Dessert by Any Other Name . . .

Lately we've been going to several different functions with church and family and so on. My wife has become popular for the cookies pictured here. They're basic and easy to make--although I don't make them myself. The recipe calls for a little cocoa, milk, sugar, vanilla extract, oatmeal, peanut butter. Mix all these up just right in a big pot and plop them out on some aluminum foil or parchment paper, and it's quite a treat.

Well, they're double "D"--delicious and dangerous! The "easy to make" part is a problem, and then there's the problem of how good they are just laid out on the and setting up. Pour a glass of milk and . . . Wow!

I fondly remember having these cookies in the lunchroom at Walnut School when I was in grades 1-8. And then, lo and behold, I marry a woman expert at making them.

I don't remember what we called them back then, but they're known by lots of names. One traditional name is no-bake cookies. Non-traditional names include cow patties. Of course, worse could be said about them and the way they look sort of like turds and come warm from the pot, but I try not to think in those terms.

When my younger son came along, he dubbed them "chocolate desserts," which is now my favorite name for them. My older granddaughter liked the smell and the basic taste, but she asked that there not be oatmeal or peanut butter. (Wouldn't that be something like fudge?) Anyway, her grandmama reduced the oatmeal to powder in a food processor and used creamy peanut butter instead of chunky. So, the taste remained and the texture became acceptable. My granddaughter wanted to have her own name for the new design, and so she dubbed them "chocolate mocolate"--a fine name for an almost five-year-old.

A couple of nights ago, my cousin was in town, and we wanted some chocolate dessert. A quick stop by the grocery (after band practice at church) to get some sugar and whole milk was all it took. I had a couple with milk and a couple with some red wine. (On the advice of a friend, I've discovered that chocolate and red wine are interesting together.) But I'm trying to lose weight, so the next night, when my wife was going to a meeting, she asked if I wanted her to take the chocolate dessert with her to get them out of the house. I said, "Yes!" They were a big hit at the meeting, and she came back empty-handed.

Thank goodness. (But she's due to make more for a gathering this Sunday afternoon!)