Chocolate Peanut Cookies

Since Ryan has been at college, Mark announced that he hates cake, pie, quick bread, and just about every confection save ice cream, brownies and cookies.  This is one cookie I made during this massive cold snap.  They were gone in a day, even with only 2"starving" gents to consume them.

CHOCOLATE PEANUT DROP COOKIES
adapted from the Red Plaid Cookbook

1/2 cup butter or margarine
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 egg whites or 1 egg
1 cup flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 tsp. vanilla extract
3 tbsp milk
1/2 cup chopped peanuts

Cream the butter and sugars; add the egg/egg white and beat until fluffy.  Stir together the flour, cocoa powder and baking soda, and add to the creamed mixture.  Add the vanilla and milk, and beat until smooth.  Stir in the peanuts.  Drop on greased cookie sheets and bake for 8 to 10 minutes.  I used my smallest cookie scoop, and so got about 4 dozen from this recipe.

Using margarine, nonfat milk and egg whites makes these cholesterol-free and heart healthy.  But even with real butter, they only contain 3mg of cholesterol per cookie if you use egg whites, so that's pretty healthy, right?  Still, I won't call these health food cookies.  They are not too sweet, more like a semi-sweet cookie, which is very nice.  I also didn't chop my peanuts much, because that's too much like work; I just fed them through the slicing blade of my food processor.  Naturally, my youngest fussbudget announced that he hates peanuts, and picked them out, but my dearly beloved consumed them like it was the end of the world.

My conclusion is that you all need to make these cookies this weekend!  And have a great weekend.