chewy peanut butter cookies

I recently swapped cookbooks with my neighbour Daphne - I borrowed her Get It Ripe: A Fresh Take on Vegan Cooking and Living in exchange for my fave Grazing: Portable Snacks and Finger Food for Anytime, Anywhere. Great idea right?!

Now for the record I'm not vegan, but as I was flipping through the pages I decided to challenge myself to a week of no meat. It was so inspiring to see all of these veggie recipes that I just had to give some of them a try. I kept fish on the menu because I'm still nursing L'il E and I think I would fall over and die if I went exclusively veg. So it's been two weeks and I'm still challenging myself (I'm loving it actually). This won't be a forever thing, but for now it's a right now thing and I'm feeling great.

Anyway, back to the cookbook; it was recommended that I try the recipe for chewy peanut butter cookies and they are ah-mazing! No sugar or butter = no guilt (right?!). Try them yourself!

You'll need:

• 2 cups spelt flour (I used 1 cup white and 1 cup whole wheat)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup natural peanut butter
• 1 cup maple syrup
• 1/3 cup olive oil (I know weird, but you can't taste it)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract (I'm out so didn't use it)
• 1/3 cup chopped peanuts (didn't have any, but it's optional)
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips (a must!)

Then you:

1. Preheat oven to 350F
2. Whisk flour, salt and baking soda together. Mix in the peanut butter, syrup, oil and vanilla until you don't see anymore flour. Fold in peanuts and chocolate chips.
3. Drop spoonfuls of batter onto an ungreased cookie sheet and press down on them gently with a fork.
4. Bake for 12 minutes and let cool.

Yummy and guilt-free!