Cubicle kitchen: Honey Roasted Nut Butter Cookies

Part of the secretly selfish reason I bring baked goods into work to share is because I love baking, but I cannot eat the results in a portion-controlled way without half the batch going off before I get to it.  A few dozen cookies eaten one at a time?  Eep.  And the equally unacceptable alternative would be eating them all myself in the space of a few days.  Double eep.

So by bringing in those cookies, I'm spreading not only the love, but the calories around.  And with these cookies in particular, I was deliberately passing on the calories before I ate them all myself.  Nuts are delicious, and full of healthy fats and protein.  But they also pack a fair number of calories for not a lot of nuts.  If you've ever weighed a one-ounce serving of almonds and then counted the actual number of almonds that gave you, you understand what I mean.

I indulged in nuts as a post-running snack while I was marathon training, but they were kind of mocking me in the post-marathon haze of my pantry, so I wanted to get rid of some of them.  But not all of them, they will be my motivation to get back to some longer runs in the future.  I'll spend a Saturday morning running if I can eat a big handful of nuts afterwards and not have to count them.

Because I made these after my weekend trip to Phoenix I didn't have time for a complicated recipe that required forethought in collecting ingredients.  To that end, peanut butter cookies were the perfect nut-sharing solution, with a honey-roasted twist.  And getting to 'sample' the dough (always the baker's prerogative) was a delicious bonus.

Honey Roasted Nut Butter Cookies
Adapted from Kraft: Easy Peanut Butter Cookies
Makes about 3 dozen cookies

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1/2 cup honey nut butter
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup chopped honey roasted mixed nuts

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. Combine the first four ingredients in a bowl and mix until dough forms.  Then mix in chopped nuts.
3. Roll into 1-inch balls and place on prepared cookie sheet a few inches apart.  Using a fork, flatten the dough with the traditional peanut butter cookie criss-cross.
4. Bake for ten minutes, or until the edges are golden brown.  Allow to cool on the sheet a few minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.