Peanut Butter and Jelly Cookies

I don't know when my peanut butter obsession developed, but I know it has been alive and thriving for the last 3 years. In fact, there have been times when I was not allowed to keep the creamy/crunchy goodness in the pantry. It was just too tempting to dip a spoon in for a quick bite...8 times a day. There's nothing I don't love with peanut butter...whole wheat bread, a toasted tortilla with cinnamon, melted with chocolate and drizzled over popcorn, brownies, apples, pancakes, waffles, straight up from a spoon, spread on a saltine and of course, paired with jam-but have you ever wanted to cut straight to the good stuff? Cut out that pesky bread and sink your teeth into meat of it? Here we are:

If I had a jar on hand, I would have used it for the ease. Alas, I did not. Who would have thought those freezer burned strawberries would have gotten use? Boiled them down with some suga and lemon juice and ran it the ol' bullet. Yes, the Magic Bullet. Yes, it has lost its magic over the years.

Now, onto the peanut butter! Seriously, you'll need a full cup of it.
Add a cup of sugar. Then add an egg and a teaspoon of baking soda. The end.
Ok, not quite-but might as well be-it's so simple! Roll into balls, you choose the size.
Make a nice well to hug the jam. Kinda like you would with mashed potatoes and gravy. Except it's not Thanksgiving. And these aren't potatoes. And that's not gravy. Ahem, moving on.
Fill with jam. Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes.
Eat warm.

Pomegranate-Green Tea/Chai Shortbread Cookie

These cookies were meant to have matcha green tea but at $25 for a box I had to make do with a bagged tea. Yep, I literally cut open a pomegranate-green tea bag and sprinkled it into the dough. I was skeptical but thought it actually came out with a sweet, earthy flavor I really liked. For the chai variety, I cut down some of the sugar and replaced it with the chai latte mix. I was not as impressed with those (though they were James' favorite) but I think more sugar could have helped. These cookies are not super sweet which was kind of refreshing. Each batch had:
1 Cup flour
1 Stick butter (yikes!)
1 bag of tea (your choice) or 2 tbsp chai latte mix
1 pinch of salt
1/4 Cup powdered sugar
A couple drops of vanilla extract
Mix dry ingredients. Beat softened butter. Slowly mix dry mixture into butter until blended. Roll into log (1.5 inch diameter) and stick in the fridge for an hour. Roll out dough (about 1/6 inch thick) and cut into any shape you like! Bake at 325 for about 13 min or until lightly browned.