No Bake Cookies

My husband and I share a big vise.  That vise is sweets.  We just love cookies and cake and brownies and candy and ice cream and whatever else is full of sugar!  The biggest thing for us is chocolate!  Cocoa powder is as basic an ingredient around our house as is flour or milk!  We're slowly working on keeping this in check, and we eat pretty healthy in every other way (whole wheat bread, brown rice, lots of veggies, very little salt or fat) and we're working on making our homemade sweets healthier by adding beans instead of butter in most cases, but this post isn't about being healthy, it's about comfort food.
Since store bought sweets can get pretty pricey, we opt to make our own.  Generally this involves baking for the kinds of sweets we really get into.  When we were living in the motel, it had a little kitchenette, which we were very grateful for.  It had two burners, a microwave, and a fridge.  But nothing that could be used to bake.  This was a very stressful time for us, with my hubby recovering from brain surgery, no income, living off our tax return in a little motel, feeling like things hadn't gone anywhere close to the way we'd hoped.  So when we'd put the kids to bed we'd want to do something to relax.  Not much you can do in a motel room.  So one day we said, hey, let's make something sweet!  Brownies....no, no oven, cookies....same problem......cake......hmmmmm.  We took out one of the few cookbooks we had kept wen we moved and looked through it and found a recipe for no bake cookies.  It became our regular treat while we were there, the only sweet we could think to make to forget the hard time we were going through.  We don't do it much anymore, since we have an oven now, but when we do it's very nostalgic!

No Bake Cookies

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
2 cups sugar
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup milk
1/3 cup peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups oatmeal

Melt butter in sauce pan.  Add milk, sugar, and cocoa.  Mix well.  Heat to boiling (I keep it on medium heat, it may take a little longer, but it prevents a burnt taste) stirring regularly.  Boil for one minute.  Remove from heat.  Add peanut butter, stir in until melted (you don't have to, but it prevents clumps) add vanilla and oatmeal.  Stir well.  Scoop onto plates with a tablespoon.  You can also do wax paper or aluminum foil, but we like to use reusable things.
use stirring spoon to carefully lick the pan, be careful, it's hot.
Try to wait until the cookies cool.  At least wait until they aren't scalding hot anymore before you have 5 or 6.  Give your husband at least one plate of cookies and some milk.  If there are any left, save them in an air tight container and give to your kids the next day after they eat their breakfast, but only give them one each and make a big deal out of it so they will feel special!