Flourless PB Cookies

I happened upon the Food Network show "5 Ingredient Fix" by accident and was intrigued by the idea of using only 5 ingredients for every dish of a meal. As long as you're not sacrificing flavor or nutrients, who doesn't like shortcuts?? Of course, the first recipe I wanted to try from the show had to be a sweet treat. Actually, I thought these cookies sounded slightly healthier than store-bought cookies.

Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies

1 C. natural peanut butter (no added sugar - yea!)

1 C. sugar

1 lg. egg, lightly beaten

1 Tsp. vanilla extract

coarse sea salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all ingredients except sea salt. Place rounded scoops on ungreased cookie sheets. Flatten each scoop a little and make hatch marks on the top using a fork. Sprinkle with a little sea salt. Bake for approx. 10 minutes. Transfer to racks to cool.

*My adjustments: I used almond butter instead of peanut butter because of the added nutritional benefits of almonds. Note that almond butter is more expensive than regular PB. I also used 1/2 Tsp. almond extract and 1/2 Tsp. vanilla extract in place of the whole Tsp. of vanilla. I used Trader Joe's organic sugar because we had it in the pantry and it worked out fine, although it may have produced a "grainier" cookie than if I had used regular sugar. Some reviewers on the Food Network website had success with Splenda for a sugar-fee version but that would be grainy too. For decoration I placed 1 chocolate chip in the center of my cookies before baking. The recipe says it only makes 18 cookies but I believe I made mine with smaller scoops of dough -- I think I got 24-30 cookies (hard to tell since we've eat a lot of them).

**Review:  All 3 of us liked these cookies a lot! Nate is satisfied with just one after dinner and Lee & I will eat 1 or 2 with a cup of coffee. The flavor is intense because of the lack of flour and we liked that. The salt was a nice touch but didn't make or break the cookie so you could skip that part if you wanted. Overall, I think we've found a new PB cookie recipe.