Anatomy of A Monster... Happy Halloween!

These really should be called Clean Out The Pantry Cookies, because that's exactly what I did. These cookies have it ALL- peanut butter, Reese's Pieces, oats, raisins, chocolate chips, white chocolate chunks, candy coated Kisses, pecans, toffee and a small left over bad of trail mix. Waste not want not!

I thought I would make these after Halloween, using leftover candy, but I decided to use what I had on hand that wasn't going to trick-or-treaters and I'm glad I did. I buy candy or get a lot of it as gifts and I never eat it. My husband loves Hershey miniatures, but we never eat the Krackle. Those would be perfect in this. I bought homemade toffee a couple months ago and I forgot in the back of the pantry :-( so I threw that in here too. It was kind of soft and not crunchy as it should be, so it melted like buttah in the cookies. Oh so good.

There are no rules, whatever you have, however much of it you have- it all works! Follow the basic recipe and throw stuff in and you'll have a different cookie every time. Now that I think of it, I have chocolate mocha truffles and marshmallow in the pantry too. Ooh, that could be good.

Monster Cookies adapted from King Arthur Flour

• 3 large eggs
• 1 c. brown sugar
• 1 c. granulated sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 tsp. corn syrup
• 2 tsps. baking soda
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2 c. unsalted butter, melted
• 1 1/4 c creamy peanut butter
• 4 c. rolled oats
• 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
• 3 c. add ins (chopped nuts, chocolate chips, toffee, raisins, coconut, butterscotch chips, m&m's, chocolate chunks etc.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease or line baking sheets with silpat or parchment paper.

In a large bowl, combine eggs, both sugars, vanilla, corn syrup, baking soda, and salt. Stir til combined. Next add melted butter, then peanut butter, oats, and flour. Mix thoroughly. Stir in 3 total cups of add-ins. Let the dough rest for about 30 minutes to allow the oats to absorb the butter.

Drop the dough onto baking sheets by the rounded tablespoon full. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until lightly browned. Makes about 4 1/2-5 dozen cookies.

NOTE: If you want "monster" size cookies, drop the dough by the 1/4-cup. Slightly flatten the dough before putting the cookies in the oven. This size will yield you about 2 dozen 4 1/2-inch cookies.

I used a small ice cream scoop to shape my dough (about 1 1/2 tbsp). They took 15 minutes to turn golden, so bake yours accordingly. Using this size, I made 4 1/2 dozen 3-inch cookies.

If you want the unadapted version visit here or here. I made these with 1 c. creamy peanut butter and 1/2 c. chopped pecans instead of 1 1/2 c. chunky peanut butter. I also added 1/2 c. less oats, so I could add other goodies without the batter being so thick :-)

These cookies are very rich, but I think next time I might lower the amount of salt in these cookies by half. There's salt in the nuts and peanut butter and I think they were slightly too salty for my liking. Those of you who like sweet and salty will love these!