Peanut Butter and Dark Chocolate Cookies

Do you remember that stupid sappy movie from the '70s "Love Story" where Ali McGraw tells Ryan O'Neal that "Love means never having to say you're sorry"? Well she was wrong. Duh. But love means constantly saying your sorry.

For example you may find yourself one evening reading a book, like We Need to Talk About Kevin, and then you suddenly find yourself saying things like "I'm so sorry my darling husband who never used up a box of bandaids before meeting me, that my streak of athletic ineptness and general accident prone-ness has rubbed off on you. I'm sorry that I pushed you to find outlets for your frustration with starting your own business, and that I encouraged you to go and play raquetball." This sort of thing will then continue as you say, "I'm sorry I can't avoid all the potholes on the 2 mile journey to the ER and I really don't mean to make this such a bumpy drive." And on into the night as you helplessly say, "I'm sorry I don't know how to make you more comfortable, I have experience with all kinds of injuries, but when it comes to shoulders I know squat."

So yes, love means having to say you're sorry. A lot. After a mostly sleepless night, the only good thing was I finished my book. I recommend it. And the Brain is finally just now starting to dose on and off. It was necessary for me to throw my lenten resolution of not eating sweets right out the window. Whoo. I made it almost one whole day. Usually I'm way better at this giving things up for lent thing.

I made these luciously rich and tasty Peanut Butter and Dark Chocolate Cookies. They're a decadent dark chocolate cookie with just a hint of peanut butter that are studded with semi-sweet chocolate chips and peanut butter chips. The inspiration came after reading Peabody's blog about Peanut Butter World Peace Cookies, but I wanted something chewier. The first time I made them, the next morning I had 7 for breakfast and promptly packed them up and took them over to my friends at Catholic Charities. The lovely ladies at Catholic Charities have become my dumping ground for baked goods. They don't seem to mind. Although rumor has it there was a skirmish when it came to the last cookie in the bag. Fortunately about half of these cookies will go to another friend of the Brain and I who just had his knee replaced. So we'll only have to contend with half of these oh so delicious little addictive morsels. Perhaps they should be called crack cookies...

Peanut Butter and Dark Chocolate Cookies

an original recipe

2 cups all purpose flour

3/4 cups Hershey Special Dark Cocoa

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup butter

1/4 cup peanut butter

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

1 bag peanut butter chips

1/2 bag chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Stir together flour, cocoa, soda and salt in medium mixing bowl. Beat butter, peanut butter, and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well. Gradually add flour mixture, beating well. Stir in chips.

Drop by rounded teaspoonfull (or small cookie scoop) onto cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake 8 to 9 minutes. Do not overbake. Cookies will be sort. They puff while baking and flatten upon cooling. Cool slightly then remove from cookie sheet to cool completely on wire rack.