Cheat days are like Lent.

And a recipe to make on a Wednesday.

Wait for it. 11:58. My brother and I were in the basement and Saturday Night Live was just ending on the television. 11:59. Almost there.

Boom. 12:00 am on Sunday. I went straight upstairs to find the jelly beans, the Girl Scout Cookies, and some peanut butter cups. 

I was about 10 years old and it was Lent, that long and agonizing period of time before Easter when you had to give up something. And the something we usually always gave up in my house was some form of sugar. Junk food, if you will.

Except for Sundays. On Sunday, we ate what we gave up. It’s not a practice of all Roman Catholic families, but for us, it was simple math. 40 days and nights. Sundays weren’t included in the count. 

So every Saturday night during Lent, we’d stay up until midnight when Saturday changed to Sunday and binge until we had to buckle down and give it all back up again on Monday. 

I knew when I started that diet with one cheat day a week in my early 30s that it would be bad news. 

One day a week, one glorious day, you got to eat whatever and how much you wanted. No rules. Sweet freedom. A Lenten Sunday. 

Physically the diet worked. But I was also running about 20 miles a week at that point so any diet plan would have. 

Mentally I was 10 years old again, obsessed with food. I thought about it every minute of the day, which I’ll admit has been much of my life, but it was worse than ever. And I thought about my cheat day, dreamed about it, and planned it out starting on Monday. What I would eat, what I would drink. 

This is no way to live. 

Cheat days. What an awful term. Right away it indicates that you are doing something you are not supposed to do. And free day. It’s no better. It means you are trapped, confined and you get one day a week to break free. 

The practice may do its job in terms of short term weight loss, if physical appearance is what you value. But what it robs from us mentally is not worth that for me. 

All that time spent thinking about what I was going to eat on my cheat day could have been applied to so many more productive things. 

Just like giving things up for 40 days as a kid and binging one day a week taught me nothing other than to judge myself if I was good or bad or had enough willpower, that’s about all a cheat day did for me, too. 

So don’t wait for a cheat day to make this recipe. Make it on a ho-hum Wednesday or an especially boring Thursday. Don’t plan it out. Surprise yourself. Enjoy it. It’s just food. 

Peanut Chocolate Chip Marshmallow Bars

Makes 16 bars, if that is how many you cut…

Ingredients

½ cup unsalted butter, softened
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
4 tablespoons peanut powder (I use Naked brand)
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon table salt
¾ cup mini marshmallows
½ cup mini chocolate chips
⅓ cup salted peanuts (I use TJs 50% salted)

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line an 8-by-8-inch pan with parchment paper so that it hangs over the sides and you’ll be able to lift the bars out once baked. 

Add the butter and sugars to the bowl of a mixer. Mix on medium, then medium-high for 3 to 5 minutes until creamed together and light in color. Scrape the sides of the bowl as needed. 

Mix in the egg and the vanilla.

Add the flour, peanut powder, baking soda, and salt and mix on medium just until all ingredients are incorporated into a cookie dough. 

Stir in the marshmallows, chocolate chips, and peanuts. 

Transfer the cookie dough to the prepared baking pan. Spread to evenly fill the pan. Wet or buttered fingers work well for this to smooth the top. 

Bake for 22 minutes, until golden brown and baked through the center. Cool for 15 minutes. Lift from the pan using the parchment, place on a cutting board and cut into squares.