Peanut butter cookies

“I found this recipe in Isa Chandra Moskowitz’s punk rock cookbook Vegan with a Vengeance. I always thought that milk and butter were absolutely necessary when it came to cookie making, but apparently not. The mixture looked really, really weird until we added the peanut butter (which is very difficult to measure, by the way). I made the cross hatchings with a fork. It took about 10 minutes to mix and 10 minutes to cook and they turned out fabulous. Fabulous AND animal-free!” —Katie Havard,

Ingredients:
1/2 cup canola oil
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup unsalted peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt

Directions:
1 Preheat oven to 350°.

2 Lightly grease two cookie sheets.

3 In a mixing bowl, cream together the oil, sugar, peanut butter and vanilla. Add the cornstarch and beat until well combined. Add the flour, baking powder and salt, and mix well.

4 Drop the dough by rounded tablespoonfuls about one inch apart onto a prepared cookie sheet and flatten each one a bit with the palm of your hand. Use the backside of a fork to press into each cookie, then press in the opposite direction to create a crosshatched pattern. Clean off the fork whenever it starts collecting too much dough.

5 Bake for 12 minutes, let sit on the cookie sheets to cool for about 3 minutes, then transfer to cooling rack to cool.

Taste-tester said:
"Really, really good. Good texture, yet a little fragile." Daniel Marx, 16, Los Angeles City College