What a winter! And a winter warmer

I have been so grateful to be living on a hill top this winter!  There has been such a lot of rain, the wettest winter we have had for over 250 years they were saying on the radio this morning.  And so many places are flooded.. some have been flooded since before Christmas, and still the rain keeps falling..  

This morning the heavens opened so hard that the windscreen wipers on my car just couldn't go fast enough to keep up.. the rain came down so heavy that even our hill top roads just couldn't drain away fast enough and we were driving through several inches of water in most places.  While concentrating hard on my driving.. I couldn't help also thinking about all the people and animals in low land places and what this extra water means for them..  

This morning the wind sounded like a snow-wind.. maybe it's the direction or something.. but it sounded like snow was coming.. or maybe it was just because the weatherman had said it may snow I thought I heard it..  Anyway, I have just looked out of my window and we have SNOW.. the first we have had so far this winter.. great big flakes and falling fast.  I doubt that it'll stick though, there's too much water lying around.

I'm glad to be sitting in the warm & dry, with a cup of tea and one of the naughtiest, most delicious cookies ever.  I made these yesterday afternoon and they are yummy, totally over indulgent quick and easy.. so I'm going to share the recipe.. They are insanely sugary but there's a delicious savoury note from the peanut butter which is definitely addictive.   Enjoy :)

PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES

Peanut butter cookies
- photo taken in poor light..

250g/10oz smooth or crunchy peanut butter (I used crunchy)

175g/6oz dark brown sugar 

175g/6oz granulated white sugar (plus extra for rolling)

3 tablespoons milk

1 & 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 & 1/2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

pinch of salt

Preheat oven to gas mark 1 / 140C / 275F

Cream together peanut butter, brown and granulated sugars in a bowl.  I used my hand whisk because the peanut butter was cold and very stiff.  Add the milk and vanilla essence, beat well.

Sift the bicarbonate of soda into the mixture, add the pinch of salt, mix well.

Take 1 tablespoon of the mixture, roll it into a ball in your hands.  Roll the ball in the extra sugar until it is coated and place on an ungreased baking tray.  Continue shaping and coating the rest of the mixture.  Leave room for the cookies to spread

Bake in the oven for 10 minutes.

Carefully remove from tray (they are quite crumbly at this stage) and place on a wire rack to cool.  My wire rack wasn't big enough for all of the cookies so some stayed on the tray to cool and they were absolutely fine, so if you don't have a rack (or want to save washing up :) they should be fine cooling on the tray.

I got 15 fair sized cookies from this mixture.