Drop by spoonfuls on wax papper on a cookie sheet. Cool in the fridge."
Mom says the key to making glop cookies is to melt the sugar completely before you add the oatmeal. So take your time on step two.
"If you cook them correctly, they glisten," Mom says. "If you cook them incorrectly, they're grainy. When they're glossy, they're smooth and chewy and you just can't stop eating them!"
So, yeah, glop cookies look weird and even slightly gross, but they taste hella wonderful. Serve them with a large glass of milk.