Feeling Mortal Today, So Here's My Favorite Cookie Recipe!

My Aunt Kay found (or was it her daughter, my cousin Rae?) this cookie recipe for my cousin Peter who would not eat anything without peanut butter on/in it.  (Note: Peter was a grown, married man dentist!) Aunt Kay wanted to make those wildly popular chocolate chip cookies, but Peter wouldn't eat them! Thus: Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip Cookies! I've been making them about 40 years, probably. In the 90's I started pressing the dough into a pan (did I do it first, or did Michael's grandma?), and in 1993 my friend Gretchen exclaimed, "Oh, look: they have little love handles on them!" So the pan version are called "Love Handles." I still prefer actual cookies, though.
Oh: Michael's grandma also added oatmeal to them, GOOD CALL!! Her daughter Linda told me the older Grandma got, the less salt and sugar she'd put in the recipe to make it healthier...lol!

One more story: my best friend Karen immortalized these cookies by including the recipe in the QuikTrip cookbook in Tulsa over 20 years ago. She called them, "My Friend Patty's Cookies!" The bad news is, she got the recipe wrong--half was double-batch, half was single!  Makes for a good story... :-)

AUNT KAY'S PEANUT BUTTER-CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

AKA "LOVE HANDLES"

—Patty Rieman

Combine: (as my hands develop arthritis with age, I've come to use an electric mixer)

1 cup stick margarine or butter, softened is easier
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
½ -3/4 cup peanut butter (more is better, I prefer creamy)

Combine, then add:
3 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
½ to 1 cup uncooked quick oats

Then add:

Semi-sweet chocolate chips, larger size (12 oz?) Chunks are best, or M & M’s work, too.

 Spread the entire bowl of dough in a 13 x 9 ungreased baking pan. Bake for app. 30 min. at 350 on center rack.  You may also bake as cookies, app. 11-12 min. for walnut-sized balls on ungreased cookie sheet.

100 Favorite Books--I'm up to 72!

(Note to self: next time, use Excel so that you can see right away if you're repeating yourself!! :-))  ***I've decided to put asterisks by the ones for adults.

A friend commented recently that he'd enjoy seeing a list of my 100 favorite books. Challenge accepted! So far, I've been able to name 60. Thank goodness I don't have to prioritize them... Here's what I have so far; it's a lot harder than I anticipated. I don't want to just list books I remember reading and liking--I want ones that matter, or that bring back the best memories, or that I never wanted to end.

1. The Bean Trees--Kingsolver ***
2. To Kill A Mockingbird--Lee
3. A Wrinkle in Time--L'Engle
4. Bud, not Buddy--Curtis
5. The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963--Curtis
6. The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder--Wells ***
7. Unwind, Unwholly, Unsouled (and probably Undivided when it finally comes out!)--Shusterman
8. The Accidental Tourist (Tyler) ***
9. Breathing Lessons-(Tyler) ***
10. Tangerine--Edward Bloor
11. The Prince of Tides--Pat Conroy ***
12. The Book Thief--Zusak
13. Island of the Blue Dolphins--O'Dell
14. The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew--Sidney
15. The Cay--Taylor
16. The Boxcar Children--Warren
17. Travels With Charley --Steinbeck
18. Little Women--Alcott
19. Eight Cousins--Alcott
20. Kinsey Millhone collection--Grafton ***
21. Scarpetta collection--Cornwell ***
22. Stephanie Plum collection--Evanovich ***
23. The Secret Life of Bees--Kidd ***
24. The Language of Flowers--Diffenbaugh ***
25. The Hunger Games trilogy--Collins
26. Make Lemonade trilogy--Wolff
27. Harry Potter, especially #1 & 7--Rowling
28. Witness--Hesse
29. The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate--Kelly
30. Bittersweet--Spencer ***
31. Waiting to Exhale--McMillan ***
32. What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day--Cleage ***
33. Hattie Big Sky--Larson
34. A Light in the Attic--Silverstein
35. Where the Sidewalk Ends--Silverstein
36. That Quail, Robert!--Stanger
37. The Great Gilly Hopkins--Patersen
38. Long Way from Chicago--Peck
39. The Mitford Series--Karon
40. A Time to Kill--Grisham ***
41. Tom Sawyer--Twain
42. The Green Mile--King ***
43. Bingo--Brown ***
44. The Napping House--Wood
45. Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day--Viorst
46. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry--Taylor
47. All Creatures Great and Small--Herriot
48. Cannery Row--Steinbeck
49. Will Grayson-Will Grayson--Green & Levithan
50. Charlotte's Web--White
51. The BFG--Dahl
52. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe--Lewis
53. Far From the Madding Crowd--Hardy
54. Christy--Marshall
55. The Poisonwood Bible--Kingsolver ***
56. Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes--Crutcher
57. Whale Song--Crutcher
58. The poetry book Grandma gave me when I was 5
59. The Joy of Cooking
60. Betty Crocker Cookbook

          61.   Anne of Green Gables--Montgomery 

           62.  Becoming Naomi Leon-Ryan

           63.  Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten--Fulghum

           64.  Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (Archambault, Martin, & Ehlert)

           65.  Skinjacker Trilogy (Everlost, Everwild, Everfound)--Shusterman

           66.  Bruiser--Shusterman

           67.  The Phantom Tollbooth--Juster & Feiffer

           68.  The Search for Delicious--Babbitt

           69.  Tuck Everlasting--Babbitt

           70.  Rascal--North

           71.  Any Small Goodness--Johnston
         72. The Anna Papers--Gilchrist ***