I am on to the food manufacturers. I have discovered their dirty little secret to tricking us into buying less for the same amount. If you're a frequent consumer of dry cereal (it's a food group of its own in our house) you've undoubtedly noticed the shrinkage. I thought I was buying more because my kids were eating more. Wrong. Below is a picture of my dry food storage bins. I've had these bins for about 5 years and the contents of a typical box of cereal would fill these up to the brim. A few weeks ago I realized that one box of Quaker Oatmeal Squares only went two-thirds of the way to the top. I was ticked! So here we are thinking that food costs are not actually increasing when they're just ripping us off.

To make matters worse, this unethical practice has also spilled over into my beloved baking department. It used to be that when making cookies involving any type of baking chip, my recipes would call for a 12 oz. bag or two cups. Recently I noticed that they now say 1 2/3 cups. You know why? Because the bag is now ELEVEN OUNCES!! Do they know how many baking recipes passed down through the ages don't actually, ever, refer to measured ingredients??? It's usually a sleeve of Ritz crackers, a package of graham crackers or a bag of chocolate chips. UGH!!! Do they not realize the stress they are now causing bakers across the land?? So now when you want to double a recipe, one now has to buy THREE of the same item!!! This changes everything.

And finally, let me speak to peanut butter. Another one of the five food groups. Not only has Costco switched from my beloved Jif to Skippy (shame on them) but the grocery store size used to be 32 oz. I'll give you one guess as to what it is now. THIRTY OUNCES!!

I can't help but think about how it came to be that some "number cruncher" decided that it made sense for these companies to redesign their packaging, labeling and all the labor that these changes ensue. Clearly it wasn't a blogging baker with too much time on his or her hands.

I almost wasn't going to post a recipe today in protest to the greed and deceit of Nestle, Kelloggs and the like. But instead I decided to offer grace and share a recipe for the easiest, yummiest no-bake cookies using all three of the aforementioned ingredients. I'm so forgiving, huh?

CORNFLAKE COOKIES

• 11 oz. bag, butterscotch chips
• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
• 7 cups, corn flakes

Empty the butterscotch chips and peanut butter in a large glass bowl. Microwave on high, stopping to stir every 30 seconds until completely melted. (about 2-3 min). Pour in cornflakes and mix thoroughly. Drop by heaping tablespoons onto cookie sheet lined with waxed paper. You can layer the paper on top of each other and repeat. Put in freezer for an hour or the refrigerator for 3 hours. Voila!