No Bake Deliciousness

Do you ever have one of those cravings? The I have to have something sweet and there is nothing in the house kind of craving? I get those a lot, yesterday I ran out of milk, which meant I only got one cup of my amazing coffee. I normally drink two or three, yes I know how addicted I am.  I really wanted more but not badly enough to drag my five children to the grocery store. I will not go to the grocery store with the kids unless I have a long list, there is not one thing I ever need badly enough for that hassle.

So instead I channeled my coffee craving into a general sweets craving. I didn't want to spend time baking, and there was definitely not any pre made baked yumminess in the house. So naturally I went to Pinterest and decided to do a search for "no bake". I found a ton of cheesecake recipes that didn't really work with my list of ingredients in the house. I was looking for something with a little more ease and only pantry ingredients.

So i found these Oatgasm: No Bake Pumpkin Oatmeal Bites and these looked really good, but I didn't want to wait for them to chill before eating. So I will be making and raving about these in the future I am sure, But I decided on this peanut butter variation of my mom's Chocolate Haystacks.

This is my mom's chocolate haystack recipe, she always has a batch in the freezer (where my mom keeps all her baked goods) during the holiday season.

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup cocoa
• Dash of salt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla

     melted on the stovetop
stir in

• 3 cups quick oats
• 1 cup unsweetened coconut

   drop teaspoonfuls onto a parchment lined cookie sheet and chill until firm

Eat the yummy amazingness. My husbands mom has a similar recipe that she calls "moose poop."  Yeah I really don't get that.

Anyway I don't particularly like peanut butter, I eat it maybe once a year, and I tend to abhor the peanut butter ruining delicious chocolate foods. But for some reason unbeknown to me I decided to try this Peanut Butter Oat Ball Recipe I of course changed it to fit my needs. I left out the chia seeds (because I didn't have any) and I doubled the chocolate chips and omitted the honey, figuring it would hold together the same and be a little more chocolatey. I also started eating them before chilling. Anyway I ate one and it was pretty good considering it had peanut butter in it, but then I remembered that I don't really like peanut butter and so i scooped out the rest of them, chilled for fifteen minutes in the freezer and gave them to the kids after dinner.

They were a huge hit, the kids loved getting dessert (which is not a regular after dinner event in our house) and they don't have the peanut butter hang up I have.