Over the past couple of years, I have been more conscious of using ingredients that I already have on hand at home instead of buying more food at the grocery store.

This forces me to get creative with food items I have in my fridge, freezer, and pantry. It also helps me to save money.

The other day, I was eyeing a bag of peanuts in my freezer. They had been there for at least six months. I didn’t want to just eat them (boring!) and couldn’t for the life of me come up with a recipe using peanuts. Then I had an idea:

What if I made peanut butter out of the peanuts, then used that peanut butter to make peanut butter cookies?

I did just that, and ended up with a batch of yummy peanut butter cookies that tasted like regular peanut butter cookies – but perhaps a bit more nutty. I added chocolate chips, upping the yum factor even more.

So will I make them this way again? Most definitely. Like I said, there wasn’t a huge taste difference, but I loved the novelty of making my own peanut butter and enjoyed the slightly nuttier taste. The cookies also turned out a little flatter than the usual peanut butter cookie.

More Cookie Recipes

• The New York Times chocolate chip cookies
• Sweet Martha’s copycat cookies (from the Minnesota State Fair)
• Epic monster cookies (with lots of M&M’s)

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Peanut Butter Cookies With Homemade Peanut Butter

Yield: 3 dozen cookies

Prep Time: 12 minutes

Cook Time: 8 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Feel free to use salted, dry roasted, honey roasted, or unsalted peanuts for this recipe. If you use unsalted peanuts, you may want to add a bit more salt to the cookie dough.

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Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups peanuts, or enough to make 1 cup of peanut butter (see notes above)
• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs, well beaten
• 2 1/4 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Place peanuts in a food processor and pulse until the consistency is smooth. Measure out 1 cup of peanut butter to use in the recipe.
2. Preheat oven to 350F. Cream butter and sugar. Add 1 cup of peanut butter and beat well. Add eggs, then dry ingredients that have been sifted together. Add vanilla and chocolate chips. Mix well and shape into balls. Press down with a fork.
3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, or until lightly golden brown.

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