Peanut Butter Cookies!

It's important to me to have a sizable repertoire of low-fuss awesomely good recipes.  Also, when I find something I like, my devotion and loyalty are like nothing else on earth. 

Enter what is perhaps the ONLY peanut butter cookie recipe I will ever use for the rest of my life.

These cookies turned out so good, I have no reason to experiment with unknowns.  I'll let you head over to Simply Recipes for the recipe, which I made verbatim with no deviations* like I do when I'm cooking.  It has all the hallmarks of being a good recipe - it is exactly what you'd expect a Peanut Butter Cookie recipe to be, and if you're any kind of baker, you will already have the ingredients on hand.  If you don't already have all the ingredients on hand, add them to your "Things I Should Always Have on Hand In My Kitchen" grocery list.

Enjoy!

*I ended up refrigerating the dough for 12 hours because I was too tired last night after making Black Bean Burgers and Spinach Rice Casserole.

Easy Macoroni and Cheese

Back in my "days of yore" (single, living alone for the first time, 2007ish), macaroni and cheese was one of the first things I chose to learn to cook.

Until I recently discovered how to make a roux, or cheese reduction sauce, this cheesy heart attack of a meal was my go-to-recipe when I could afford all the dairy it calls for!

I didn't note down the original source of this recipe, but when I googled the aptly named "Triple Cheese Mac Attack" I found one reference to a yahoo foods recipe at a site called 'strong and healthy living'

"Triple Cheese Mac Attack"
2 cups cottage cheese
1 cup sour cream
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon salt
Garlic salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 cups extra-sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
½ cup Swiss cheese, shredded
1 (7-ounce) package elbow macaroni, cooked and drained

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large mixing bowl, combine cottage cheese, sour cream, egg, salt, garlic salt, and black pepper. Add cheddar and Swiss cheeses and blend well. Cook macaroni as directed on package and drain well.

Add cooked macaroni to cheese mixture and blend until well coated. Add macaroni mixture to a greased 2- or 2½-quart baking dish and bake, uncovered, for 25-30 minutes.

My changes
If I have ricotta on hand, I'll use some of that instead of cottage cheese.  I add 1 Tbsp of Sriracha, and use garlic powder instead of garlic salt.  You can leave out the swiss if you don't have any.

I love this recipe because you pretty much just throw everything together.  Since it's just cooked noodles with a lot of cheese, it's also hard to mess up this recipe.