Hurricane Balls - No Bake Cookies

So yesterday, we all had a sweet tooth, but I didn't have anything dessert-like in the house.  I surveyed the kitched and realized I was out of white sugar, stick butter, and much of anything in the way of chocolate other than some cocoa powder and 1/2 cup of semi sweet chocolate chips.

It was also humid and rainy and kind of hot - I didn't want to turn on an A/C OR an oven.  I wanted something sweet that required no baking.  I searched around on the internet but every no bake recipe called for something I didn't have - mostly white sugar.

I gave up.

I went to the kitchen and pulled out some dessert flavors...earth balance in the tub, powdered sugar, brown sugar, 1/2 cup chocolate chips, peanut butter, oats and some colored jimmies... hmmm..

I ended up with a most FANTASTICAL TREAT!  I will make them again and experiement with more variations.  Even a 5 year old could make these all alone.

1/2 cup peanut butter - in this case I used Jiff
1/2 cup confectioner sugar - the sweet stuff I had the most of
3/4 cup of rolled oats - uncooked
3/4 cup honey bunches of oats cereal (w/almonds - what I had on the shelf)
1-2T of milk (skim, could substitute anything wet that works for you)
1t of vanilla
1/2 cup chocolate chips (I used semi sweet)

I dumped it all into a bowl - yes, literally dumped and I didn't measure very accurately either.  I stirred it with a wooden spoon for about 1 minute until the wet was dry and the dry was wet.

I then scooped with a small spoon into my hand, pressed to make it ball-shaped and put it on a tray.

We ate them JUST like that - it actually tasted like eating chocolate chip oatmeal cookie dough -

It made about 2 dozen balls - everyone loved them.  They were gone before dinner time!  I will definately make them again!

YUM.  And by the way - if you're in the path of hurricane Irene (who is following the earth quake to the east coast and the mid-Atlantic areas) this will be your most beloved snack.  If you lose power, you can still make these, they require NO oven, stove or any kind of heat - I didn't even refrigerate them afterwards though they weren't around long enough to do so anyway.

Enjoy!  And by the way, if you grocery shop anywhere in Hurricane Irene's path, these ingredients will be far more readily available than flashlights and batteries which are apparently sold out EVERYWHERE in the Philadelphia area!