Travelin Cookies

We at A Book of Cookrye are going en voyage!

Traveling Cookies ½ cup peanut butter 1 cup sugar 1 tsp vanilla 1 egg 1 cup whole-wheat flour About 5 ounces blueberries, if desired Heat oven to 350°. Grease an 8" square or 9" round pan. Melt the peanut butter in a large bowl or in a saucepan. Stir in the sugar. Thoroughly beat in the egg and vanilla. Then mix in the flour. This will probably be very crumbly. Add the berries if desired. Spread and press into the pan (I find it easiest to press it out with my hands). Bake 13-20 minutes, or until the center springs back when lightly pressed. Cut while hot. Adapted from Betty Feezor's brownies

I can never get through an airport on the first attempt. I have been stranded, I've been bumped off flights, I've had my reservations disappear from computer systems, I've had freak storms ground all of the planes, and I've had the pilot turn the plane around and make everyone get back off. I don't feel safe until we're off the ground and too far away to loop back.

With that in mind, I always bring snacks when I travel. In my experience, dropping a fistful of granola bars into one's bag is absolutely not enough. So today, we're making something to tide oneself over in the event of an expected stranding.

We're starting with Betty Feezor's brownie recipe because it's hard to go wrong with brownies. I sometimes make them with peanut butter instead of chocolate. Half butter and half peanut butter give a good, fudgy texture. But today, we're using all peanut butter because it's vaguely better for you... I think.

Every recipe can teach you something new. Today, I learned to never melt peanut butter in a thin metal bowl over a gas burner. It scorches in 5 seconds, and you cannot stir it fast enough to save it. I also learned that burnt peanut butter smells exactly like popcorn. Someone wandered in the kitchen and actually asked "Do I smell popcorn in here?"

All right, let's try melting the peanut butter again. Because no one likes a scorcher of a recipe, we switched to the microwave.

This mess is why I only replace half the butter when I want a nice dessert. The recipe gets crumbly if you use straight peanut butter. But if you've been on the road for a while (or simply stuck in a bus terminal, or watching your flights get cancelled from an uncomfortable bench at the terminal) the full-peanut ones hit a lot better.

Now, we get to the next ingredient that makes these super healthy: whole wheat flour! I often use whole-wheat flour in brownies (chocolate or otherwise) without trying to delude my way to health. It adds a nutty undertone that goes great with chocolate. Today, it will also help us tell ourselves that we're making a healthy snack.

I know this looks like will end badly. But we're not going for an exquisite creations today. We want something that can provide sustenance and also get crammed into the bottom corner of a small bag.

We had to switch to a bowl that let us get both hands in there and force everything to mix.

To finish these off, we're going to dump in the last of the berries that were starting to prune up in the refrigerator. I figure that at this point, our bars are nutritionally about the same as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (excessive sugar included).

I know it looks like a mess in the pan. But it's a mess that will keep you going.

If we cut one after baking, you can see that they don't look as bad as you may think. The crumbly bits kind of melt and merge together into a dense semi-brownie sort of thing. They taste sort of like peanut butter cookies and fill you up quick. They're not bad on an ordinary day, but they really hit the spot when your travels have gone awry. In full disclosure, they are a bit messy to eat, so you should definitely put a few napkins in your purse. But if you're stuck on an uncomfortable bench long after you should have taken flight, they're perfect.