Peanut Butter Cookies

Build lean muscle while eating cookies?  Worth a shot...

Recipe

1 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup Splenda (really? maybe plain sugar instead?)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
sea salt

Mix the peanut butter, sugar, vanilla, and egg until doughy.  Line a cookie sheet with foil, lightly oil, and plop spoonfuls on there.  You can flatten them out and give them the standard press pattern with a fork if you want.  Give a very light sprinkle of sea salt.  Cook 10-15 minutes at 350, until golden brown.

Notes

Simple enough, but I don't think I got a single ingredient right in my first attempt.  I had chunky peanut butter, honey, and almond extract.  OK, an egg is hard to mess up.  And sea salt.  So not as bad as I thought, but still...  I said what the hell, I'll make it work through sheer force of will.  It was... interesting.

Dragon Noodles

Next up from Balanced Bytes:

Recipe

4-6 oz. lo mein noodles (or similar, e.g., egg noodles)
2 tbsp butter
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
1 large egg
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sriracha
cilantro, green onion

Start up the noodles.  Mix together the sauce: brown sugar, soy sauce, and sriracha.  Melt the butter over med-low heat, adding the red pepper.  Whisk up the egg and add it in with the butter, stirring and breaking it up until cooked through.  If necessary, remove from heat until the noodles are ready.  Add the noodles and sauce, and mix together.  Garnish with cilantro and green onion.

Notes

Like the first one from the same website, this one is cheap and easy.  It's also very fast - that's the nice thing about noodles and eggs.  After some 15 minutes you've got a bowl of rich, spicy, eggy noodles.  My first batch didn't really seem worth a picture without the little green touches though...

Chicken Fajitas

Down the reddit /r/food rabbit hole...  This is the first of a couple cheap & easy dishes:

Recipe

1 large onion
2-3 bell peppers (various colors)
1 lb chicken breast
1 lime
2 tbsp oil

Seasoning
1 tbsp chili powder
1/2 tbsp paprika
1/2 tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp cumin
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

Mix the seasonings together.  Slice the onion, pepper, and chicken into thin slices, and place in a casserole dish.  Sprinkle the seasoning mixture and drizzle the oil over, and mix together until well coated.  Bake for 35-40 minutes at 400 degrees, mixing again halfway through.  Squeeze the juice from half of a lime over everything, and fix as desired - over rice, in tortillas, with sour cream or cheese, whatever.

Notes

This is super easy and, as per the website, cheap.  One main cutting board and dish.  And you don't seem to sacrifice flavor or texture by baking it instead of doing it up in a skillet.  Excellent to do as a big batch for some leftovers too.