Peanut butter biscuits or cookies

Magic Peanut Butter Biscuits (Cookies)

My mother in law taught my daughter to make these biscuits (cookies to my US readers) when she was young. Her cooking teacher was so amazed that you can make biscuits without any flour that he took them to the staff room to show them off.

Only half of them returned :)

This is a great recipe to make with small children, as long as you don’t mind them eating ridiculous amounts of sugar afterwards :P

This recipe makes about 15 biscuits.

Ingredients

1 cup of peanut butter. I like to use crunchy but smooth will work as well.

1 cup of white sugar

1 egg or equivalent in vegan egg replacer for a vegan version. We’ve tested both and they work really well

Optional additions include a couple of tablespoons of candy coated chocolate chips, mini M&Ms or extra nuts.

Method

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C or 350 degrees F.

Go and do something else for 10 minutes or by the time you go to put them in the oven it still won’t be hot enough.

Mix everything together until thoroughly combined.

Place heaped teaspoonfuls on a cookie sheet lined with baking paper and press down with a fork to flatten slightly and make ridges on the top. You can get about 8 on one cookie sheet. They’ll spread quite a lot.

Cook on the top shelf of your oven for about 20 minutes or until slightly browned on top.

Leave to cool completely on the cookie sheet before removing.

Magic!

Basic beef stew with dumplings

Basic Stew Dumplings

These dumplings can be made with any stew. They’re shown here with a basic beef stew cooked in a pressure cooker that I posted last week.

This recipe was originally published as “Dumplings for Stews and Boiled Meats” in “The Basic Basics Pressure Cooker Cook Book” by Marguerite Patten in 1977.

Ingredients

100 gms or about 3 1/2 ounces of self raising flour. You can also use plain or all purpose flour with 1 teaspoon of baking powder added.

50gm or just under 2 oz of shredded suet, butter, or dairy free margarine.

Water

Method

Rub the suet or butter with the flour until it resembles a fine breadcrumbs.

Add just enough water to make a firm dough.

Break into pieces the size of a walnut and roll into balls.

If desired, add some extra stock or water to your stew. How much will depend on the number of dumplings you are making.

Place your stew on the stove and heat to a simmer.

Put the dumplings on top and place the lid on the saucepan.

Cook until the dumplings have risen and are cooked all the way through.