Behind the Scenes: The Kitchen Chemist

"Behind the Scenes" is a fun link up where we show those photos - but tell the real story behind them. The sneak peek behind the scenes, a look past the edges of the photo to the real life behind it. - Crystal Stine

                                                         

I'm notorious for not measuring when I cook -  I just kinda guess at amounts - it keeps meals interesting. That's why you can have Chicken Stir-fry 10 times at my house and it will taste different every time. I also like to experiment with recipes - I might get a craving for cookies and substitute whatever I have in the house to make it work. Here's my latest Chemistry experiment:

Chocolate No-Bake Cookie Cakes??

I started with the correctly measured amounts of milk and sugar. (That's the first shocker!)
I guessed on cocoa, butter and vanilla.
While that all came to a boil, I pull out the big container of oatmeal - oh no! only about a cup left and I need 3 cups! What will I do? No worries - there are packages of brown-sugar-cinnamon instant oatmeal right there in the pantry.
I add 3 or maybe it was 4 packages of instant oatmeal to the pot. After stirring, it's still a little runny, so I add about 1/4 cup of peanut butter. Now I don't want to wait for these to set up in a couple of hours - I need to make sure that they taste good - so my next brilliant idea is to fill cupcake liners with the cookie mix and put them in the fridge.
I snapped this quick pic because I thought I either have an awesome Pinterest post or something to remember and laugh at later!
(P.S. They turned out pretty good - really sweet though and the fridge & cupcake liners didn't really speed up the process that much.)