Peanut Butter Magic Bar Cookies - Sweet ReciPEAs (2024)

These Peanut Butter Magic Cookie Bars are a twist on the classic using peanut butter chips, peanuts, m&m’s, and peanut butter cookie crumbs.

This weekend I saw Kung Fu Panda 2.

Unlike most sequels I enjoyed it as much as the original.

It was funny, sweet, and had a nice moral to the story…plus Poe as a baby Panda is too freaking cute for words!

Without totally giving the movie away it touches on something that I think people dwell on a little too much…revenge.

Some peoples revenge comes in different ways but always has the same results…you spend too much time obsessing over something that happened in the past and therefore you cannot control that it takes over your life.

Only to either get revenge and find it not satisfying or to have it come back and bite you in the butt.

Either way, clearly wasted energy.

Ironically enough, I saw the movie with my ex-husband.

He has no problems going to movies himself, but we both agreed that a single male sitting in the afternoon showing of basically a kids movie seemed a bit on the pervy side, so I offered for us to both go see it together.

That is not the irony part.

The irony is of course that I saw it with my ex and we had a perfectly fun time.

We can have a good time together because from the day we decided not to be together I decided (and I believe he did as well) to release any hard feelings over things from the past and move on.

Moving on is not a lot of people’s strong points.

They may say that they have moved on but they have not.

They bring up things that happened years and years ago into to arguments that are happening in the now.

This is not fair and accomplishes nothing.

I have a 24 hour rule.

See, I get to give you crap about something for 24 hours (48 if you really ticked me off) and then after that, I’m not bringing it up.

Plus as most people know, having the same argument over and over accomplishes nothing.

We lucked out this time in the movie.

Usually when the picky eater and I used to go to the movies together we would have the worst luck with kids.

Either kicking or screaming, throwing things, etc.

So going to an actual kids movie was a risk.

Amazingly nothing happened, other than a kid with shoes that light up randomly illuminating the row ahead of us.

But we were surrounded by kids, which got me thinking about kid treats.

I had a bunch of leftover mini M&M’s that I bought half price at Valentine’s Day and decided to make something with them.

Magic Cookie Bars came to mind.

But I didn’t want to do the usual.

I looked around and decided to go with a peanut butter them.

Peanut Butter Magic Cookie Bars.

So gone is the coconut, graham crackers, chocolate chips, and butterscotch chips.

And in are the peanut butter chips, peanuts, mini m&m’s, and peanut butter cookie crumbs.

They turned out better than expected, but you best like peanut butter or these are not for you!

So go out and see Kung Fu Panda 2, even if you don’t have kids, it’s well worth it.

And then come home and make yourself a treat.

And more importantly if you are dwelling on something or someone in your life right now let it go.

No really, let it go.

P.S. It’s a great day to buymy cookbook.

Want more Bar recipes?

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Butterscotch Walnut Meringue Bars

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Ingredients

• 1 ½ cups peanut butter sandwich cookie crumbs (like Nutter Butters)
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 1 (14 oz.) can Sweetened Condensed Milk
• 1 ¼ cup peanut butter chips
• 1 ¼ cup mini M & M’s
• 1 ¼ cup unsalted dry roasted peanuts

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Coat 13 x 9-inch baking pan with no-stick cooking spray.
2. Combine cookie crumbs and butter in small bowl.
3. Press into bottom of prepared pan.
4. Pour sweetened condensed milk evenly over crumb mixture.
5. Layer evenly with peanut butter chips, m & m’s, and nuts.
6. Press down firmly with fork.
7. Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until lightly browned.
8. Loosen from sides of pan while still warm; cool on wire rack. Cut into bars.
9. For perfectly cut cookie bars, line entire pan with foil, extending foil over edge of pan.
10. Coat lightly with no-stick cooking spray.
11. After bars have baked and cooled, lift up with edges of foil to remove from pan.
12. Cut into bars.