Monster Cookies

This is a monster simply because of the huge quantities used to make it, though they are so good they would turn any monsters under the bed into pussycats. If you make the whole batch there’ll be plenty for the freezer (you will never be short of a cookie with this as a stand-by), but the recipe can be cut in half or even quartered for a more normal-sized batch or if you’d like to bake them all at once.

12 eggs
1 lb. butter, room temperature (4 sticks)
2 lbs. brown sugar
4 Cups white sugar
1⁄4 Cup vanilla extract
3 lbs. crunchy peanut butter (41⁄2 Cups)
8 tsp. baking soda
18 Cups quick cook oats (a 42 oz. drum plus 3 more Cups!)
1 lb. chocolate chips (2 heaped Cups)
1 lb. M&Ms (2 Cups)

Preheat oven to 350°. In a large bowl (a really large bowl—we had a 13 quart stainless steel bowl that worked fine), cream together eggs, butter, sugars and vanilla extract. Mix in the other ingredients by hand to form a stiff dough. Make sure the oats are the quick cooking variety, as they make the cookies fluffier than regular oats. Bake teaspoons full of dough on a greased cookie sheet for about 10 minutes.

Yield: an enormous number of cookies. Prep. time: 20 minutes to mix everything if making the full batch. Baking time: 10 minutes per sheet.