Bonnie Brown: Everyone Complains about Cafeteria Food

Everyone complains about cafeteria food.  Especially hospital cafeteria food. And the kids complain about the food offered in their school cafeteria. I get that.  But I fondly remember that most of the food served in the cafeteria of my elementary school was delicious. Nowadays, school cafeterias seem to subscribe to the motto of “if it tastes good, spit it out, it ain’t good for you.”  After all, there has been a lot of effort made to plan nutritious meals in an effort to curb obesity. But we all know that school children want food that tastes good.
One of my favorites in my school cafeteria was the peanut butter cookies.  So yummy! But then I like everything and anything that contains peanut butter.  It is sad that so many children have peanut allergies that can be life-threatening so always be mindful of that.  
Another favorite of my school cafeteria offering was the chili, and along with the chili was a peanut butter sandwich.   It was a little grainy so I suspect they added sugar. But if you haven’t had a peanut butter sandwich along with your chili, I recommend that you give it a try.  And, a little different spin on chili is to put it over spaghetti noodles. This is Cincinnati-style chili which contains cumin. Years ago, a good friend served this and I was surprised at how delicious it was.  Of course, she was from Cincinnati and that city is known for its chili.
So back to the peanut butter cookies.  A couple of years ago, I was skimming through Facebook, my new recipe locator, and found a recipe for peanut butter cookies that used cake mix.  It sounded simple and had few ingredients. That’s what I consider a good recipe—simple and few ingredients so I gave it a try. The recipe made a large batch but tasted much like cardboard.  I was disappointed. So back to the drawing board. I found another recipe, not quite as simple and more ingredients. Those cookies were better than the cake mix recipe but still not very flavorful.  Another search turned up a recipe by Martha Stewart. I often shy away from her recipes because they call for ingredients/spices that I don’t have on hand and are sometimes hard to find in the grocery stores.  More importantly, her recipes aren’t that simple to prepare. But I saw that the recipe called for 6 ingredients, all of which I had on hand and it seemed pretty simple so I gave it a try. So glad I did! The cookies were delicious.  Here’s the Martha Stewart recipe for peanut butter cookies.
Martha Stewart’s easy peanut butter cookies
https://www.marthastewart.com/892348/easy-peanut-butter-cookies
INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1 large egg
• 1 cup sugar, plus more for sprinkling
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (optional)
• 1/4 teaspoon coarse salt

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together peanut butter, egg, sugar, baking soda, vanilla, if using, and salt until well combined.
3. Using a 1 3/4-inch scoop, scoop dough onto prepared baking sheet, spacing 2 inches apart. Using the tines of a fork, gently press down on each scoop in a crosshatch pattern. Sprinkle with sugar and transfer baking sheet to oven. Bake until slightly puffed, 11 to 12 minutes. Cookies will still be soft. Let cool for 5 minutes. Carefully transfer cookies to a wire rack and let cool completely.

I do not use a paddle attachment, just my regular beaters.  And I don’t use a scoop either. Nor do I transfer them to a wire rack.  I just leave them on the cookie sheet to cool. The finished cookie is about 2-3 inches in diameter and this recipe yields about 3 dozen.

Peanut Butter Cookies

Bonnie Brown is a retired staff member of the University of Mississippi. She most recently served as Mentoring Coordinator for the Ole Miss Women’s Council for Philanthropy.
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